Progress continues on a controversial plan to build a crude oil pipeline tunnel under the Mackinac Straits despite legal opposition from Native American tribes, environmental groups, and others.

A Michigan bird watcher spotted an estimated 25,000 Redhead ducks gathered at the Mackinac Straits on Wednesday.

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. – Michigan's environmental agency said Friday it has approved construction of an underground tunnel to house a replacement for a controversial oil pipeline in a channel linking two of the Great Lakes. AdThe project requires permits from the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “We have issued permits designed to ensure that if a tunnel is constructed, it will be in strict compliance with relevant statutes and adhere to stringent protections against impacts to the Great Lakes,” Clark said. State officials emphasized the tunnel project was a separate legal matter from the dispute over the existing pipeline, which was laid in 1953. It has taken steps to prevent future anchor strikes and says the tunnel project would eliminate that danger.

MACKINAW CITY, Mich. – A 200-foot-long broken boring pipe remains embedded in the Straits of Mackinac and may not be recoverable by a company that operates a fuel pipeline, officials said. Enbridge Inc. retrieved a broken 45-foot rod in December and told state regulators that a pipe of similar length remained. But the leftover pipe actually is 200 feet long, the Detroit Free Press reported Wednesday. The broken pipe was related to a project last summer. “I don't expect much would be done (to recover) that remaining 200 feet of grout rod," Haas said.