Biden administration agrees that Enbridge is trespassing on Bad River Band Reservation

Debbie Chizewer, Managing Attorney, Midwest Office: “The courts passed the mic to the U.S., and the U.S. handed the mic right back to the courts.”

Stefanie Tsosie, Attorney, Tribal Partnerships Program: “The Bad River Band is already at a risk of an oil spill because the pipeline is going directly through their reservation. And the re-route, if you look at the map, it’s basically hugging the reservation boundaries.”

The Line 5 pipeline has leaked over 1 million gallons of oil to date and threatens the Great Lakes.

Stefanie Tsosie, Attorney, Tribal Partnerships Program: “It’s a band-aid for an aging pipeline. The risk of an oil spill will still exist in the Bad River watershed. And instead of moving it out of the watershed, [Enbridge moves] it upstream of the reservation. So now the entire reservation would be subject to an oil spill.”

Enbridge has earned over $1 billion by trespassing on the Bad River Band’s reservation.

A letter from more than 30 Tribal Nations in the Great Lakes region sent to President Joe Biden urging the United States to speak out against the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline’s trespass on the Bad River Band’s land.

Debbie Chizewer, Managing Attorney, Midwest Office: “It would really limit the ability of state governments and tribal nations and others to protect the interests that have been widely accepted for many years. If you can’t protect your land from a trespass because of the oil pipelines, what’s the point of having your own land?”

Stefanie Tsosie, Attorney, Tribal Partnerships Program, Earthjustice: “Enbridge’s appeal — like their proposal to re-route the pipeline — is just a misguided attempt to keep the oil and their profits flowing at the expense of the Band and everyone else who relies on the Great Lakes. Hundreds of wetlands and waterways in this unique ecosystem…

A Line 5 backgrounder for reporters with the current status of related legal fights.

A federal court ordered Canadian oil giant Enbridge to cease the flow of oil and to decommission within three years the segment of its Line 5 pipeline that is trespassing on the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

Debbie Chizewer, Managing Attorney, Midwest Office, Earthjustice: “We are extremely alarmed to see the shrinking distance between Line 5, which is operating in trespass of the Bad River Band, and the raging river current. If government officials don’t use their power to shut down Line 5, this disaster will be on their hands.”

A motion for emergency injunction filed by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa shows the Line 5 oil pipeline — operating in trespass of the Band — is only a few feet away from imminent catastrophe in Wisconsin’s Bad River and must be shut down and purged.

Line 5 is a 645-mile pipeline operated by Enbridge Energy that transports crude oil and natural gas liquids from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario. The 69-year-old pipeline has ruptured at least 30 times in the past 50 years, releasing more than 1 million gallons of oil. The Great Lakes are the lifeblood of Tribal Nations across…

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa submitted the following comments to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources on its Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Line 5 Segment Relocation Project issued on December 16, 2021.

In a 2022 letter, the EPA informed the US Army Corps of Engineers that Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 re-route project will result in “substantial and unacceptable adverse impacts” on the Bad River and the Kakagon-Bad River Sloughs wetland complex.

Formal comments on the Section 404 and Section 10 Permit Application for the Enbridge Line 5 Pipeline Segment Relocation Project

Wisconsin’s inadequate environmental analysis of Enbridge’s rushed and haphazard Line 5 pipeline reroute does grave injustice to frontline Tribal communities.