Despite overwhelming public opposition, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) today approved permits for Canadian oil giant Enbridge to reroute its Line 5 pipeline around and upstream of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation, where it has operated in illegal trespass for over a decade. Enbridge still needs federal approval from the US Army Corps of Engineers, which in August received more than 150,000 comments from project opponents, including health professionals, faith groups, and regional businesses.

“I’m angry that the DNR has signed off on a half-baked plan that spells disaster for our homeland and our way of life,” said Bad River Band Chairman Robert Blanchard. “We will continue sounding the alarm to prevent yet another Enbridge pipeline from endangering our watershed.”

The 41-mile reroute would involve blasting, horizontal drilling, or trenching across hundreds of wetlands and streams, threatening aquatic species and polluting critical waterways. The EPA has warned that the project “will result in substantial and unacceptable adverse impacts” on the Kakagon-Bad River Sloughs, an internationally recognized mosaic of sloughs, bogs, and coastal lagoons that provide a critical stopover habitat for migratory birds and harbor the largest wild rice bed on the Great Lakes. Enbridge’s own analysis shows that shutting down Line 5 would increase the price of gas by less than a penny per gallon in Wisconsin.

“In granting these permits, DNR officials chose to serve Enbridge’s interests at the cost of the Bad River Band’s treaty rights and the state’s future clean water supply,” said Earthjustice Senior Attorney Stefanie Tsosie, who is representing the Bad River Band. “It’s sad that they are willing to gamble the region’s irreplaceable wetlands, the wild rice beds, and even Lake Superior to secure Enbridge’s cash flow.”

The Bad River Band and others have consistently pointed to Enbridge’s abysmal safety record. While constructing Line 3 in Minnesota in 2021, Enbridge punctured three aquifers, losing nearly 300 million gallons of groundwater and incurring a criminal charge. The company has said it will use similar methods in constructing the Line 5 reroute, potentially draining the aquifers and contaminating the groundwater that Bad River Band members rely on for drinking water. A rupture along the pipeline could also carry oil downstream into Lake Superior, which contains 10 percent of the world’s freshwater.

In the summer of 2023, a federal judge ruled that the current Line 5 oil pipeline has been illegally trespassing on the Bad River Band reservation since 2013, and that Enbridge must remove it by summer of 2026. After its easements to operate the pipeline expired, Enbridge waited seven years to submit its reroute proposal in 2020. By delaying action on the re-route, Enbridge has saved nearly $300 million, on top of the $1.1 billion it wrongfully accrued through its trespass. Both Enbridge and the Bad River Band are appealing the federal court’s ruling before the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.