Anti-Line 5 graffiti at Enbridge’s pumping station in Mackinaw City, Mich. (Laina G. Stebbins | Michigan Advance)

Canadian energy company Enbridge’s Line 5 traverses an extremely sensitive ecological area across northern Wisconsin, 400 rivers and streams as well as a myriad of wetlands, in addition to a path under the Mackinac Straights between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, all the while skirting the southern shore of Lake Superior. Such close proximity to the Great Lakes, lakes that hold over 20% of the world’s fresh surface water, lakes that supply drinking water to nearly 40 million people, yes, that does indeed make Line 5 a ticking time bomb.

Northern Wisconsin is also a very culturally sensitive area, home to the Bad River Reservation. The Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa were guaranteed rights to their lands by an 1854 treaty with the U.S. government. The easements for Line 5 across the reservation, granted to Enbridge by the Chippewa, expired in 2013 and the Bad River Band chose not to renew them. Enbridge continues to operate the line, illegally and in direct violation of the Bad River Band’s right to sovereignty over their land.

The Bad River Band has a guaranteed legal right to their land. They also have a right to Food Sovereignty, the internationally recognized right of food providers to have control over their land, seeds and water while rejecting the privatization of natural resources. Line 5 clearly impinges on the Band’s right to hunt, fish, harvest wild rice, to farm and have access to safe drinking water.

A federal court ruled that Enbridge has been trespassing on lands of the Bad River Band since 2013 and ordered the company to cease operations of Line 5 by June of 2026 (seems that immediate cessation would make more sense), but rather than shut down the aging line, Enbridge plans to build a diversion around the Bad River Reservation. They plan to move the pipeline out of the Bad River Band’s front yard into their back yard, leaving 100% of the threats to people and the environment in place.

Liquid petroleum (crude oil, natural gas and petroleum product) pipelines are big business in the U.S. With 2.6 million miles of oil and gas pipelines, the U.S. network is the largest in the world. If we continue our heavy and growing dependence on liquid fossil fuels, we must realize that we will continue to negatively impact the climate and the lives of everyone on the planet. 

Instead of moving to a just transition away from fossil fuels, liquid or otherwise, the government continues to subsidize the industry through direct payments and tax breaks, refusing to acknowledge the cost of pollution-related health problems and environmental damage, a cost which is of course, incalculable. 

There are nearly 20,000 miles of pipelines planned or currently under construction in the U.S., thus it would appear that government and private industry are in no hurry to break that addiction, much less make a just transition. While no previous administration was in any hurry to break with the fossil fuel industry, they at least gave the illusion of championing a transition to cleaner energy. 

The current administration is abundantly clear. Their strategy is having no strategy. They don’t like wind and solar and they plan to end any support for renewable energy. They don’t care if they upend global markets, banking, energy companies or certainly any efforts to help developing countries transition away from fossil fuels.

Pipelines are everywhere across the U.S., a spiderweb connecting wells, refineries, transportation and distribution centers. The vast majority of pipelines are buried and many, if not all, at some point cross streams, rivers, lakes and run over aquifers. Pipeline ruptures and other assorted failures will continue and spillage will find its way into the bodies of water they skirt around or pass under. It’s not a question if they will leak, but when.

Enbridge controls the largest network of petroleum pipelines in the Great Lakes states, and they are hardly immune to spills. Between 1999 and 2013 it was reported that Enbridge had over 1,000 spills dumping a reported 7.4 million gallons of oil.

In 2010  Enbridge’s Line 6B ruptured and contaminated the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history. Over 1.2 million gallons of oil were recovered from the river between 2010 and 2014. How much went downstream or was buried in sediment, we’ll never know.

In 2024 a fault in Enbridge Line 6 caused a spill of 70 thousand gallons near Cambridge Wisconsin. And Enbridge’s most infamous pipeline, the 71-year-old Line 5 from Superior Wisconsin to Sarnia Ontario, has had 29 spills in the last 50 years, loosing over 1 million gallons of oil.

Some consider Line 5 to be a “public good” because, as Enbridge argues, shutting the line down will shut down the U.S. economy and people will not be able to afford to heat their homes — claims they have never supported with any evidence. A public good is one that everyone can use, that everyone can benefit from. A public good is not, as Enbridge apparently believes, a mechanism for corporate profit.

Line 5 is a privately owned property, existing only to generate profits for Enbridge. If it were a public good, Enbridge would certainly be giving more attention to the rights of the Bad River Band, the well-being of all the people who depend on the clean waters of the Great Lakes and to protecting the sensitive environment of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. They are not. Their trespassing, their disregard for the environment, their continuing legal efforts to protect their bottom line above all else, only points to their self-serving avarice.

The Bad River Band wants Enbridge out, and in their eyes it is not a case of “not in my back yard” they do not want Line 5 in anyone’s back yard. 

A sign protesting Enbridge Line 5 in Michigan. (Laina G. Stebbins | Michigan Advance)

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is preparing to argue against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issuing a permit to reroute Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin. 

For years, the tribe has fought against Line 5, which runs from far Northwest Wisconsin 645 miles into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, under the Straits of Mackinac and across the U.S. border  into Canada near Detroit. It transports about 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily. 

An underground section of the pipeline currently passes near a bend in the Bad River on the tribe’s reservation. In 2023, a federal judge ruled that the company was trespassing on tribal land and gave Enbridge three years to shut down the pipeline. 

Since 2020, Enbridge has been working on rerouting the pipeline about 41 miles away from tribal land. That proposal requires permits to be issued by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

The tribe is also currently challenging the state’s permitting process. Hearings will be held in August, September and October in Madison and Ashland in which an administrative law judge will hear arguments against the DNR’s decision to issue permits for the project. 

Army Corps approval of Enbridge’s plan to replace a separate section of the pipeline on the floor of the Straits of Mackinac has been fast tracked under President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring a national energy emergency, but the Bad River section of the pipeline is still moving forward under the normal approval process. 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Bad River Band and its attorneys will present to the Corps their finding that the proposed rerouted pipeline, which would pass the Bad River upstream of the reservation, threatens the tribe’s water quality and therefore violates the Clean Water Act. 

The tribe’s presentation is scheduled to take all day Tuesday and some of Wednesday. Members of the public will then be able to provide public comment during a virtual hearing and send written comments for 30 days after the hearing. 

Robert Blanchard, the tribe’s chairman, says he’s working to protect the tribe’s resources and way of life by bringing the challenge. 

“Ultimately, we are protecting our resources. We’re downstream from this project. If it were to go in, were to happen, there’s a lot at stake just with how this will affect our waters,” he says. “We have one of the biggest wild rice areas on the Great Lakes. We have a lot of medicines that I and members of my community collect that have been around for hundreds of years, and we have hunting and fishing rights that will be affected. You know, if we can’t use those because of what’s happening upstream, then that will affect our way of life.” 

Juli Kellner, a spokesperson for Enbridge, says the hearings this week are an important step for completing the project, which she adds won’t affect water quality. 

“Extensive and thorough analysis by leading, third-party experts has confirmed that construction impacts will be temporary and isolated, have no measurable impact on water quality, and will not violate the Bad River Band’s water quality standards,” Kellner says. “The project will have environmental protections and restoration plans in place, as approved by state regulators. State permits were issued last fall. We’re confident the Corps is close to completing its process which has included more than five years of public input, expert studies, and rigorous review. In fact, this is one of the most studied projects in Wisconsin’s history.” 

Under the Clean Water Act, if the Corps finds that the project will adversely affect a downstream jurisdiction’s water quality and there are no conditions that can be put on the permit to ensure water quality standards aren’t violated, the permit cannot be granted, according to the tribe’s attorney, Stefanie Tsosie. 

“We are presenting evidence to the Army Corps that the band’s water quality standards will be affected, and there are no conditions that they can put on the project permit such that they can issue it,” she says. “So, I think our hope here is one, to show how much the project is going to impact the advanced water quality, but then two, urge the Corps to not issue the section 404 permit eventually.” 

But the hearing is taking place as the Trump administration has worked to encourage more extraction of natural resources, boost the oil industry and go easier on polluters. Last week, the climate-focused news outlet Grist reported that under Trump, the EPA has practically stopped enforcing the country’s environmental laws. 

Tsosie says all the tribe can work with is what the law says. 

“Well, the standard in the Clean Water Act is pretty clear,” she says. “And that’s statute, so that’s what we’re going with.” 

Blanchard says he can’t forecast what the Corps is going to do, but he can just make his best case that granting the permit will be harmful to everyone who lives downstream. 

“I wish I had that crystal ball to be able to forecast that, but I don’t, so what we’re going to do tomorrow is do our very best to convince them that this is the way it should be,” he says. “We need to look after our Mother Earth, to pay attention to what we’re doing, what’s happening to it, and like I said before, it’s going to affect not just our way of life and not just those that live in the region, not just us as Anishinaabe people, but everybody.” 

If the Corps grants the permit, that decision could still be challenged in court.