Dozens of people packed into a room at Northwood Technical College in Ashland for the first day of hearings in a case challenging the DNR's decision to approve a permit for the reroute of the Line 5 oil pipeline. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

In more than five hours of public testimony on Tuesday in Ashland, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s case began against a planned extension of the Canadian energy company Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline through northern Wisconsin. 

For decades, Line 5 has run from Canada across northern Wisconsin, through the Bad River reservation. In 2023 a federal judge ordered that the pipeline’s section on the reservation be shut down. Since 2020, Enbridge has been working on a plan to reroute the pipeline, 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.

The proposed new route would move the pipeline upstream of the reservation, which tribal members have argued doesn’t alleviate the environmental risks the pipeline poses to them. 

Tuesday’s hearing was the opening day of testimony in the tribe’s case against the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources’ decision to grant permits for the Line 5 reroute. The case was argued before the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s Division of Hearings and Appeals, which gives parties the ability to challenge regulatory decisions by state agencies. Four weeks of hearings are scheduled in both Ashland and Madison. The final decision by DHA can be appealed to a state circuit court. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is also weighing its own permit decision on the reroute. That decision is appealable through the federal court system. 

Before the hearing started Tuesday a line of people wound through the parking lot of Northwood Technical College. At the start of the day, the hearing room was packed, with an overflow crowd  forced to watch a livestream from an auxiliary room. 

Many of the people in attendance wore t-shirts stating “Support Line 5” or representing area unions. Tribal activists grumbled that Enbridge had chartered a bus to bring in supporters. 

The pipeline reroute has already sparked hours of public comment and thousands of written comments. The DNR’s initial permit decision drew more than 32,000 written comments and an Army Corps of Engineers hearing on its permit decision in May drew two days of additional public input. 

The day began with opening statements from the tribe’s attorneys, Clean Wisconsin — a non-profit environmental organization which has intervened in the case — and the DNR. 

DNR attorney Michael Kowalkowski said that the department is confident the project will not result in “adverse” effects to the environment or local water after one of the “most comprehensive environmental reviews” in agency history. 

But Stefanie Tsosie, an attorney for the tribe, said the proposed reroute “is not a solution.” She noted that the hearings were occurring as the wild rice harvesting season in the region begins. Wild rice is an important piece of the tribe’s culture and the wetland habitats the rice is a part of are a crucial layer of defense for the area’s waterways — including Lake Superior — against pollution from runoff and flooding. Tsosie said any errors in construction or accidents after the pipeline is operational could irreversibly damage the wild rice. 

“The band is here taking a stand,” Tsosie said, because if an oil spill occurs and the environment is harmed, “the band has nowhere else to go.”

Evan Feinauer, an attorney for Clean Wisconsin, said the project poses far too much environmental risk for the DNR’s permit approval to stand, adding that a “spill of any meaningful size would be catastrophic” to the Lake Superior watershed. 

While many opponents of Line 5 did testify, a large majority of the comments came from supporters of the project. Supporters of the project argued that they believe Enbridge’s plans do enough to protect the environment while providing an economic boost to the region and hundreds of construction jobs. 

Even though the pipeline carries oil and natural gas from Canada through the U.S. and back into Canada, many area residents testified that shutting down the pipeline could raise their own energy prices and make it harder to obtain the propane they use to heat their homes. 

The project “will generate direct economic activity, it will create 700 union construction jobs, stimulate local spending and provide contracts for businesses,” said Anna Rademacher, a representative of the regional economic development organization Area Partnership for Economic Expansion.

While the hearing Tuesday drew hours of public testimony, the meat of the case is yet to come with the parties bringing their arguments for and against the DNR’s permit decision in later court dates. 

After the hearing, Tsosie told the Wisconsin Examiner the hearings Tuesday were a good baseline before the substantive parts of the case are heard.

“Obviously this is still really a contentious issue,” she said. “There are people who we saw today speak very passionately about protecting the water resources and protecting the area, and we saw people who we’ve seen before talk about the economic impacts. But this proceeding, the contested case proceeding, we’re really looking at the permit details, we’re looking at the evidence, we’re looking at baseline data, and so I think this is a good setup, but we still have four weeks of the case left.”

The case is set to continue in Madison Sept. 3 with additional public testimony. The beginning of the parties’ arguments is scheduled to begin Sept. 4.