Bad River tribe prepares to challenge Army Corps of Engineers' Line 5 reroute permit

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.
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