Native American Rights Fund (NARF) applauds Bad River Band and green groups fighting to stop the new oil pipeline.
NARF, which represents the Bay Mills Indian Community in challenging the construction of the proposed Line 5 tunnel pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac, applauds the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and groups including Midwest Environmental Advocates and Clean Wisconsin for challenging Wisconsin’s approval of the proposed Line 5 reroute in an upcoming hearing before an administrative law judge.
Canadian company Enbridge proposes to build 41 miles of new pipeline around the borders of the Bad River Band reservation, where Line 5 is currently trespassing. The pipeline would involve blasting, horizontal drilling, or trenching across hundreds of wetlands and streams, destroying areas where Tribes hold treaty-reserved rights to hunt, fish, and gather.
“The Line 5 pipeline is an existential threat to Tribes’ historic homelands and their way of life. Enbridge’s proposed reroute would move the trespassing section of the pipeline upstream, where it can do even more damage to cultural resources, wild rice, medicines, fisheries, and drinking water. We applaud the Bad River Band for leading a heroic effort in Wisconsin against a foreign pipeline company that has an atrocious safety record, including the massive downstate oil spill last fall. We stand in solidarity with the Band and allies in their monumental effort to preserve their lands and waters for future generations, ” explained NARF Staff Attorney David Gover.
Enbridge’s project, which still requires federal permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, received permits from Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) in November 2024. The DNR’s approval is being contested by the Bad River Band, Clean Wisconsin, and by Midwest Environmental Advocates on behalf of Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, and 350 Wisconsin. By judicial order, no construction is permitted on the reroute while the case is ongoing.
Line 5’s threat to Tribal homelands doesn’t end in Wisconsin. In Michigan, NARF and Earthjustice represent the Bay Mills Indian Community in their fight to stop Enbridge’s Line 5 proposed pipeline tunnel that would tunnel under the Straits of Mackinac, a sacred place that Bay Mills and their relatives share with Michigan and the United States by treaty. The risky one-of-a-kind project would extend the life of a dangerous pipeline through the Great Lakes.
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