Tribal Nations Coalition and Michigan Attorney General Call for an End to Line 5
On September 25th the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Wisconsin (Mashkiiziibii), a Midwest Environmental Justice Network partner, joined fifty nine other tribes in the Great Lakes in filing an amicus brief with the Native American Rights Fund and Earth Justice Alliance, in support of Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Line 5 lawsuit. The amicus brief cited threats to tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, as well as the overall health of the Great Lakes themselves.
The two major sites of ongoing legal contestation around the Line 5 pipeline are in the Mackinac Straits between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, and Northern Wisconsin’s unceded treaty territory. Line 5 is the project of Canadian oil giant Enbridge, who built the pipeline as a shortcut for crude oil and gas transportation through Canada.
Enbridge is now seeking to build a new tunnel for Line 5, through the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet, despite operating without valid state contracts, or any type of tribal consultation. In 2019, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel sued Enbridge in state court, but after the court ordered a pipeline shutdown for several weeks amidst safety concerns, Enbridge then removed the case to federal court–stalling a legal decision on the case.
In 2020 Michigan Governor Whitmer denied Enbridge’s easement renewal with the state and ordered the shutdown of the pipeline, citing environmental and public health concerns. Earlier oil spills by poorly maintained Enbridge pipelines in Michigan have been catastrophic. In particular, the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill was caused by Enbridge’s Line 6B, which leaked an estimated 843,000 gallons of crude oil into a major Lake Michigan tributary. If the proposed tunnel construction on the pipeline was to move forward in the Straits, it would be in violation of state law and federal law, while also posing a direct and immediate threat to Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. The pipeline construction also poses a major threat to tribal sovereignty in the Great Lakes in several communities.
The construction project could also violate 1836 treaty rights for tribes like the Bay Mills Indian Community, who ceded the Mackinac Straits to the U.S. government in the nineteenth century with the guarantee that they would be able to maintain their ways of life in the region. In Wisconsin, Enbridge’s actions around the Line 5 pipeline were in direct violation of tribal sovereignty just last year, when a Wisconsin federal court found the company guilty of trespassing on unceded territory without a valid easement. Despite this ruling, the court did not order an emergency shutdown of the pipeline in Wisconsin.
The urgency of an emergency shutdown of the pipeline was reignited in Wisconsin this past spring when springtime flooding eroded the Bad River riverbank near the pipeline, threatening exposure of the line directly to the river. In May, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians supporting the pipeline’s shutdown, and has again filed a brief in support of the tribe’s efforts to eject the Enbridge pipeline from reservation lands as of October 18th.
As the legal battles against Enbridge led by tribes and elected officials continue, public protests against the pipeline have echoed these calls. Pollution from a possible Line 5 spill would affect 84% of North America’s freshwater as well as serious existential threats to tribal sovereignty, hunting and fishing practices, and ways of life throughout the region.