Overview:
A massive oil spill in Wisconsin draws ire to Line 5 from tribes and advocates.
At a virtual press conference held yesterday, Elizabeth Arbuckle, Chairwoman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said the tribe plans to officially declare an 1.3 million-gallon oil spill three miles from its reservation a disaster.
“There’s a lot of dangers and risks to our people,” Arbuckle said. “This is where our people have always hunted, fished, gathered, lived, and all of that’s at risk, and currently at risk.”
On August 25, on an Enbridge worksite in Iron County, Wisc., an unoccupied truck drove into pipeline infrastructure, rupturing a valve and releasing 1.3 million gallons of oil. The company cut power, evacuated residents, and built a temporary bypass around the damaged section despite not having a permit to do so.
The DNR was denied access to the site for nearly 20 days after the spill because of unsafe conditions.
The spill is three miles from the Bad River Reservation. Arbuckle said the tribe is alarmed that Enbridge continued without permits. Tribal leaders met with the state’s DNR yesterday to voice their concerns.
“You give permits. What are what are what are the teeth for them?” she said. “What are the consequences if you go ahead without them? What are the consequences if you violate them? Those are some serious, serious concerns that we have at the tribe… This is what we said would happen. We are 20 days into this, and we still don’t have answers.”
The Wisconsin spill comes amid debate about Line 5 in Michigan. The 645-mile-long pipeline runs from Wisconsin to Michigan to Canada and carries more than 23 million gallons of natural gas a day. Four-and-a-half miles of the pipeline run under the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Superior and Lake Huron meet, which are the ancestral waters for area tribes.
Tribes and environmental groups say that if any spill occurs from the 73-year-old pipeline, the damage to the Great Lakes would be catastrophic. The company has been granted federal permits to build a concrete tunnel under the Straits to contain the pipeline, while state permits remain in limbo after a long legal back-and-forth. Tribes and advocates are calling for the pipeline to be shut down completely, citing serious environmental risk posed by construction.
At yesterday’s press conference, Chairperson for the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians Regina Gasco-Bentley said the Wisconsin spill demonstrates Enbridge’s historical failure to contain harm.
“This disaster is not an isolated event,” Gasco-Bentley said. “Michigan knows all too well the devastating ramifications of Enbridge’s pipeline failures. “
She pointed to the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill, when Enbridge’s Line 6B ruptured and released more than 1 million gallons of heavy crude into Michigan’s waterways.
“The incident in Wisconsin underscores a truth the Anishinaabe have voiced for years,” Gasco-Bentley said. “Enbridge’s safety practices rely on luck, not containment. Allowing construction to move forward on a tunnel project under the straits under the guise of modernized safety truly ignores Enbridge’s documented pattern of noncompliance, lack of transparency, and failure to prevent environmental disasters”
