The government in Wisconsin has released an environmental impact statement that explains how they think rerouting part of Enbridge Line 5 will affect the environment.
The oil and natural gas liquids pipeline, which is 71 years old, currently goes through the land of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.
The pipeline’s permit ran out eleven years ago. After a fight in court, a federal judge told Enbridge to stop running Line 5 on the reservation by June 2026.
Enbridge has come up with a few ideas for how to build a new piece of pipeline around the reservation. The new section would be about 41 miles long and cross a dozen creeks.
For the National Wildlife Federation, Beth Wallace is in charge of climate and energy in the Great Lakes. She said that the Bad River Band is against the plans because the rerouted pipeline would still go through the watershed of the tribe.
“They are adamant that this pipeline should be taken down because it has reached the end of its useful life.” Moving it to the headwaters of their treaty-protected land is also not the right thing to do.
The Bad River Band wants Line 5 to be shut down by the government.
Not only the Bad River Band but also a lot of other people are strongly against it. Not long ago, 150,000 people told the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, “Do not expand this pipeline that just turned 71 years old,” Wallace said.
An Army Corps of Engineers study also looks at another Enbridge project: a tube under the Straits of Mackinac that would hold more of Line 5.
The Army Corps district in Chicago is making one of these choices, and the district in Detroit is making the other.
Wallace and other people agree that the Corps should look at all of Line 5 and not just parts of it. They said it was dangerous for all the watersheds where it was hidden because those watersheds flow into the Great Lakes.
The pipeline project, according to Enbridge, will “infuse millions of dollars in construction spending into local communities.” It will also keep energy flowing to Wisconsin and the rest of the Great Lakes Region, the company said.