Along Wisconsin's northern shores, Line 5 continues to pit tribal culture against Big Oil

ODANAH, Wisconsin – Daniel Wiggins Jr. sipped his coffee, which he took light and sweet. The sip gave him a moment to slow the tears welling up in his eyes.

It was Father’s Day, and he recalled his fondest memory in the Kakagon Sloughs, a system of wetlands on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s land that houses the last natural wild rice bed remaining on Lake Superior.

One late summer morning, he had argued with his mom about going ricing with his stepdad. Your dad needs a partner , he recalled her shouting. Wiggins, didn’t want to do it that day, but ultimately lost the argument. Hours later on the Kakagon River, his stepdad handed him the ricing stick and told him it was his turn to knock the ripened grains into the canoe. It was the first time he was allowed to do it.

As the grains landed in the bottom of the canoe, Wiggins registered how important ricing was to his family and what it meant to do the work.

“I felt like I knew who I was in that moment, and I think my dad recognized it too,” he said.

Wiggins is a tribal council member and former deputy director of the Bad River Band’s natural resources department. Both his mom and stepdad have since passed.

The Kakagon Sloughs hold everything that the Bad River Band holds dear – food, medicines, teachings. And nearly half of all the wetlands on Lake Superior are in the Sloughs, making it an ecological powerhouse that helps keep Lake Superior clean.

However, all that is considered at risk from Enbridge’s Line 5 , the Canadian pipeline that carries oil through 645 miles of the Great Lakes region. The pipeline crosses 12 miles of the Bad River Band’s land in northern Wisconsin, even though the tribal council chose not to renew the right-of-way easement when it expired more than a decade ago.

As winter approaches, with another presidential election promising a new administration regardless of who wins, tribal leaders are uneasy. Climate change is having a profound and frightening impact, and while it's part of tribal culture to think long-term , American business practices and political decisions typically are geared more short-term, which makes the environment more vulnerable.

The Band sued Enbridge in 2019 to have the pipeline removed from its lands. A federal judge found the company has been illegally operating on the tribe’s land, and ordered the pipeline be removed or rerouted by June 2026. That decision is being appealed , but the deadline is looming.

Enbridge proposed a 41-mile reroute around the tribe’s reservation in 2020, but it has yet to be permitted by any agency. The Bad River Band, other Great Lakes tribes and environmental groups warn that the reroute still puts the Sloughs and Lake Superior in grave danger.

The new stretch of pipeline would sit further upstream from the Kakagon Sloughs, Bad River and many other waterways that empty into Lake Superior, home to about 10% of the world’s surface freshwater.

The new pipeline would sit just outside the tribe’s reservation. But that's merely a political boundary, Wiggins said, and it doesn’t make sense from an environmental perspective.

If the reroute project were to go ahead, it is estimated to have a $135 million economic impact in northern Wisconsin, creating jobs for 700 workers with a total labor income of $27.5 million, according to the oil company.

However, that area of Wisconsin is a draw for tourism with its scenic views, pristine waters and proximity to the Apostle Islands, which are just a short ferry ride away. According to the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, $93 million and $66 million came into Bayfield and Ashland counties, respectively, just in 2023.

Enbridge isn’t only taking advantage of the Bad River, Wiggins said, it’s taking advantage of a lot of smaller towns that need financial support and are coming out of struggling times.

The reroute isn’t going to reduce the risks of an environmental catastrophe, he said. “It’s just moving the issue to another person’s backyard.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is undergoing an environmental review of the reroute project; opponents have submitted more than 150,000 public comments.

Juli Kellner, a spokesperson for Enbridge, told the Journal Sentinel models from a third-party firm have confirmed the reroute "is the best route based on the relatively shorter construction length, and a reduced potential to impact the Bad River Reservation, stands of wild rice, Lake Superior, and populated areas."

"Line 5 has been operating safely for 70 years, with no impact to the shores of Lake Superior," Kellner said. "Pipelines remain the safest, most efficient method to transport these products."

Politically, what to do with the 70-year-old pipeline has splintered Democrats, pitting support of labor unions against the commitment to protect natural resources and end the country’s reliance on fossil fuels. Republicans around the Great Lakes have argued that projects to update Line 5 can be done safely and that the pipeline is needed for economic growth.

The Canadian government has continued to throw its support behind Enbridge, filing amicus briefs on behalf of the company that cite a 1977 treaty preventing interruption of the flow of oil between the U.S. and Canada. Line 5 has even garnered attention beyond the two countries. Last year, an advisory body to the United Nations recommended the two countries shut down the pipeline , and asked Canada to reconsider its support .

More: Great Lakes tribes teach 'water is life.’ But they’re forced to fight for a voice in safeguarding it.

A hotly debated watershed line

The new 41-mile stretch of pipeline would go south of the Bad River Band’s land further inland into Ashland and Iron counties. It would go through Iron County State Forest, around Copper Falls State Forest and cross more than 180 Lake Superior tributaries , including the Bad River, all at a cost of $450 million .

One of the biggest misconceptions is that the reroute would remove Line 5 from tribal waters, said Mike Wiggins Jr., former chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, and cousin to Daniel Wiggins. The rerouted pipeline would still pass through tributaries that connect with the tribe's drinking water, Mike Wiggins said.

Whether Line 5’s new location would be in or out of the watershed was even a contentious topic during the appeals case.

But “the watershed is much bigger than the reservation,” said Stefanie Tsosie, senior attorney with the Tribal Partnerships Program at EarthJustice. “And there is no question that where the pipeline will go is hydrologically connected" to tribal waters.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently reviewing the environmental impacts of the project under the Clean Water Act. It released a draft of its environmental assessment earlier this year, which drew contentious testimony during public hearings. The Bad River Band is currently putting together a comment letter on the assessment, due by Aug. 30.

If the Army Corps determines the environmental impacts are significant, Enbridge must prepare a federal environmental impact statement. If the agency determines they aren’t significant, it may issue the permits, although other steps may be required.

Enbridge also need permits from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources as well as local agencies.

While the reroute project has not been permitted and the deadline is looming, Kellner told the Journal Sentinel, "We are confident we can complete the project by June 2026."

A project to build a tunnel that runs through the Straits of Mackinac, the 4.5 mile stretch that separates Lakes Michigan and Huron, is in the process of being permitted in Michigan as well. That project has been just as contentious as the reroute project in northern Wisconsin, and is the centerpiece of a lawsuit brought by Michigan's attorney general against Enbridge.

By permitting projects to reroute the pipeline around the Band's land and pursue a replacement tunnel underneath the lakes, federal and state agencies are choosing to extend the lifeline of the aging pipeline, said Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community in what is now Michigan.

It's a choice that will continue to keep the threats to the Great Lakes alive, Gravelle said.

‘A sweeping change’ to dynamic landscape

Northern Wisconsin’s cliff-laden landscape near Lake Superior is dominated by red clay soil that is quick to erode. There are rapid seasonal shifts as well as changes to the levels in surface water, groundwater and aquifers.

The area also has been battered by multiple 500-year rain events that dropped more than 10 inches of rain in a matter of hours.

Tsosie said the Army Corps of Engineers environmental assessment does not take the dynamic landscape into consideration, explaining that many measurements were only taken at one point during the year.

Vague and missing information is the reason the permit process has been so drawn out, Tsosie said.

“Asking for more information is a plus, but it’s unfortunate that we have to prod companies to do that,” she said. “They should be forthright in the first place… instead of relying on the Bad River Band to do that for them.”

Tsosie hopes the Army Corps will look into the environmental impacts further by doing an impact statement so many of these questions can be answered.

“We’re not talking about a small area, we’re talking about 41 miles,” Tsosie said. “It’s a very sweeping change to that part of the ecosystem.”

More: As battles over Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline grind on, tribes fear Great Lakes, treaty rights at risk

The Band has experience with what can go wrong

The Bad River Band has firsthand experience with how such a dynamic landscape can put a pipeline at risk of rupture.

Flooding and erosion along the river has moved one bank deep in the reservation, known as the meander, as close as 11 feet to the buried pipeline. The bank stood more than 300 feet away only five years ago.

During oral arguments, the appellate judges questioned the Band’s willingness to help the fossil fuel company fix the erosion.

But manipulating the river's meander to change how it moves and progresses goes against Ojibwe teachings, Daniel Wiggins said, especially when it's to accomplish the goals of a company that the tribe does not want there.

“It’s our choice to make,” he said.

The Bad River Band offered a solution to help fix erosion at the meander in July, one that was temporary and minimized the environmental impacts compared to the one proposed by Enbridge . Enbridge said it appreciated the invitation and has since met with the Band's natural resources department to discuss the project.

Kellner said that Enbridge believes progress is being made and that the company and Band have been working together to resolve erosion and emergency response issues.

But the Bad River Band and environmental groups have another example to point to in highlighting their concerns: Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement project in northern Minnesota.

The company breached four aquifers while building the pipeline. It also paid more than $11 million to address environmental damage during construction, and faced a criminal misdemeanor charge for using state waters without permission.

More: Wisconsin tribal officials opposed to making Apostle Islands a national park

‘An environmental justice issue’

For tribes around the Great Lakes, the Line 5 pipeline has raised larger questions about whether tribes have a say over their own land.

The 34-federally recognized tribes around the region are unified when it comes to the pipeline, Gravelle said. Earlier this year, 30 tribes sent a letter to the Biden administration urging it to honor treaty rights and tribal sovereignty, and speak out against the pipeline. The federal government has since spoken up , but with a lack of clarity, offering mixed opinions depending on the issue.

Daniel Wiggins said he’s baffled because many federal agencies are trying to include environmental justice in their objects, and “what Enbridge is doing is an environmental justice issue,” he said.

When economic development translates to destruction of the environment and drinking water, that's when corporate goals and profits need to give way to treaty rights, which are rooted in notions of homeland reservations and habitat, Mike Wiggins said.

“If wild rice or certain aspects of the Kakagon Sloughs disappear, there is a certain part of Ojibwe people that won’t live on,” Daniel Wiggins said.

‘It’s not the end, it’s just a transition’

Father’s Day not only offers fond childhood memories, but it’s a reminder of what can be lost.

In mid-June 2012, historic weeklong rains flooded much of Lake Superior’s Minnesota and Wisconsin shorelines, dropping upwards of 10 inches in some areas.

The heavy rainfall flooded much of the wild rice beds on the Bad River Band’s land. It hit during the wild rice’s most sensitive stage, called the floating leaf stage, where only a single tap root lightly clings to the sediment below.

What became known as the “Father’s Day Flood” to the Band wiped out the wild rice that year, leaving nothing to harvest.

Daniel Wiggins explained this was fresh on people’s mind when the Line 5’s right-of-way easement expired in 2013. It was a reminder of what was at stake.

On a boat ride along the Bad River with Mike Wiggins this Father’s Day, the horizon lit up pink just before the river joined Lake Superior.

Mike Wiggins said that place – right before the river and the lake become one – is his favorite along the river.

“It’s not the end,” he said. “It’s just a transition.”

More: ‘A new chapter of a very old story’: Documentary shows Bad River Band's fight against Line 5

Caitlin Looby is a Report for America corps member who writes about the environment and the Great Lakes. Reach her at clooby@gannett.com or follow her on X @caitlooby .

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Along Wisconsin's northern shores, Line 5 continues to pit tribal culture against Big Oil