
After years of legal wrangling, Enbridge begins rerouting pipeline around Wisconsin reservation
BNN Bloomberg
Energy company Enbridge has finally started work on rerouting an aging oil pipeline around a tribal reservation in northern Wisconsin.
About 19 kilometres of Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline runs across the Bad River Band of Lake Superior’s reservation along the shores of Lake Superior. The tribe sued Enbridge in 2019 to force the company to remove the section from its land, arguing land easements allowing operation expired six years earlier and the 73-year-old pipeline was prone to a catastrophic spill.
A judge in 2023 gave the company until this June to remove the segment from the reservation. The Bad River and conservation groups want the line completely shut down and have kept the reroute project tied up with legal challenges. An administrative law judge upheld Enbridge’s state wetlands permit on Feb. 13, removing the project’s last legal hurdle and clearing the way for construction.
Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner said crews started clearing trees in the new segment’s right-of-way on Tuesday.
The Bad River and a coalition of environmental group filed separate actions in Iron County Circuit Court this month seeking an immediate stay of the wetlands permit, arguing that regulators underestimated the damage reroute construction will cause.
“The Bad River watershed is not an oil pipeline corridor that exists to serve Enbridge’s profits. It is our homeland. We must protect it,” Elizabeth Arbuckle, the Bad River tribal chair, said in a statement announcing the tribe’s filing.













