Activists, tribe urge US regulators to deny permit for Enbridge Line 5 reroute

Environmentalists and tribal leaders are urging the US Army Corps of Engineers to deny a Clean Water Act permit for Enbridge to reroute a portion of its Line 5 propane and crude oil pipeline that is currently trespassing on tribal land.

"This reroute is not a solution, it's a false solution to the dangers of the current pipeline," said Gussie Lord, an attorney at Earthjustice who is representing the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, said on an Aug. 28 press call. "In fact, it really extends the dangers of the pipeline and increases the threat of a devastating oil spill."

But Enbridge says the pipeline is safe. And a shutdown of Line 5 would risk the closure of refineries in Ohio and propane fractionators in Wisconsin and Michigan, Juli Kellner, a spokesperson for Enbridge, said in an email.

Line 5 is a 645-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline that transports roughly 540,000 b/d of light crude oil and natural gas liquids from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario.

The pipeline is the main source of propane to Ontario, supplying 66% of Ontario's oil needs and accounting for half of the feedstock Ontario's refineries use to make gasoline. Line 5 also serves most of Michigan, where it supplies 55% of statewide oil demand with light crude oil, light synthetic crude and natural gas liquids that are refined into propane.

Reroute project

In 2019, the Bad River Band filed a federal lawsuit to require Enbridge to remove 12 miles of pipeline from their reservation in Wisconsin. Enbridge has since proposed to replace about 20 miles of the existing Line 5 pipeline, including the pipeline in the reservation, with 41 miles of new 30-inch diameter pipeline located entirely outside the reservation.

Enbridge is seeking a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit for the work, and the Corps is seeking comments until Aug. 30 on its combined decision document for the project.

Environmental activists and tribal members are filing comments urging the Corps to deny the permit.

The rerouted project remains squarely within the Bad River Band's watershed, and the project's trenching, drilling and backfilling in wetlands and streams will increase of flooding in the region, Lord said during the press call.

If the Corps issues a permit, it will also perpetuate the risks of the current pipeline, which is 70 years old, said Alexander Waters, a beef farmer in Wisconsin. "Regardless of whether there is a reroute, there's still hundreds of miles of pipeline that could rupture at any moment," he said.

But a group called Wisconsin Jobs and Energy issued an Aug. 28 statement touting that dozens of Wisconsin organizations, trade groups and businesses had sent letters to the Corps supporting the rerouting project. The groups emphasized the importance of affordable propane for heating and other uses and highlighted the jobs that would be created by the project.

Enbridge has committed to extensive protective measures to minimize and mitigate impacts and to restore the environment after construction of the project, Kellner said.

"It should be noted, Line 5 has been operating safely for 70 years, with no impact to the shores of Lake Superior," Kellner said. Prior to Line 5, large tanker ships carried product across Lake Superior, she said. "Pipelines remain the safest, most efficient method to transport these products," she added.