(The Center Square) – The Wisconsin Jobs and Energy Coalition, along with several other employer groups in Wisconsin, have been working to fight against an attempted block of a Line 5 reroute of the Bad River Reservation.
The director of the Great Lakes Timber Professionals Association, for example, recently wrote with concerns that the arguments against approving the reroute could be used to block the timber industry on private land.
“These claims could delay or deny logging, road building, forest thinning, and replanting efforts—basic practices essential to both forest health and economic vitality,” Henry Schienebeck recently wrote in an op-ed published in the Ashland Daily Press. “The logic being advanced could be used to shut down operations across privately owned forests, tribal lands, and public working lands alike.”
Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is concerned about water contamination on the reservation, in Lake Superior and in the wetlands that serve as the Band’s wild rice beds and as a critical migratory bird habitat.
Enbridge applied for permits and proposed to reroute the line in 2020 by replacing 20 miles of existing pipeline – including the 12 miles currently within the reservation – with a 41-mile-long stretch of pipe around the reservation in northern Wisconsin.
Line 5 transports 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids daily from Superior, Wisconsin, through Michigan to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario for 645 miles through a 30-inch diameter pipe.
Two days of testimony recently occurred on the Bad River Band’s arguments to block the reroute. Hearings will continue on Aug. 12 at Northwood Technical College in Ashland, where the public can testify related to permits from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
During the recent hearing, Tera Fong, Water Division Director for Region 5 with the Environmental Protection Agency, was quoted as testifying that the “materials EPA reviewed did not provide data, studies or modeling analysis that showed and quantified impacts of distance from any given discharge point to water quality on the reservation, the likelihood of discharges, including discharges of pollutants traveling from groundwater to surface waters and then to the reservation boundary.”
Several union leaders also testified at the hearings, arguing that the objections are inconsistent and are regarding standard timber and construction practices approved across the country.
“These claims not only do not match up with the Bad River Band’s own previous construction approvals, but they are practices the Band has been fine with for dozens of projects in the same area,” said Teamsters Local 346 and pipeline representative for the Teamsters Chad Ward. “This leaves the impression that these concerns are more based on their political views of the project than the construction methods themself. And while they are entitled to their political views, it is the job of the permitting process to determine if laws and regulations are being followed, not weigh the political arguments.”
