[News] US Judge Orders Stretch of Enbridge Line 5 Shut Down on Tribal Land

[Anti-Imperialist News]

commondreams.org
<https://www.commondreams.org/news/enbridge-line-5-shut-down-tribe>
US Judge Orders Stretch of Enbridge Line 5 Shut Down on Tribal Land
Julia Conley - Jun 19, 20231
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The Canadian oil company Enbridge has been ordered to pay the Bad River
Band of Lake Superior Chippewa $5 million in damages for trespassing and to
gradually shut down part of its Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin after a
federal judge found that the company has placed the tribe's sacred land at
risk of an environmental disaster.

U.S. District Judge William Conley of the Western District of Wisconsin
handed down the ruling on Friday after the Bad River Band argued in court
that there are now fewer than 15 feet between parts of Line 5 and the Bad
River following the partial erosion of the riverbank in recent months.

The tribe said its land is in imminent danger of a potential pipeline
rupture as roughly 12 miles of Line 5 run through the Bad River Band's
reservation, carrying up to 23 million gallons of oil and liquefied natural
gas each day through Michigan and Wisconsin to Ontario.

Line 5 has been the site of about 30 oil spills
<https://www.wpr.org/judge-orders-enbridge-shut-down-part-wisconsin-oil-pipeline-3-years>in
its 70-year history, and another of Enbridge's pipelines ruptured in 2010,
spilling more than 840,000 gallons of oil into a creek and the Kalamazoo
River in Michigan.

"Tribal sovereignty prevailed over corporate profits."

In addition to ordering Enbridge to pay the tribe, Conley on Friday gave
the company three years to wind down its operations on the Bad River Band's
land, ordering it to "cease operation of Line 5 on any parcel within the
band's tribal territory on which defendants lack a valid right of way and
to arrange reasonable remediation at those sites."

The judge denied, however, that the pipeline's presence has put the tribe
in imminent danger. He said an oil spill "would unquestionably be a public
nuisance" but claimed an immediate shutdown of a portion of the pipeline
would disrupt energy security and cause fuel costs to soar for locals.

Bad River Band Chairman Mike Wiggins said the tribe does not see the ruling
as "cause for unqualified celebration" but expressed appreciation for the
judge "putting an end to Enbridge's flagrant trespass and disregard for our
rights."

"Tribal sovereignty prevailed over corporate profits," Wiggins said, adding
that the tribe expects Enbridge "to fight this order with all of their
corporate might."

"We are under no illusion that Enbridge will do the right thing," he added.

Enbridge said over the weekend that it plans to appeal the ruling.

Erick Arnold, an attorney for the Bad River Band, said the three-year
timeline leaves the tribe "vulnerable to catastrophe."

"While the band's motivations have never been about money," said Arnold,
"such a small award for a decadelong trespass during which Enbridge earned
over a billion dollars in net profits from Line 5 will not sufficiently
deter trespassers like Enbridge, but will instead create an incentive for
corporations to violate the sovereignty of the band."

Environmental lawyer and activist Steven Donziger called the order
<https://twitter.com/SDonziger/status/1670822734413299714>a "victory"
overall.

"But for the theft of Indigenous lands," he said, "this pipeline would not
even exist."
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