Breaking: Chippewa Tribe Calls for Pipeline Removal from All Tribal Land, Refuses Right-of-way Renewal

by Claire Bernish

Odanah, WI — In a spectacular act of resistance to Big Oil, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Council refused to renew a right-of-way easement for an Enbridge crude oil pipeline running through the Bad River Reservation.

While Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members remain entrenched in a battle to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Bad River tribal council passed a formal resolution against renewing rights-of-way for Enbridge’s Energy Line 5 — and officially called for the pipeline to be decommissioned and removed from all tribal lands and the affected watershed.

Originally known as Lakehead Pipeline Company, Enbridge installed the pipeline in 1953; however, by 2013 — when “15 Individual grant of easement rights of way for Line 5 expired” — Band River had reacquired interests in eleven of those parcels.

“As many other communities have experienced, even a minor spill could prove to be disastrous for our people,” Bad River Tribal Chairman Robert Blanchard noted on the remarkable decision in thepress release. “We depend upon everything that the creator put here before us to live mino-bimaadiziwin, a good and healthy life.”

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