Bed River Tribal Chairman Robert
Blanchard was the first to take
the stand. And Chairman, thanks very
much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
So what did you most want
the judge to know about the
impacts of Line 5
and its re-route around
the Bad River Reservation, but
through nearby wetlands
and waterlands?
What did you want the most the judge
know about those impacts?
Well, you know, this is gonna impact
quite a bit
of our ceded
territories that the reroute
has gone within the
ceded territory of.
Impact is going to be over 100 acres
of wetlands, which, you
know, will get
disturbed.
30 some acres of that will not be
usable again,
or will be present.
And, you know, there's a lot of
impacts. Some of it will be through
horizontal direct
drilling, blasting.
Which is going to, you know, a lot
of it's going to impact our
water resources.
Now, I know the tribe wanted
the pipeline removed from
your land.
Why isn't rerouting it around
the reservation proper?
Well, I-
All I will do is shift
the risk upstream, exposing more
of the environment to be put at
risk than what is now.
But, you know, like I said before,
we have ceded territories where we
do a lot of hunting and fishing and
gathering of medicines
and other stuff.
So, I mean, that's just going,
it's just moving the problem
upstream. You know, we'll be
downstream from that.
And if something were to happen,
it will really impact
us as people and our way of
life.
Enbridge and the DNR say
that the permitting process was
extensive and thorough.
Why are you and others worried?
Well, you know, I
wish I could really answer
that in detail, but I
think part of the problem
was the way it was presented
to the
people.
Like it was,
I don't know, I think it didn't
give the people a chance to really
get into the
nuts and bolts of it and be
able to ask the questions
that needed to be asked.
And, and.
Wasn't right.
I felt it wasn't right.
Circling back to something you
spoke to a moment ago,
during your testimony you spoke
about the wild rice harvest.
Why is that, and hunting
and fishing rights you hold,
so key to your community?
Well, we've been harvesting
wild rice in the
Caucasian sluice for over
100 years.
My grandparents harvested
down there, and they
made rice camps down there.
And so that's near and dear to my
heart and a lot of other people
also.
But
it identifies us as people,
you know, we were brought here
for a reason and one of
the reasons is to
go where the food grows on the water
and that was the wild rice and
that is
quite dear to us and
as far as other things, hunting,
fishing and gathering, you know,
there's a lot of people today that
use that resource to provide and
put food on the table for their
families so it's very important
to us.
And what is the connection,
Chairman, between the land and
water to those rights?
Say that, could you repeat that
again?
What is the connection?
Why are the
waters and the land so
important to the
protection of those rights?
Well, we also feel that,
you know, everything out there
is sacred.
You know, we
use those
resources and when we
go and harvest and we go hunting
or fishing, we take only what we
need to do for our families.
So, and we also
believe that everything
out there has a spirit.
Every living thing out there has the
spirit. You know, and that's what
we're protecting is the spirit of
that medicine, the spirit that wild
rice and the spirit at those waters
and lands to, uh,
be able for our future generations
to be able to enjoy that.
For its part, Enbridge states
that they have learned what
they do today impacts
the next seven generations and
that it has a responsibility
to care for the land.
What's your response to that
statement from the CEO of Enbridge?
Well, I don't think Enbridge really
understands, you know,
they look at it a lot different than
we do, you know,
they're there for
different reasons.
And we're there to protect
the land, truly protect
the land and
the resources.
Your Bad River Band is
fighting hard over this.
What will you do if the Line 5
project is allowed to proceed
in this way?
Well, that's the big question.
I'm not sure what we'll do.
You know, we will keep
fighting.
But I don't know what the next
step would be.
Should they be allowed to
put the reroute in place?
You know that's a question
that we are
still trying to
come up with some answers
and probably
some way, what
are we going to do?
We will be watching.
Chairman Robert Blanchard, thanks
very much.
Thank you very much for having
me.
That was great.
We really appreciate your time on
this.
Yes, I appreciate you for having me.
Um, not that I can think of right
now, but, um,
like I said, we're just going to
keep moving forward and keep
fighting.