The
latest hearing challenging the Enbridge Line 5 oil and gas pipeline in northern Wisconsin
unfolded late this week.
The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and environmental groups want state permits
already approved to be reversed and to halt any pipeline construction.
The Circuit Court judge in the case isn't expected to rule until the end of this month
at the earliest.
Even though Line 5 construction is being re-rooted around the reservation, the band
worries about damage to upstream and Lake Superior water.
For more on this we turn to Bad River Band chairwoman Elizabeth Arbuckle and thanks for
much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So fundamentally I've had people ask why the concerns if the pipeline has been re-rooted
to skirt reservation lands.
I'm sorry can you repeat that?
I've had people ask why are there concerns if the pipeline has been re-routed to skirt
reservation lands.
Got you.
Well there's been lots of reasons to be worried or concerned and one of them is when
they do the construction they are going to be stirring up mercury deposits from acid rain
from decades past and those have settled.
So when they come through to do that that's going to stir up these deposits which are
then going to go directly into our waterways.
They are just hugging our reservation.
It's not like they went miles and miles away.
It's literally a stone's throw from our land and reservation boundaries and that is going
to stir up these mercury deposits that have been in our wetlands and go into our water
and go into Lake Superior.
We already have mercury deposit warnings and can only one walleye a week or a month depending
on your age and gender and that's problematic.
So if we get more mercury that's going to affect our fishing industry.
It's certainly affecting our Ojibwe culture because like walleye for example is a major
part of our culture so that's what we worry about.
The mercury upsets they also worry about the blasting they're going to do in the reroute
which is in the Pinocchi Mountains just off the reservation.
That's another thing that we don't know what we don't know.
They say oh it's safe it's fine.
And then they'll show you a blast of a different event but you know that's not apples to apples.
They're different rocks.
It's a different situation.
What studies have they done on these mountains and what can we expect to be released?
We're very worried about heavy metals coming into our waterways.
The other one is our treaty rights and this is key because the way they want to do the
reroute and so we'll say this is the reservation and they're going to go like that with this
being Lake Superior.
So on all three sides they're going to surround us and encircle us and that's problematic
because they're still in our seat of territory.
We still have rights to hunt fish and gather in this land.
And we're not going to be able to cross into our reservation without asking them permission.
That's not what we signed up for.
That's not the spirit of the law.
That's not been the interpretations and the understanding of our treaty rights.
So cutting that off, cutting us off from our land, from our own homeland, from accessing
our treaty rights that were allowed to use, which have been upheld, that's problematic
and that's something we're all worried about.
So those are just a few examples of things we're concerned about.
What is your response to the DNR and Enbridge saying that environmental issues have been
exhaustively researched and addressed?
I say I don't think so, right?
I mean, like I said, everyone's been ignoring this mercury problem and the problem with
the heavy metals that are going to be released by the land.
So I don't think they have been exhaustively researched.
For the amount of research WDNR does, they, like I said, they have fish regulations.
We can't buy little thermometers with mercury in them anymore because they know how hazardous
this is.
The state of Wisconsin knows how hazardous it is.
And yet there seems to be no concern about the sleeping mercury that we have in the wetlands
area on and near our reservation, well that we have throughout this area that they're
going to disturb.
This is quite the protracted challenge to line five.
There are also intertwining federal cases.
Why the protracted fight?
What do you mean why the protracted fight?
What's at stake?
What's at stake for the Bad River Band?
Right.
I mean, I don't think anybody wants a protracted fight, but it's the outcome that's important,
not the battle.
So we have to protect our homeland.
We have to protect Lake Superior.
We have to protect our treaty rights and those that, you know, that our fellow other Ojibwe
fans in northern Wisconsin exercise and hold with us as well.
So it's, I mean, we're definitely tired of it because it's ripped apart our community.
They've done, Enbridge has done a massive PR campaign outside, just outside the reservation
and within our reservation.
And that's all calculated to win their PR War.
So they've turned tribal members against each other, which is really unfortunate.
So nobody wants that.
Nobody enjoys the fight.
Nobody enjoys the rift.
But in the end, we have to hold the line.
This is our homeland.
This is what we've got.
We signed a treaty back in 1854 that kept bad river at bad river.
Our ancestors meant that.
They meant for that to never be for sale and that would always be used and it would always
be protected.
And so that's, this isn't me.
This was a charge made, you know, you know, over a hundred years ago and it was designed
so that it will always stay a hundred years from now.
So unfortunately it is exhausting.
It is expensive.
It can be hurtful, you know, and painful.
But, you know, we're not doing this to be difficult.
We're doing this because this is our home.
We have to stand up with each other and for our people, you know, and it's nice that
we were, we had a case yesterday in Bayfield County.
And so that was, that was important because we had, are you going to get to that later?
You're going to edit this interview.
Please tell me yes, right?
Yeah, we may, but go ahead.
What did you experience in that courtroom?
So the court case we had in Bayfield County yesterday was we had asked for a stay, right?
We had asked for them to throw out the permits and for Enbridge to not be able to proceed.
Enbridge still does not have access to, to all of this land.
So I, I don't know why they're starting.
There's still four permits they don't have.
There's still lots of questions about how they're going to get under and around the
hundred and, or at least the 70 plus waterways, right, they have over 180 waterways they're
going to be crossing.
So they haven't, they haven't made, they haven't given us these answers yet.
And we're still waiting to hear that.
So while we were there, I reached out to tribal leaders across the state and all the
Chippewa nations in northern, in Minnesota and, and, and, and Michigan.
And the outpouring of love and support was enormous.
Almost all the tribal leaders from the tribes in Wisconsin showed up.
Lots of letters were sent.
We stand together, right?
We stand united.
We've gotten a lot of support from our local neighbors and communities, our non-tribal
friends and neighbors in local communities and towns, environmental groups, local and
statewide and nationwide.
This is something we all care about, right?
This is preserving our environment and protecting our environments.
You've got, you've got tribal sovereignty issues, you've got environment issues.
There's, there's a, there's a lot of angles and, and parts of this, which people identify
with and care about.
So do you feel as though you will prevail?
Yes, I have to believe we will prevail.
In the end, we have to.
The stakes are too high, right?
I, I can't, I can't imagine not.
We need to, we need to preserve Wisconsin, northern Wisconsin, Lake Superior, and we're
on the front lines for that.
And so we're willing to do that.
It's, like I said, it's, it's, it's even bigger than our reservation, right?
It's even bigger than that because those waterways lead right to Lake Superior.
So it's really important.
We all think and study and look and see what they're saying and work toward, you know,
stopping it.
All right.
Chair Whelan, Elizabeth Arbuckle, we leave it there.
Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Appreciate you having me.
Well, yes, ma'am.
Well, they have other rewrote options, right?
They elected to not use them.
There are other options that go further away, you know, further away from the reservation
outside of the mountains, kind of skirting around the mountains on the southern end there.
So they have a plan, C and D, that they can look at well, probably, but it's very expensive
for us to think, you know, nobody's going to be able to eat walleye anymore or, you
know, we could risk our treaty rights.
Those are priceless.
Those are, you know, invaluable.
So that to me is, is absolutely worth fighting for and something that we should think about
as, as being priceless.
Thank you.
Great.
You were great.
Nice to speak with you.
I was told it was going to not be live and you were going to be able to edit it.
Well, we are certainly going to have to edit it at the top when I, you couldn't hear my
question or whatever.
So we will, yeah, there'll be, there'll be some edits.
It was great.