You
Heading up north
The story and history of oppression and resistance
of a native tribe along Lake Superior is told
in a new documentary called Bad River.
The film travels centuries back in time
chronicling broken treaties, land loss
and attempts to wipe out their identity.
But defiance and resilience remain the common thread
to overcoming struggle.
Today, the Bad River Band is fighting the presence
of a 70-year-old oil pipeline
from the Canadian Enbridge Company.
The pipeline, referred to as Line 5,
is on land leased by the band in a legal agreement
long expired.
Moreover, experts fear the imminent rupture
of the aging infrastructure.
We have a corporation that wants the land
for their own profit.
They are saying,
you cannot be the last authority of denial for us.
This is the corporation telling the tribe,
I would like to see your manager.
It's outrageous that Enbridge continued to pump.
You have a vital resource.
And effectively, you have a tribal community
saying, we want to shut all of that down.
And we don't care about the millions of people
that are dependent on 540,000 barrels of oil
that are going through that pipeline on a daily basis.
My little tribe is standing up and saying,
we're protecting the water, not just for us.
We're protecting water for the planet.
Filmmaker Mary Masio,
and former chairman of the Bad River Band,
Mike Wiggins Jr. joins us now.
And thanks so much for being here, both of you.
Thank you for having us for being here.
Thank you.
First to you, Mike.
When you first saw this film, what was your reaction?
My first reaction was actually,
I had a very powerful emotional reaction.
The chronicling of the Bad River history,
some of it not being the easiest to listen to and watch,
culminating with the expression of values
as it pertains to the seventh generation.
Our children that are still on the way
and also our landscapes and our waters.
It just was a very, very powerful kind of a hit
and the reaction for me was basically tears.
What is your response to Enbridge saying
that the tribe doesn't care about the people who depend
on the 540,000 gallons of oil
going through that pipeline every day?
Well, that's a characterization from a private corporation
being operated for profit.
And obviously the rest of that story is we have our set of values
and our concerns that center around drinking water aquifers,
the ability for our people to stay in our forever home,
now and into the future.
And so I really think it's part of the lowbrow book of tactics
that Enbridge has unleashed on our people,
trying to characterize us in the negative ways,
when really there are options,
there are other pipelines that are running
to those particular people in the areas.
And at the end of the day,
that Enbridge spokesperson is really talking
about his very own corporate profit.
Mary, why was this film important for you to make?
Thank you for that, and thank you for having us, Frederica.
I think, you know, this is a story that has not heretofore
had very much attention,
and it's about this small native community
that with monumental effort is looking to protect a resource.
And as former Mike German has said,
it's the freshwater stronghold of America.
And here you have this small group of Americans
that are fighting tooth and nail to protect the resource,
turning down, by the way, $80 million at last check
to settle the case.
And they're doing it not for themselves.
They're doing it for all of us.
And that is a remarkable act of selflessness,
of long-term thinking.
And for me as a non-native,
what a journey this has been.
And if only I can start thinking in a more group-oriented way,
what is better for community, what is better for society,
how amazing would that be if more of us could do that?
Mike, back to you.
A federal judge gave Enbridge three years to remove the pipeline.
What are your concerns about that?
Well, the very, the elephant in the corner on notions of removal
centered around Enbridge's desire to reroute,
staying within the watershed.
The reroute is going to be catastrophic.
We've seen in line three in Minnesota,
the breaching of aquifers and water toxicity.
The reroute, as it pertains to Bad River,
is in a really sensitive area of the upper watershed,
where groundwater and surface water interact.
And then there's the topic that's never been discussed,
which is the decommissioning and the safe removal of the pipe
and all of its bedding,
because the bedding is not very good for the environment.
But the decommissioning and removal of that pipe from the
reservation is going to be a journey too.
And there's nobody talking about that yet,
in terms of impacts and costs.
You know, I wanted to ask you, you spoke to the reroute
and an opinion piece in the journal Sentinel this week.
A Bad River tribal member said that some tribal members,
he said perhaps many want that pipeline,
that reroute of the pipeline,
because it represents construction jobs for them.
What is your response to that?
Well, that particular opinion piece,
I've seen the trademark fingerprints of Enbridge's public relations
arm in that letter, but at the end of the day,
with that tribal member signing that and taking ownership,
I thought the overall letter basically centered around money.
It's centered around self-interest in terms of,
there was a piece in there where he said,
talked about money and going directly to people.
And it's hard to fault folks for their desire to have money in their pocket.
This is a broader nation building issue that has ripple effects
that go decades and probably centuries into the future.
And so our governing body has continued to take a unified stand
against these types of corporate activities in a watershed.
And part of the Enbridge strategy has been to try to usurp
the tribal government to go directly to people,
to push for essentially the takeover and or thwarting
of the tribal governance stance.
That letter was per the script.
Mary, how has this film been received?
Well, we opened with AMC theaters on March 15th in 12 cities.
We not only expanded, but expanded to 25 locations actually,
mostly in Wisconsin, Chicago, Minnesota.
We continue to play today in Madison and many other locations.
If your viewers go to badriverfilm.com, there's online ticketing.
What we heard from certain theaters, particularly the Ashland Theater,
was that the film had outperformed Dune, Ghostbusters, and Godzilla,
which is just unheard of for documentary film.
And so I think what we're seeing is extraordinary reaction
to the project, a lot of learning by non-natives that go in to see the movie
and we're very excited about the journey ahead.
All right.
Well, we want to thank you both very much for joining us to talk about
this important project.
I'm Mary Mosio and Mike Wiggins.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Gregory Giffer.
For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin,
visit our website at pbswisconsin.org and then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight.
I'm Frederica Fryberg.
Have a good weekend.
Thank you.