LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed a brief in support of the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians of the Bad River Reservation in their lawsuit against Enbridge Energy Co.

The Band seeks to eject Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline from its Reservation land. In May, Nessel filed a brief in support of the Band’s case in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. Nessel’s concern is that erosion of the Bad River’s bank threatens to expose the pipeline directly to the river which she says would almost certainly cause the pipeline to rupture and release oil into the river, which flows directly into Lake Superior.

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Enbridge’s Line 5 moves up to 540,000 barrels per day (bpd) of light crude oil, light synthetic crude oil, and natural gas liquids (NGLs), primarily propane, to Michigan and points beyond. It goes along a 645-mile stretch from Northwest Wisconsin into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, running under the Straits of Mackinac, through the Lower Peninsula and then into Sarnia, Canada. Before reaching the Straits, it goes through a section of pipeline on the Bad River Reservation.

The Federal Court in Wisconsin found that Enbridge is trespassing on the Reservation and ordered it to cease its trespass by shutting down or rerouting Line 5 within three years, to pay in excess of $5 million to the Band, and required Enbridge to adopt a plan by which it will shut down the pipeline if erosion reaches a certain point.

Both Enbridge and the Band have appealed this decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, with the Band arguing that the court’s order does not do enough to protect against the threat of an oil spill. Nessel filed today in support of the Band’s appeal.

“The evidence in this case clearly establishes that Enbridge trespassed on the Band’s land and has operated Line 5 illegally since 2013,” Nessel said. “This illegal trespass creates a grave risk of an oil spill that would contaminate the Bad River, the Reservation, and Lake Superior. On behalf of the People of the State of Michigan I am taking this action to protect our Great Lakes from the threat posed by polluters who value their own bottom line more than our priceless natural resources.”

All 18 Michigan Senate Republicans came to the defense of Enbridge the same day that Nessel filed her brief, they had a press conference with state Sen. John Damoose (R-Harbor Springs) saying, “We need to stop in this state the all-out assault on the energy industry that we’re undertaking right now. There’s a push to get rid of the entire oil and gas industry, which is absolutely irresponsible. And make no mistake, the attack on Line 5 is exactly that, a push to get rid of the oil and gas industry. The fact is, we could be halfway done with this tunnel right now if everybody would stop dragging their feet and do their jobs. Thousands of great Michigan laborers could at this very moment be working in the Straits of Mackinac to build this tunnel. In fact, this tunnel was something we all should have been proud of.”

The state senators also sent a letter to Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Lt. Gen. Scott A. Spellmon, chief of engineers and commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), to use the permitting process for the project to be expedited. The USACE has responded in the media that they are following the procedures and guidance for preparing a National Environmental Policy Act Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). That EIS has a timeline of being done in the spring of 2025.

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Permitting approval on the project is also required by the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) which said in a statement, “Enbridge’s application is a complex matter, and the Commission has taken a number of steps since the case was filed, including addressing the scope of the issues to be considered in April 2021 and reopening the record in July 2022 to gather additional evidence on engineering and safety matters critical to the proposed project. A case this significant deserves robust deliberation, and the Commission will issue its order in due course.”

The third permitting entity that is involved in the project is the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) which has already granted approval. They are also the only state-run agency involved in the permitting process.

Line 5, which is owned and operated by Canadian energy company Enbridge, has long been a target in the crosshairs of Governor Whitmer, AG Nessel and the rest of the Democrats in Michigan. With environmentalists expressing concerns about an oil spill in the Straits waters, Whitmer and Nessel have filed lawsuits in an attempt to shut down the project and Gov. Whitmer has said, “So long as oil is flowing through the pipelines, there is a very real threat of a catastrophic oil spill in the Great Lakes.”

Michigan News Source reached out to Enbridge for a comment on Nessel’s involvement in the appeal but they didn’t return our request for comment.