Bad River Band sues Army Corps over Enbridge Line 5 Reroute

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking the Corps to reconsider a federal permit for a Canadian oil company. 

Enbridge wants to reroute its Line 5 pipeline around the Band’s reservation in northern Wisconsin. The Army Corp signed off on the permit in October. 

The Bad River Band is represented by Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, which filed the lawsuit last month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

The lawsuit claims the Corps failed to follow federal environmental laws in issuing the permit, including the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA).

Gussie Lord is managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Tribal Partnerships Program and lead attorney for the case.

“The concern is about the threat to the band’s watershed, to the Lake Superior watershed. The reroute would cross I think around 185 waterways, streams, and rivers. And it would impact over 100 acres of wetland,” Lord said.

Lord adds the wetlands and waterways affected are critical to the Band’s hunting, fishing, and wild rice practices, and to the health of the Lake Superior watershed.

The reroute comes after a separate legal battle. In 2013, several easements allowing Line 5 to cross the Band’s land expired. The Band chose not to renew them.

The Band itself filed a federal lawsuit against Enbridge in 2019, claiming the company was operating the pipeline without valid easements. 

In 2023, a federal judge ruled Enbridge was trespassing and ordered the company to shut down or remove that segment of the pipeline by June 2026. That decision is now under appeal in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Earthjustice also represents the Band in a separate lawsuit against the state filed last year, which challenges permits the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources issued for the reroute. The case is still pending.