An Enbridge Oil Spill in Wisconsin Is Eroding Trust as the Fight Over Line 5 Continues

A recent oil spill in Wisconsin is exacerbating already tense relationships between state officials and several groups that are fighting to stop a controversial pipeline project from moving forward.

For years, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, along with several environmental groups, have been fighting to stop Enbridge Energy from replacing 41 miles of its Line 5 pipeline that runs through northern Wisconsin. The groups say the project will endanger wildlife and sensitive wetlands used by tribal members.

Wisconsin officials approved two key permits for that project last month following a lengthy environmental review that concluded the Line 5 project could be safely constructed and maintained. But opponents are calling that decision a mistake, pointing to an oil spill at a separate Enbridge pipeline in the state that was reported just days before the Line 5 permit approvals.

On Nov. 11, an Enbridge technician discovered a valve failure that resulted in the release of nearly 70,000 gallons of crude oil from the company’s Line 6 pipeline in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, west of Milwaukee, according to a federal accident report released last week. In the report, investigators noted that the pipeline “was likely leaking for an extended period of time,” and that the employee found the leak during a routine check—indications that Enbridge didn’t immediately notice the problem. The report also said the spill did not result in any injuries or deaths, and that the oil contaminated soil but not groundwater.

Opponents of the Line 5 project say the Line 6 spill, as well as how it was handled, has further eroded their trust in state regulators. Some also criticized the DNR for not making information about the spill immediately available to the public. 

“The very same week that DNR issued permits for Line 5 based on its conclusion that the risk for a spill would be ‘low,’ DNR was investigating a significant oil leak on another Enbridge pipeline,” Tony Wilkin Gibart, executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates, said in a statement. “The faulty segment on Line 6 in Jefferson County has a leak detection system, but that system failed to even detect the leak.”

The spill is Enbridge’s worst in Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, surpassing a 2012 incident that spilled 50,000 gallons in Adams County. But Robert Blanchard, chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said he didn’t learn about the incident until last week. He called it “a red flag” that authorities didn’t publicly release details of the leak until a month after Enbridge reported finding it.

“Why weren’t we notified on Nov. 11 instead of a month later?” he asked. “I wondered, ‘Is 70,000 gallons the right number that they’re talking about or is there more to it than that?’”

Enbridge didn’t respond to questions emailed by Inside Climate News, but over the weekend the company told local media that it had cleaned up 60 percent of the contaminated soil from the spill.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources didn’t answer specific questions, but pointed to a Tuesday press release, in which the agency said it was receiving weekly updates from Enbridge on the investigation and cleanup progress and “continues to evaluate appropriate next steps, including any potential enforcement actions such as a corrective action order.”

Enbridge has had its fair share of oil spills and accidents over the years, including the four instances of ruptured aquifers in Minnesota during the construction of its Line 3 pipeline, as well as a 2010 failure when its Line 6B spilled more than 1 million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River and a nearby creek, making it one of the biggest and expensive oil pipeline spills in U.S. history.

Unlike Line 5, which runs directly through the Bad River Band reservation, Line 6 does not pass near Bad River tribal lands. Still, Blanchard and other environmental groups view the recent incident as material to their ongoing legal fight with the state over Line 5.

“The close to 70,000 gallons of leaking crude oil from Enbridge’s Line 6 in Jefferson County shows why we have challenged DNR’s approval of the Line 5 reroute and why we have specifically challenged DNR’s conclusion that the risk of a Line 5 spill is small,” Gibart said. “The risks posed by Line 5 are not small.”

Enbridge’s replacement project will move the pipeline out of the reservation boundaries, but Blanchard said it will remain upstream from them. A potential spill would contaminate wetlands that tribal members use for fishing, harvesting wild rice and other important Native traditions, he said. A recent report found that a potential shutdown of Line 5 pipeline would have a minimal impact on natural gas prices.

Last Thursday, the Bad River Band, along with Midwest Environmental Advocates and several other environmental groups, filed a petition for a contested case hearing with the Wisconsin DNR, challenging the agency’s Line 5 permit approvals.

The Bad River Band, with help from the legal group Earthjustice, also filed a lawsuit against the agency, accusing it of violating the Wisconsin Environmental Protection Act by “producing an inadequate final Environmental Impact Statement on the reroute” of Line 5.

“This is our whole whole reasoning for trying to get this out of our backyard,” Blanchard said, referring to a potential rupture of Line 5. “It puts at risk a lot of things, especially our wild rice, which grows along the shore of Lake Superior—a lot of our people harvest that … I use it to feed my family.”