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A post marks where Enbridge’s Line 5 crosses the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa on Friday, June 24, 2022. (Photo: Danielle Kaeding / WPR)
A Lake Superior tribe in Wisconsin says a Canadian energy firm’s plans to reroute an oil and gas pipeline will violate its water quality standards under the Clean Water Act.
Danielle Kaeding has more.
Energy firm Enbridge wants to reroute Line 5 after the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa sued the company in 2019 to shut down and remove the pipeline from its lands.
Line 5 carries up to 23 million gallons of oil and natural gas liquids daily from Superior to Sarnia, Ontario.
Federal regulators signed off on the tribe’s water quality standards in 2009.
Bad River Tribal Chair Robert Blanchard says the reroute would harm the tribe’s resources.
Earthjustice attorney Stefanie Tsosie represents the tribe. She says it’s possible blasting bedrock to install the pipe could unearth elements that could become hazardous when exposed.
“The blasting materials themselves could be hazardous and introduce hazardous components to the water.”
She says those may include PFAS, mercury, or other chemicals.
An Enbridge spokesperson says the company is confident the project will not significantly impact water quality or exceed the tribe’s standards.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski on the Senate floor February 13, 2025. (Courtesy C-SPAN)
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) has introduced a bill that would officially designate North America’s highest mountain as Denali, its Koyukon Athabascan name.
The legislation would require that any reference in U.S. laws, maps, or other records refer to the mountain as Denali.
This comes after President Donald Trump’s executive order to change the name back to Mount McKinley.
Sen. Murkowski spoke about the mountain on the Senate floor last week, saying for Alaskans it will always be Denali.
She says her action follows the Alaska State Legislature, which recently moved a resolution urging the administration and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to maintain the name Denali.
And as Rhonda McBride from our flagship station KNBA tells us, the fight to preserve the name is an old battle.
If she were alive, Poldine Carlo would probably sing her Denali song to protest President Trump’s executive order.
Carlo was in her late 90’s when she performed her Denali song at a Denakkanaaga elders and youth conference.
She had greeted President Barack Obama with the same song, when he visited Alaska in 2015, the summer his administration changed the name back from McKinley to Denali.
“It just felt so good and it was healing.”
Angela Gonzalez remembers when Poldine sang the song for President Obama.
In her Athabascan Woman Blog, she wrote about it and the joy she felt over the return of the ancient name.
“Just a feeling of a great land and untold stories from our ancestors.”
Gonzalez’s maiden name is Yatlin, which means “runner”, and refers to her family’s long history of trading goods.
“We definitely traveled a long ways.” where the mountain was part of a long network of trails that went all the way from Siberia to California – and Denali, which means tall one in her Koyukon Athabascan language, was an important landmark.
“We were people who traded everywhere. We have artifacts from other locations.”
Gonzalez says no matter what the president does, Denali will always be Denali.
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