(Washington) A controversial oil and gas pipeline between Canada and the United States, known as Line 5, could face its toughest adversary yet: the very watershed that the pipeline’s critics are trying to protect.
Spring flooding washed away significant portions of the shoreline where Line 5 intersects the Wisconsin Bad River, whose winding 120-kilometre course through Indigenous territory feeds Lake Superior and a complex network of wetlands of interest ecological.
Lake Superior’s Chippewa of Bad River First Nation has been in court against Alberta energy giant Enbridge since 2019, in a bid to force the owner and operator of the pipeline to reroute Line 5 to run around its traditional territory.
But last month, Mother Nature upped the ante.
“There is no longer any doubt now that the small amount of shoreline that remains could be eroded and the pipeline mined and drilled in a short time,” lawyers for the Aboriginal group argued in an emergency motion filed last week. “There is very little room for error. »
A few meters from an eroded shore
Line 5 meets the river in Indigenous territory just past a place the court called the “meander,” where the river bed meanders several times, separated from the pipeline by only a few meters of forest.
In four places, the river is within 4.6 meters of the pipeline – just 3.4 meters at one point – and erosion has continued in recent days at an “alarming” rate, the petition says.
In one case, ‘monuments’ installed to measure losses show that where there was more than 10 meters of bank in early April, before the flooding began, only 3.7 meters remained last Tuesday.
“Significant erosion has been ongoing since this petition was filed, and the evidence strongly suggests that further edge loss could be substantial and lead to exposure and rupture of the pipeline. »
Wisconsin District Court Judge William Conley has scheduled a hearing Thursday to hear argument on the motion, which seeks an injunction that would force Enbridge to shut down the pipeline and purge its contents.
In a statement released last Tuesday, Enbridge described the request as “truly outrageous” and “unnecessary.”
“There are no pipeline safety concerns and certainly no cause for alarm,” the company said.
“To be clear, the leaders of the group seem determined to shut down this part of critical North American energy infrastructure, regardless of who will be affected by their actions. »
Enbridge has proposed “numerous plans” to strengthen the bank and install an additional emergency valve on the pipeline to further mitigate the risk – work that requires First Nation approval.
The Chippewa community insists that no work can be done to strengthen the bank. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Enbridge said.
Asked if the company was putting contingency plans in place, “there is no existing alternative” to Line 5, company spokeswoman Juli Kellner said.
“We will argue, based on expert testimony, that Line 5 is safe,” added Mr.me Keller. Line 5 is not exposed; it is buried several feet underground. »
Justice Conley previously noted in court that the Aboriginal group, which Ms.me Kellner, who has already rejected more than a dozen proposals from Enbridge to shore up the bank, “isn’t interested in any sort of solution” other than shutting down the pipeline, she added.
A “spill would be a disaster”
It’s important to remember that neither party to the dispute wants to see the pipeline severed, said James Coleman, an energy law scholar at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in Dallas.
“Any type of spill would be a disaster for everyone involved, including Enbridge,” said Coleman. Obviously, I think the goal is, “Hey, let’s keep this going as long as it’s safe to do so until we have a reroute.” »
In a landmark ruling last fall, Judge Conley made it clear he was not interested in ordering Line 5 closed as a precaution, citing the likely economic and foreign policy impacts of such a move.
The question now, Coleman said, is whether he gets convinced that erosion has changed the facts on the ground and indeed poses an imminent threat to the Bad River watershed and to Lake Superior itself. -even.
At this point, however, neither the Bad River First Nation nor the growing coalition of environmental groups on both sides of the Canada-US border that support their challenge need convincing.
“The interconnected waters that flow through the Mashkiiziibii – the Bad River – are inseparable from the existence of our people,” First Nation Chief Mike Wiggins said in a statement.
“This is an imminent threat not only to our way of life, but to the clean waters that sustain all residents and businesses in the Lake Superior basin. The court must take action to close and purge Line 5 before it’s too late. »
The dispute illustrates one of the major logistical difficulties with pipelines, where a problem in one place impacts the entire operation, Coleman said – and that’s not going away anytime soon, even if fuels fossils eventually exhaust themselves.
“This is a fundamental challenge of linear infrastructure,” he said.
Clean, renewable energy will still have to travel across the continent via power lines, and hydrogen will also require pipelines and storage infrastructure in much the same way as oil and gas.
“Our clean energy sources are more dependent on linear infrastructure,” Coleman said.
“In the worst case, most of these liquids can at least be transported by truck or shipped by rail. But for electricity, hydrogen or things like that, they are totally dependent on the linear infrastructure. »