Please watch the movie BAD RIVER ...now showing on Peacock/Comcast...
NATIONAL NATIVE NEWS:
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)
After securing key state permits, hurdles remain for
a Canadian energy firm’s plan to reroute an oil and gas pipeline around
the Bad River tribe’s reservation in Wisconsin.
As Danielle Kaeding reports, that includes renewed calls from tribal leaders to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5.
Bad River Tribal Vice Chair Patrick Bigboy says he’s shocked and
upset with the state’s decision to grant permits for Enbridge’s reroute.
The company proposed a new 41-mile segment around the tribe’s
reservation after the band sued the company to shut down and remove Line
5 from its lands. Bigboy says he wants the pipeline completely out of
the Bad River watershed.
“It’s now at the headwaters, which compromises more of the
reservation and the waterways, wetlands, all the things that are in line
with the river and the flow of the water.”
Bigboy says the federal government should uphold the tribe’s treaty
rights and water quality standards and deny federal approval of the
project.
Enbridge’s Midwest operations director Paul Eberth says federal
regulators will determine if its reroute poses impacts downstream.
“We expect to be able to, like we did with the state, meet the conditions in order to be able to secure a permit.”
An attorney for the tribe says they’re evaluating next steps for a legal challenge.
Over the past couple years, you’ve heard several times from us about
the Indigenous resistance to construction of what’s slated to become the
world’s largest lithium mine near Peehee Mu’huh (Thacker
Pass), on the ancestral lands of our Paiute and Shoshone relatives in
so-called Nevada. We remain ever grateful to Lakota Law supporters like
you who have taken action to try to stop the mine and helped us raise
funds to help support the legal defense of water and land protectors
targeted by law enforcement there.
Those issues aren’t going away. But today, I want to share with you
something I hope will lift your spirits. Each year, on Sept. 12, the
descendants of Ox Sam (according to the lore of the people, one of just
three Paiutes who survived the 1885 Mountain Meadow Massacre) host a run
to honor his memory — and all who were lost. This year, I traveled out
to participate with my daughter, Tokata, and Antoine Running Bear of the
Native American Youth Organization (NAYO).
I invite you to watch our new video,
narrated by Tokata, which highlights her participation in the run and
offers our appreciation to the grandmothers and all those who organized
this important recognition of history and resilience.
Watch: Tokata put in some miles to honor our Paiute relatives and their ancestors!
It should go without saying, but these lands — and many sites
contained within them — are sacred. While we may not, in the end, be
able to halt the mine’s construction, I’m grateful that you have helped
us make an impact by publicizing its threat to Native homelands, sacred
burial grounds, and a delicate ecosystem with several threatened
species. Your support has empowered what must be an ongoing conversation
about the continued necessity to gain consent from frontline
communities as we transition from fossil fuels to “clean” energy like
lithium, cobalt, and other critical minerals.
20% of these sought-after commodities lie under land currently
controlled by tribal governments. Even more minerals and other resources
are contained within land Native nations possess and over which we hold
legal claims — titles which have never been extinguished. We have a
right to be in our lands and withhold our consent on infrastructure
which puts us in the sacrifice zone.
Thank you for helping us make new friends in this struggle. Part of
what Lakota Law always aims to accomplish — with a renewed emphasis as
we complete our transition to full Indigenous leadership under the
Sacred Defense Fund — is the forging of rock-solid relationships and
partnerships with our fellow Indigenous People, across Turtle Island and
the world. On this trip, we met Ivan Bender, from the Hualapai Tribe in
Arizona, whose lands are also currently threatened by an exploratory
drilling project for lithium. Mining for lithium, gold, and other
resources also remains a major issue closer to home in the Black Hills.
Please stay with us as we move forward. We’ll have much more to say —
and there will be more you can help us do — to protect sacred lands,
elevate Indigenous voices, and safeguard the Native communities who seem
always to be disproportionately affected by incursions from extractive
industries. Your friendship means the world to us.
Wopila tanka — thank you for standing up for the sacred!
Chase Iron Eyes
Director and Lead Counsel
Lakota People’s Law Project
Sacred Defense Fund
