June 12, 2023 at 12:01 p.m.
Minocqua a 'Safest Way' tour stop touting Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline
Lac du Flambeau tribe opposes project
Minocqua a 'Safest Way' tour stop touting Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline
According to a press release from the WJEC, it's "a coalition of Wisconsin labor, business and agricultural groups working together to ensure safe, affordable, and reliable energy."
The tour stop, in the parking lot of Rollie and Helen's Musky Shop and featuring a Michels Pipeline truck tractor with a flatbed trailer and a 34-foot long pipe section loaded on it, is one of the "Safest Way" tour stops meant to "highlight the importance of our state's energy pipelines."
"The Safest Way Tour, which has been making stops around the state since 2022, gives the community an opportunity to have a hands-on experience with a 34-foot piece of pipeline that is the same type of pipe that will be used in the Enbridge Line 5 relocation project in Ashland, Bayfield and Iron Counties," the WJEC press release stated.
The relocation project, which another WJEC press release states is "estimated to create over 700 Wisconsin construction jobs," is currently being reviewed by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.
There were several speakers at the brief event, the WJEC's Mark Graul the first to make comments.
"We are here today to celebrate something that is all too often taken for granted and that's how we get the energy we need to live our lives," he said. "The Wisconsin Jobs and Energy Coalition consists of over 40 diverse organizations and businesses that aren't always on the same side of issues."
Graul referenced a nearby list of labor unions and businesses, business organizations, farm groups and local governments that make up the WJEC.
"These groups have united to ensure access to safe, affordable and reliable energy," Graul said. "We introduced the 'Safest Way' tour last year in an effort to show what a pipeline looks like and educate people on the integral role pipelines play in all of our lives.
Pipelines like Line 5, he said, make it possible for people to get their kids to school.
"Heat our homes, dry our crops, cook our food, fly in an airplane on vacation and even take your family fishing," Graul said. "Energy, whether it's gas for your boat or to pull your boat or propane for the heater in the shanty for the winter, plays a big role in the fishing culture here in northern Wisconsin. Put simply, Wisconsin Jobs and Energy Coalition members know that pipelines, including Line 5, are the safest way to fuel our great state of Wisconsin. A 99.99 percent track record of success speaks for itself."
He then played the role of emcee for the brief presentation, introducing each of the nine speakers, most of them union representatives involved in the Line 5 project and all echoing Graul's message regarding what the project will do with respect to not only helping deliver energy safely, reliably and efficiently but the construction jobs the project will provide and also highlighting, as one of the people who spoke put it, "leaving the area better than we left it" once the construction was complete.
One of the speakers was Jason Weaver of Hayward, grant program manager for the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.
In his introduction of Weaver, Graul said "one of the neat things" about the Line 5 re-route project that "doesn't get enough attention is Enbridge's commitment "to work with Native-owned companies" on the project.
"In fact, Enbridge has committed $45 million in hiring Native businesses and training tribal members to work on Line 5," he said.
Weaver, not only a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians but also a former tribal council member, said his work with Enbridge "started early for me."
"I was able to help secure and make sure that we had a new easement approved for a continued safe, reliable flow of energy," he said. "For us, it was to help in our ability to help provide for our elders, provide for the children and the schools and make sure the cost of everything was kept low."
Weaver said it was all in order for Lac Courte Oreilles tribal members "to participate in our treaty rights such as hunting, fishing and gathering, we also use petroleum projects."
"It's no doubt that it has an important place in our lives as well," he said. "Just like everybody else, we all depend on tourism and to get people to come up here and see this beautiful piece of property and go home, that is really important for us."
After everyone spoke, those in the small crowd that gathered were given the opportunity to sign their name on the pipeline section loaded on the flatbed trailer.
LdF tribe's response
There were no protests at the June 7 "Safest Way" tour stop in Minocqua but a statement regarding the tour stop - and Enbridge's Line 5 project in general - was issued by the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians "on what appears to be a deceptive attempt to portray the Tribe's participation in an energy industry event designed to grease the skids for Enbridge Energy's Line 5 oil pipeline that risks harming vital resources to human survival."
"The Lac du Flambeau Tribe does not support Enbridge Energy's efforts nor the event in Minocqua, which seems a brazen attempt to mislead the public and the media about where our Tribe stands on Enbridge Energy's Line 5 oil pipeline," tribal president John D. Johnson Sr. said in the statement. "Enbridge Energy continues to poison our environment and fight for the ongoing right to do so by running Line 5 through areas that impact those living in and around the Bad River Reservation."
Johnson said in the statement "Line 5 has a long history of unleashing environmental damage, according to studies."
"In the last 50 years, the pipeline has had 29 spills, releasing a total of 1.1 million gallons of toxic oil into the environment," he said of the Enbridge line. "Researchers recently determined that most spills were not even discovered by Enbridge's leak detection systems, which Enbridge uses to justify reckless pipeline routes."
Johnson said the Lac du Flambeau tribe "demands an apology" from the WJEC "for misleading the public and media by issuing statements that imply the Tribe is participating in its event."
"Our Tribe stands firmly against polluting vital resources we need to survive and any statements to the contrary - explicitly or implicitly - come from a source that's not to be trusted," he said.
Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].
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