Indigenous Michiganders Led the Charge in Shutting Down Line 5

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KATELYN KIVEL

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED
DECEMBER 4, 2020 1:28 PM EST

The shutdown of Enbridge’s Line 5 marks a major moment in relations between the State of Michigan and the native Anishinaabe people.

BAY MILLS, Mich.—The Anishinaabe, known also as Chippewa or Ojibwe, are an Indigenous group living in Michigan and Ontario.

For hundreds of years, Anishinaabe people have lived around Whitefish Bay in the Upper Peninsula, becoming established as the Bay Mills Indian Community (BMIC) in 1860 by an act of Congress. Without their lands, taken from them by the government of the United States, there would be no Michigan.

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For years, the BMIC has fought against the oil company Enbridge and the controversial Line 5 pipeline. Line 5 ran through the heart of Anishinaabe territory, ceded to the United States in 1836 paving the way for Michigan’s statehood in 1837, BMIC explained in a 2018 letter. That treaty granted the now-Bay Mills people the ability to, among other things, fish their waters in perpetuity. They argued that given Enbridge’s responsibility for the oil spill in the Kalamazoo river in 2010, Line 5 risked Michigan’s ability to hold up its end of the bargain.

As he was approving the Line 5 project, then-Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, ignored the 1836 treaty and consulted none of Michigan’s federally recognized Indigenous populations.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, on the other hand, recognized those treaties.

“The Great Lakes and the Straits of Mackinac also have special ecological, cultural and economic significance for the tribes of Michigan, including, but not limited to, the tribes that retain reserved hunting, fishing and gathering rights in the lands and waters ceded to the United States under the 1836 Treaty of Washington,” the order shutting Line 5 reads. “An oil spill or release from the Straits Pipelines would have severe, adverse impacts for tribal communities. The tribes have fundamental interests in the preservation of clean water, fish and habitat at the Straits. Many tribal members rely on treaty protected rights of commercial and subsistence fishing in the Straits and other Great Lakes waters that could be impacted by an oil spill or release.”

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https://gandernewsroom.com/2020/12/04/indigenous-shutting-down-line-5/