The U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday, July 30, that Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline is trespassing on tribal land within the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation in northern Wisconsin, upholding a lower court’s 2023 finding while giving the company more time to complete a reroute, according to ICT.
A three-judge panel agreed that the pipeline has trespassed on 12 miles of the reservation since a right-of-way agreement lapsed in 2013. “Enbridge’s trespass cannot continue unchecked across the Band’s sovereign land,” the panel wrote, citing the 1854 treaty that established the reservation.
The ruling reversed part of the 2023 district court order, which had set a June 2026 deadline for Enbridge to remove the pipeline from tribal land. The appeals court eliminated that fixed deadline, saying a hasty shutdown could violate a U.S.-Canada transit treaty and harm consumers, and directed the lower court to instead craft an injunction that balances the tribe’s and the public’s interests while giving Enbridge a “reasonable” window to finish its reroute. The panel also threw out the tribe’s public-nuisance claim and ordered the district court to recalculate a $5.15 million restitution award.
Enbridge is already 41 miles into a reroute project, approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in October 2025, that would move the pipeline entirely outside the reservation’s boundaries. Company spokesperson Juli Kellner said Enbridge is reviewing the ruling and pointed to the removal of the shutdown deadline as a positive outcome, per ICT.
The Bad River Band’s dispute with Enbridge dates to 2013, when the tribe declined to renew the company’s permit following a 2010 Enbridge pipeline rupture in Michigan that spilled nearly a million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River. The tribe sued in 2019. The Bad River Band did not immediately respond to ICT’s request for comment on Thursday’s ruling.
