Here & Now

But tribal nations are not alone in their concerns over line five, with its reroute around Bad River lands, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources called to halt work on the project after a construction truck ruptured the line, causing more than a million gallons of propane and butane to release into the atmosphere.

For its part, Enbridge says there was a project wide safety stand down for construction workers, during which project leadership reinforced safety protocols.

DNR Secretary Karen Hyun is here with latest details, and thanks very much for being here.

Thanks, Frederica.

It's nice to be with you.

So you called on Enbridge to halt work on the reroute construction.

And yet, according to the company, that work has already resumed.

What is your response to that?

Yeah, there are two separate issues here.

Just wanted to clarify.

One is that there is a an active incident happening around Saxon, Wisconsin.

We are still waiting to gain access to that site.

So that site and the safety of that site is controlled by Phmsa, which is the pipeline, and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.

It's the lead agency at the site, and we haven't had been authorized to access that site, but we're continuing to monitor the situation as it develops, and we'll be ready to be on site as soon as we can to evaluate the impacts.

There is also the issue of the relocation that I think you mentioned earlier.

There have been several issues of noncompliance that have happened where there have been drilling fluid that's leaked in the process of their horizontal drilling under some of the waterways as they reroute the pipeline around the bad River reservation.

I heard the concerns from and other tribal nations, and we share those concerns over those recent incidents as well, which is why we asked for a stand down.

And we continue to have robust dialog with Enbridge about how they can increase their safety and environmental compliance and compliance with the permits that we've issued.

a letter to Enbridge saying that you are deeply concerned about the latest spill and immensely frustrated by other recent noncompliant events, and that you want the company to demonstrate that measures are in place to prevent future spills.

Has the company demonstrated that.

We continue to have ongoing discussions with senior leadership at Enbridge?

There were noncompliance events in the past few months, and there continue to be some noncompliance events, even after the safety stand down.

So we're continuing to discuss with them what they can do to increase their compliance with the permits and reduce these frack out events.

latest leak?

There have been barrels of liquefied natural gas that have evaporated into the atmosphere and volatilized into the atmosphere, which we have concerns about.

We.

So until we can get into the site, it's hard for us to assess what the damage is to the air and the land and the waters of the state.

What concerns do you have going forward?

Well, first and foremost, I want to make sure that our staff and other members that are entering into this site are safe, so we have to make sure that we're following Phmsa guidelines and authority in terms of accessing the site.

Once we're able to get in, we're going to look at impacts to the air, to the groundwater, to the surface water to the soil, to the sediments, and see how they might be impacted by liquefied natural gas.

Enbridge is the responsible party will be taking measurements, and we'll be able to analyze that data and see what kind of damages we might need to assess.

How do you feel about the DNR's role in granting permits for this project?

In light of your current deep concerns?

We have statutory authority to issue permits for things like stormwater, waterways, wetlands, and other and other things, but those are the main ones.

For this.

We issued those permits with a lot of collaboration and public input and tribal input.

Over time, we are going to hold Enbridge accountable to the noncompliance events, particularly the frack outs that have been happening.

And we want to see improvements as construction continues on the pipeline.

Meanwhile, Enbridge hopes to restore service to the pipeline that carries 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas by next week.

What is your comfort with that at this point?

Yeah, as I understand it, because of the actual spill in Saxon, which is different than the noncompliance events I was talking about earlier, they have stopped shipping product across through the pipeline that goes to different refineries and places across the Midwest.

I understand the importance of being able to provide that energy source to other places and other states, and even to Canada, but we need to make sure that in that process, accidents like this spill, which are really serious, are taken seriously and cleaned up to remediate the environment.

All right.

We leave it there.

Secretary Karen, thank you so much.

Thank you.

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