Mike Wiggins, Jr. and Mary Mazzio on 'Bad River' and Line 5

Frederica Freyberg:
Heading up north, the story and history of oppression and resistance of a native tribe along Lake Superior is told in a new documentary called “Bad River.” The film travels centuries back in time chronicling broken treaties, land loss and attempts to wipe out their identity. But defiance and resiliency remain the common thread to overcoming struggle. Today, the Bad River Band is fighting the presence of a 70-year-old oil pipeline from the Canadian Enbridge company. The pipeline, referred to as Line 5, is on land leased by the band in a legal agreement long expired. Moreover, experts fear the imminent rupture of the aging infrastructure.

Kevin Maillard:
We have a corporation that wants the land for their own profit. They are saying you cannot be the last authority of denial for us. This is the corporation telling the tribe, I would like to see your manager.

Tom Garcia:
It’s outrageous that Enbridge continued to pump.

Mike Fernandez:
You have a vital resource and effectively you have a tribal community saying we want to shut all of that down and we don’t care about the millions of people that are dependent on 540,000 barrels of oil that are going through that pipeline on a daily basis.

Patty Loew:
My little tribe is standing up and saying, we’re protecting the water, not just for us, we’re protecting water for the planet.

Frederica Freyberg:
Filmmaker Mary Mazzio and former chairman of the Bad River Band Mike Wiggins, Jr. joins us now. Thanks so much for being here both of you.

Mary Mazzio:
Thank you for having us.

Mike Wiggins, Jr.:
Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:
First to you, Mike. When you first saw this film, what was your reaction?

Mike Wiggins, Jr.:
My first reaction was actually I had a very powerful emotional reaction. The chronicling of the Bad River history, some of it not being the easiest to listen to and watch, culminating with the expression of values as it pertains to the seventh generation, our children that are still on the way and also our landscapes and our waters. It just was very, very powerful kind of reaction for me was basically tears.

Frederica Freyberg:
What is your response to Enbridge saying that the tribe doesn’t care about the people who depend on the 540,000 gallons of oil going through that pipeline every day?

Mike Wiggins, Jr.:
Well, that’s a characterization from a corporation, a private corporation being operated for profit and obviously the rest of that story is we have our set of values and our concerns that center around drinking water aquifers, the ability for our people to stay in our forever home now and into the future, and so I really think it’s part of the low brow book of tactics that Enbridge has unleashed on our people trying to characterize us in a negative way when really there are options. There are other pipelines that are running to those particular people and areas and at the end of the day, that Enbridge spokesperson is really talking about his very own corporate profit.

Frederica Freyberg:
Mary, why was this film important for you to make?

Mary Mazzio:
Thank you for that and thank you for having us, Frederica. I think, you know, this is a story that has not heretofore had very much attention and it’s about this small native community that, with monumental effort, is looking to protect a resource, and as former chairman has said, it’s the freshwater stronghold of America. Here you have this small group of Americans that are fighting tooth and nail to protect the resource, turning down, by the way, $80 million at last check to settle the case and they’re doing it not for themselves. They’re doing it for all of us. And that is a remarkable act of selflessness, of long-term thinking, and for me as a nonnative, what a journey this has been and if only I can start thinking in a more group-oriented way what is better for community, what is better for society, how amazing would that be if more of us could do that.

Frederica Freyberg:
Mike, back to you. A federal judge gave Enbridge three years to remove the pipeline. What are your concerns about that?

Mike Wiggins, Jr.:
Well, the very — the elephant in the corner on notions of removal center around Enbridge’s desire to reroute, staying within the watershed. The reroute is going to be catastrophic. We’ve seen in line 3 in Minnesota the breaching of aquifers and water toxicity. The reroute as it pertains to Bad River is in a really sensitive area of the upper watershed where groundwater and surface water interact. And then there’s the topic that’s never been discussed, which is the decommissioning and the safe removal of the pipe and all of its bedding because the bedding is not very good for the environment, but the decommissioning and removal of that pipe from the reservation is going to be a journey, too, and there’s nobody talking about that yet in terms of impacts and costs.

Frederica Freyberg:
I wanted to ask you, you spoke to the reroute. In an opinion piece in the Journal Sentinel this week, a Bad River tribal member said that some tribal members, he said perhaps many, want that pipeline, that reroute of the pipeline because it represents construction jobs for them. What is your response to that?

Mike Wiggins, Jr.:
Well, that particular opinion piece, I’ve seen the trademark fingerprints of Enbridge’s public relations arm in that letter, but at the end of the day, with that tribal member signing that and taking ownership, I thought the overall letter basically centered around money. It’s centered around self-interest in terms of — there was a piece in there where he said — talked about money going directly to people, and it’s hard to fault folks for their desire to have money in their pocket. This is a broader, nation-building issue that has ripple effects that go decades and probably centuries into the future, so our governing body has continued to take a unified stand against these types of corporate activities in the watershed and part of the Enbridge strategy has been to try to usurp the tribal government, to go directly to people, to push for essentially the takeover and/or thwarting of the tribal governance stance. That letter was per the script.

Frederica Freyberg:
Mary, how has this film been received?

Mary Mazzio:
Well, we opened with AMC Theatres on March 15th in 12 cities. We not only extended but expanded to 25 locations, actually, mostly in Wisconsin, Chicago, Minnesota. We continue to play today in Madison and many other locations. If your viewers go to BadRiverFilm.com, there’s on-line ticketing. What we heard from certain theatres, particularly the Ashland theatre, was that the film had outperformed “Dune,” “Ghostbusters” and “Godzilla,” which is just unheard of for a documentary film. And so I think what we’re seeing is extraordinary reaction to the project, a lot of learning by nonnatives that go in to see the movie and we’re very excited about the journey ahead.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Well, we want to thank you both very much for joining us to talk about this important project. Mary Mazzio and Mike Wiggins, thank you.

Mary Mazzio:
Thank you so much, Frederica.

Mike Wiggins, Jr.:
Thank you.