The Largest Oil Spill in Wisconsin History Happened Three Days Before Approval of Line 5 Reroute

It resulted in 69,000 gallons of crude oil spilling onto the ground in Jefferson County, the largest oil spill in Wisconsin history. Yet the public was not informed of the size of the spill until a month later, on December 13.

Under Wisconsin law, entities that cause environmental contamination are responsible for reporting and remediating the damage.

Enbridge spokesperson Julie Kellner says, “Enbridge immediately reported the release to state and federal regulators and the National Response Center and initiated investigation and remediation.” Kellner did not comment on why the company did not inform the public of the size of the spill until December 13.

Kellner says the leak was caused by a faulty connection on a pump transfer pipe within the station. “Local landowners and government officials have been informed of our response, and we will continue to provide them with updates,” Kellner says. “We are working with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) as cleanup and restoration proceed.”

Once the source of the spill was detected, in what the official accident report says was a “product staining an area of gravel,” operators fixed the line and the station returned to full service. The report also states that it was “likely leaking for an extended period of time.”

Initially, Enbridge estimated the spill was two-gallons of oil, and the Wisconsin DNR inspected the pumping station the day it was reported. Three days later, Enbridge revised the spill estimate to 126 gallons and then 1,650 barrels (69,300 gallons) on December 13.

The spill is estimated to cost $890,456, and the addition of repairs and emergency response will increase the cost to $1.1 million, according to Great Lakes Now. 

Kellner says that the oil has been contained to the station. “We estimate roughly 60% of the volume of oil released (960 barrels of an estimated 1,650 barrels) has been recovered so far through excavation of impacted soils within the pump station. Additional remedial measures are being evaluated and will move forward with approval from the Wisconsin DNR.”

It’s still unclear if any waterways were impacted by the Line 6 spill, which occurred near a waterway that flows into Lake Ripley, close to a constellation of nature preserves and campgrounds east of Madison. The accident report noted that the pipeline’s leak detection systems did not notify anyone of the leak. 

Enbridge isn’t new to spills. In 2010, their Line 6B pipeline spilled 1 million gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River. Enbridge didn’t notice until 17 hours later when an outside caller alerted them. This accident is still the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history. 

Three days after the Line 6 oil spill, on November 14, the controversial reroute for the Line 5 pipeline, which runs from Superior, Wisconsin, and across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Sarnia, Ontario, was approved. However, the new reroute still faces pushback from tribal citizens and other critics, with environmental activists saying the risk to Lake Superior and its watershed is still too high. 

The pipeline cuts through 4.5 miles under the Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron and 12 miles of the Bad River Band of Land Superior Chippewa tribal reservation in Ashland County, Wisconsin. Line 5’s right-of-way across the Bad River Band’s land expired in 2013. The 8,000 members of the Bad River Band at the time sued Enbridge, a corporation with a net worth of more than $72 billion after the company refused to shut the pipeline down. In 2023, a U.S. federal court held that Enbridge was willfully trespassing on Bad River Band property and that the pipeline must be removed and rerouted. 

The new reroute plan proposed by Enbridge will go around the tribe’s reservation for 41 miles and, if completed, cost $500 million. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is still drafting an assessment for the plan. 

The reroute will include blasting, drilling and digging trenches that would destroy wetlands and waterways, which would impact the tribe’s wild rice beds. 

In a November 14 statement, the Bad River Band says that when Enbridge rerouted Line 3, there were four aquifer breaches, and investigations found water quality violations in northern Minnesota. Enbridge was ordered to pay more than $11 million in pipeline violations. 

EarthJustice, who represents the Bad River Band in the Line 5 reroute project, announcing two legal challenges to protect resources in the Bad River and coastal wetlands that will impact “at least 186 waterways and 101 acres of high-quality wetlands that drain into Lake Superior.”

EarthJustice Attorney Robert Lundberg says the Line 6 spill shows that Enbridge cannot be trusted. “After its disasters in Michigan and Minnesota, and now the Jefferson County oil spill, it’s clear that DNR should never have permitted the Line 5 reroute. This isn’t rocket science—the Line 5 reroute is just another Enbridge disaster waiting to happen.”

The Bad River Band’s reservation includes almost 200 square miles of undeveloped land, including the Kakagon Sloughs, a 16,000-acre wetland that has been described as the “Everglades of the North,” and has been their home for thousands of years. Approximately 1,500 tribal members live on the reservation, where they practice hunting, fishing, and harvesting wild rice. The Bad River Band’s current 7,000 members, many of whom live elsewhere, still have the right to use the land. 

In March 2024, a documentary Bad River was released profiling the Bad River Band’s efforts in fighting for their history and their land. The film also highlights how the Bad River has moved the soil surrounding the pipeline, rejecting it from the Earth and leaving the pipeline hovering completely exposed. The threat of an oil spill would devastate the entire region. 

Unease about the spill at Line 6 is plaguing tribal members’ and local critics’ minds, leading to more distrust and frustration. 

What happened at Line 6 could happen at Line 5.

On November 13, 2020, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down Line 5 under the Public Trust Doctrine to protect the Great Lakes, citing violations like missing supports, protective coatings and pipeline damage.

In 2021, Enbridge sent a letter to Gov. Whitmer and the Michigan DNR stating that they would continue operations. 

The state dropped the case to focus on a lawsuit filed in 2019 by Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General, Dana Nessel, to shut down the 4.5-mile portions of Line 5 that run under the Straits of Mackinac. The lawsuit is still pending. Nessel declined to comment. 

Line 5 has leaked an estimated 30 times since 1968, ranging from 8 gallons to 285,600 gallons, information that was obtained by the National Wildlife Federation through the Freedom of Information Act. Enbridge staff have detected the majority of spills; only one was discovered by a leak detection system. 

Nevertheless, Enbridge has stated that Line 5 is safe. On their website, they say that Line 5 has an indefinite lifespan if “properly operated, monitored, and maintained.”

However, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers estimates that a pipeline’s lifespan is 50 to 70 years. Line 5 is 71 years old. 

The Mackinac Straits would be the worst possible place for a Great Lakes oil spill, according to University of Michigan research, as it would impact 720 miles of shoreline. An oil spill from Line 5 would destroy the fragile ecosystem of the Bad River, which flows into Lake Superior, causing catastrophic damage to the Bad River Band’s forever home. 

“It’s frightening to me,” says Robert Blanchard, chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, “Enbridge’s technology failed with Line 6, and it will fail with Line 5. If the pipeline were to spill in our watershed, how long would it take them to notify us? Would we find out about it before they did? This is simply not acceptable. We don’t want Line 5 in our backyard, and we don’t want it in our watershed.”

S. Nicole LaneMore by this author →

S. Nicole Lane has been a freelancer for the past ten years and is the editor of Healthnews. She lives on Chicago's South Side.