On January 13th, 2025, Indigenous Water Protectors and international climate justice organizers rallied at the Wisconsin DNR's headquarters in Madison to protest its recent approval of a permit to construct a 41-mile reroute of the Line 5 oil pipeline in northern Wisconsin. That go-ahead came just days after the agency was notified of an oil spill from Enbridge’s Line 6 pipeline near Cambridge in southern Wisconsin. The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa have fought Line 5 for years, pointing to the risk of a massive oil spill that threatens their traditional hunting, gathering, and fishing grounds and Lake Superior.

The group of around 50 gathered at the Capitol at 9 am. Indigenous Water Protectors and activists spoke and expressed their frustration that the DNR approved the permit for the Line 5 reroute, over the objections of the Bad River Band and the public, despite Enbridge's history of oil spills and environmental destruction, and in the face of a worsening climate crisis. The group then marched to the DNR to deliver a letter to DNR Director Greg Pils, demanding that the DNR revoke the permit and support the decommissioning and removal of Line 5. The group occupied the DNR lobby and stated their intention to stay until someone would speak with them.

Line 5 carries up to 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids every day from Superior, WI to Sarnia, Ontario. Both Lines 5 and 6 are owned by Enbridge, a Canadian multinational oil corporation. Line 5 currently crosses 12 miles of Bad River Band territory. In 2013 the Bad River Band declined to renew Enbridge’s easement to operate on their land, and they filed a federal lawsuit in 2019 to remove the pipeline from their reservation. In late 2022, a federal district judge ruled that Enbridge was trespassing on the tribe's land, and a federal court recently ordered the section of the pipeline running through Bad River lands to be shut down by 2026.