skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

WI Tribal Advocates: Pipeline Threatens Agricultural Traditions

play audio
Play

Friday, May 13, 2022   

Enbridge is seeking to reroute a portion of its Line 5 around the Bad River Band's territory in northern Wisconsin.

The rerouting falls within the tribe's watershed, and tribal advocates argued it poses risks to tribal farming traditions.

Aurora Conley, chair of the Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance and a member of the Bad River Ojibwe, said the potential environmental fallout could be disastrous for the region's wild rice fields. She explained wild rice, or manoomin, is more than an agricultural commodity to the tribe.

"This is why we migrated to this area," Conley pointed out. "We were told to keep going until we found the food that grows on waters, that being the wild rice. It's our job to take care of the rice. We were told if we could take care of the rice that we would survive, and we have."

According to the National Wildlife Federation, Line 5, which currently crosses the tribe's land, leaked 29 times from 1968 to 2017. A company spokesperson said an estimated $46 million dollars will be spent with Native-owned businesses and communities for the rerouting, and the project is undergoing reviews by state and federal regulators. The integrity of those reviews has been questioned by tribal leaders and environmental groups.

Last month, more than 200 organizations submitted a letter urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to halt new construction on Line 5, including updates outside of Wisconsin, and conduct a top-down Environmental Impact Statement.

Osprey Orielle Lake, executive director of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network International, signed the letter, noting the Biden-Harris administration made campaign promises to begin divesting the nation from fossil fuel.

"This struggle to stop Line 5 we think is really vital to protect Indigenous rights," Lake asserted. "Protect Indigenous cultural lifeways, and also to protect the water for all of us and the climate for all of us."

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) conducted its own draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Wisconsin reroute, which received more than 10,000 written comments.

Among other issues, Conley contended the document does not consider the cultural and historical importance of rice to the Ojibwe, and how damaging the crop would be a direct strike at their cultural identity.

"You can't commodify love," Conley emphasized. "That rice represents a gift of love from a spiritual essence that was given to us. And it's been our duty since the beginning of time to take care of that."

According to the DNR, northern Wisconsin's wild rice fields can produce more than 500 pounds of seed per acre, and are an important source of food and shelter for native and migratory wildlife.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021