Truck accident causes gas leak to Enbridge Line 5 in northeast Wisconsin

Enbridge’s Line 5, the most controversial pipeline in the Great Lakes region, was damaged and leaked natural gas on Aug. 25 in far northeastern Wisconsin.

Drone footage taken around 1 p.m. appears to show a gas leak near Sitan Road outside Saxon in Iron County.

Joe Bates, an environment activist and member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, told the Journal Sentinel he first heard reports of the leak on social media shortly after 10 a.m., and immediately went to the area to capture drone footage.

“This morning a parked, unoccupied semi-truck rolled into an open excavation site on a Line 5 valve project in rural northern Iron County, Wisconsin, striking the pipe and releasing Natural Gas Liquids,” said Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner in late afternoon.

“No one was injured. As a precaution, nearby rural homes have been evacuated. The section of pipe was immediately isolated, and local emergency response crews are on site.”

Earlier in the day, the Iron County Sheriff’s Department declined to confirm which pipeline was involved or provide any public health information to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources also would not confirm the source of the leak, but did provide GPS coordinates that – along with federal pipeline mapping – landed on the site of Enbridge’s Lakehead System Line 5.

The DNR did say that the truck accident occurred at around 10 a.m., on Sitan Road, and that Enbridge took one hour and 15 minutes to report the discharge to its spills hotline.

The DNR also said the gas was released into the air and is no longer under pressure. The company is still calculating the volume released.

Enbridge shut down the line to prevent further releases and plans to make repairs.

As of midafternoon, a fire department team was on scene, as well as Stantec, a Canadian engineering consulting firm that was monitoring air quality. Stantec also has a major presence in Milwaukee.

Enbridge, and Line 5, steeped in controversy

The huge Canadian pipeline and energy company, headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, owns and operates pipelines throughout Canada and the United States, transporting crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids.

Bates has frequently used drone footage to document conditions along Enbridge’s Line 5 corridor, including construction, erosion concerns along “the meander” and suspected drilling-fluid releases. The meander is a bend in the Bad River where flooding and erosion moved the riverbank to within 11 feet of the pipeline at one location, compared with more than 300 feet when the Band first sued Enbridge in 2019.

In June, Bates captured photographs of a frac-out, or an unintended release of drilling fluid, near Vaughn Creek as crews worked on Enbridge’s Line 5 reroute.

That inadvertent drilling-fluid release sent an estimated 1,600 to 1,900 gallons of bentonite clay slurry into a forested wetland near Gurney in Iron County. Enbridge estimated that 5 to 8 gallons reached nearby Vaughn Creek; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources staff said the reported volumes appeared accurate after visiting the site.

Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline has been the subject of years of controversy.

A federal court ruled that the company has been trespassing on the Bad River Band’s reservation since easements for a 12-mile segment expired in 2013 − a finding that was recently upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in July.

While the original ruling ordered Enbridge to remove the pipeline and set a June 2026 shutdown deadline, an appeals court upheld the removal requirement but set aside the deadline. It sent the case back to the lower court to establish a new timeline and recalculate damages.

The proposed 41-mile Wisconsin reroute has also prompted extensive litigation over its potential effects on wetlands, waterways, tribal treaty rights and Lake Superior.

More: As Lake Superior wetlands become more vulnerable, tribe fears cultural guideposts could slip away

Enbridge proposed its 41-mile Line 5 reroute around the Bad River Band’s reservation in 2019, after the Band sued to remove the original pipeline from its land. The new route would extend farther inland through Ashland and Iron counties, crossing Iron County Forest and skirting Copper Falls State Park. It would cross more than 180 Lake Superior tributaries, including the Bad River.

A 2021 estimate put the project’s cost a cost $450 million.

More: Along Wisconsin’s northern shores, Line 5 continues to pit tribal culture against Big Oil

Caitlin Looby covers the Great Lakes and the environment for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact: clooby@gannett.com. Follow her on X @caitlooby.

Caitlin is an Outrider Fellow and also receives support from the Brico Fund, Fund for Lake Michigan, Barbara K. Frank, and individual contributions to the Journal Sentinel Community-Funded Journalism Project. Journal Sentinel editors maintain full editorial control over all content. To support this work, visit jsonline.com/support. Checks can be addressed to Local Media Foundation (memo: “JS Community Journalism”) and mailed to P.O. Box 85015, Chicago, IL 60689.

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