Ashland County

Well, it varies a little bit in terms of some of these are in waterways, some are more, you know, forested areas.

So the terrain and the geography changes a little bit, but in terms of zooming out, you know, this is up in Ashland County, Iron County, and it's this big kind of U-shape is the project.

Cuts through across a bunch of rivers, a bunch of streams, a bunch of creeks that all, you know, run into that river shed there in the Bad River River Shed.

And so this is an area where you've got Beautiful old forests that have never been significantly disturbed by human beings, which means that they're great habitat.

So I think when we have conversations like this and it feels kind of like, oh, no, the state doesn't really do anything.

It's really about tourism.

as you said, talking about these violations and looking at this and talking about what's been damaged so that we can start kind of building this community of advocates, not just down in Madison, but up in Ashland County, up in those areas where people, you know, there's a lot of money going in, I think, to have people pushed one way or the other on this issue.

So, In your mind, would that, I mean, how close are we, I guess, to getting a DNR that feels that power to say we're not issuing permits for a project like this?

We're hearing more and more about the Enbridge Energy Company's work on a pipeline in Wisconsin's Northwoods, and the growing controversy surrounding it.

Enbridge is replacing about 41 miles of oil and natural gas liquid pipeline across Ashland and Iron Counties.

The project has been in the works for seven years after a federal judge ruled Enbridge was trespassing on the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation.

The company was ordered to remove or reroute the line outside the reservation.

Recently, multiple fires on Enbridge construction sites have destroyed company equipment.

Now, as Civic Media's Maddie Schafer tells us, Wisconsin's DNR is accusing the company of violating environmental laws.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has issued a formal notice of violation to Enbridge Energy Company over its Line 5 work in Iron and Ashland Counties.

The notice involves alleged permit violations during construction of the Line 5 reroute, along with environmental law violations related to an unpermitted bypass built around the August 25th spill site near Saxon, when an unoccupied vehicle rolled into an excavation site and struck the existing Line 5 pipeline, releasing natural gas liquids.

An Enbridge drill rig and support equipment were destroyed in a fire early Monday morning at a construction site along the company's Line 5 relocation project in northern Wisconsin.

According to the Ashland County Sheriff's Office, the fire was reported around 5.20 Monday morning near Wilson Road in the town of White River.

When deputies arrived, they found two boring machines that had been involved in the fire.

Enbridge says graffiti was also discovered at the site and has described the incident as vandalism.

This is the third fire involving Enbridge property in northern Wisconsin over the past month.

On September 14th, a fire broke out at an Enbridge office building in Superior.

Just three days later, another fire damaged drilling equipment at a Line 5 construction site in Ashland County.

Enbridge says it takes these incidents seriously and will cooperate with authorities as they investigate and seek to hold those responsible accountable.

That extends from about to right around Independence North in St. Louis County.

And then frost advisories for a lot of us, Lake, Cook County in Wisconsin, Bayfield, Douglas County, Ashland County, Price, or I'm sorry, Washburn and Sawyer Counties.

But frost and freeze warnings.

Well, I guess it's a frost advisory.

Now, I think we're a little bit beyond that, I hope.

But right now we are experiencing exceptional drought that is affecting parts of our area, including Douglas County, Bayfield County, Ashland County.

And when you look at exceptional drought, surrounded by that is extreme drought.

Surrounded by that is severe drought.