Issue 021
The Weekly Brief
For the week of September 27, 2026
The biggest story out of Indian Country this week sits squarely on Patty's home ground: a $15 million price tag on Enbridge's Iron County gas leak, a Bad River public statement on that spill, and Michigan tribes asking a federal judge to void the Line 5 tunnel permits — all while the 7th Circuit litigation grinds forward. Elsewhere, the federal Missing and Murdered Unit is drowning in open cases with no staff to work them, Carlisle repatriation stories keep coming, and the Tohono O'odham Nation is fighting a border wall that would split their homeland in two. On a quieter, better note, Wisconsin's manoomin harvest is looking up this fall — a reminder that the rice endures, and so do the people who tend it.
Across the Twelve Nations
A full week in northern Wisconsin, with the Line 5 spill cost estimate landing, a multi-tribe conference wrapping up, and walleye bag limits tightening on ceded territory waters.
Enbridge Puts $15 Million Price Tag on the Iron County Line 5 Gas Leak
An accident report filed by Enbridge estimates the northern Wisconsin natural gas spill in Iron County will cost roughly $15 million, with emergency response alone accounting for nearly $10 million of that figure. The leak, which prompted Bad River's public statement (see candidate 147), underscores what tribal leaders have argued for years: the aging pipeline infrastructure running through ceded Ojibwe territory carries real and recurring risk. Wisconsin Watch obtained the report; the numbers give concrete weight to what has often been framed as a hypothetical threat.
Bad River Issues Public Statement on the Enbridge Line 5 Iron County Gas Spill
The Bad River Band released a formal public statement responding to the Enbridge Line 5 natural gas spill in Iron County, a document that belongs alongside the Wisconsin Watch cost estimate for a full picture of the tribe's position. The statement, posted to the tribal website, is the kind of primary-source record that the Ojibwe chapter of Indian Nations of Wisconsin will want to cite directly. Read it alongside candidate 9.
Wisconsin's Manoomin Harvest Is Looking Up This Fall
Wisconsin Public Radio's Native American beat reports that this year's wild rice harvest is expected to be stronger than recent seasons, welcome news for Ojibwe ricers across the ceded territory. After years of climate-stressed harvests and ongoing anxiety about sulfide mining upstream of rice waters, a good crop year matters in ways that go well beyond the calendar. The story is short but worth holding: *manoomin* abundance is one of the clearest signals of watershed health, and it's a data point the Ojibwe chapter should track.
Wisconsin DNR Approves Special Bag and Size Limits to Help Struggling Walleye Populations
Wisconsin's DNR has approved tightened bag and size limits on walleye in response to declining populations in some northern lakes, a move that intersects directly with Ojibwe treaty fishing rights in the ceded territory. How the new limits interact with tribal spearing and netting allocations under the Voigt Decision framework is the question this story leaves open, and it's the right question. WPR's Native American desk flagged it; worth watching for GLIFWC's response.
Five Wisconsin Tribes Co-Host Second Annual Rejuvenating Tribal Community Conference
Forest County Potawatomi, Oneida, Lac du Flambeau, Bad River, Menominee, and Red Cliff jointly hosted the second annual Rejuvenating Tribal Community Conference at the Oneida Hotel Casino on August 19 and 20, 2026. The gathering is a concrete example of intertribal collaboration on community wellness that doesn't get enough coverage in mainstream outlets. The Potawatomi Traveling Times account is the primary source here, and it's the kind of ordinary community infrastructure story Patty's framework asks us to foreground.
Treaty Rights, Water, and the Pipeline Fight
Michigan tribes move to void the Line 5 tunnel permits in federal court, while the 7th Circuit litigation over the Bad River easement continues its slow grind.
Michigan Tribes Ask Federal Judge to Throw Out Enbridge's Line 5 Tunnel Permits
The Native American Rights Fund reports that Michigan tribes have filed to overturn the wetlands and bottomlands permits the Army Corps of Engineers approved for Enbridge's proposed Straits of Mackinac tunnel in July. The legal challenge is a direct parallel to Bad River's fight in Wisconsin: both fronts argue that Enbridge's permits were granted improperly and that tribal treaty rights to clean water were not adequately weighed. NARF is the source here, and that's where to read it first.
Bad River's 7th Circuit Litigation Against Enbridge: The Notice of Record
The Bad River Band posted a litigation notice regarding the ongoing 7th Circuit Court of Appeals proceedings against Enbridge over Line 5 easement trespass. The document is spare, but its existence on the tribal website is the primary record. Paired with the Iron County spill cost estimate and the Michigan permit challenge, it completes the week's Line 5 picture. The 7th Circuit docket is the legal venue most likely to produce a definitive ruling on whether Enbridge must reroute or remove the pipeline from Bad River land.
Indian Country: Federal Policy, Courts, and Sovereignty
Staffing failures at the Missing and Murdered Unit, a border wall threatening to split the Tohono O'odham homeland, Carlisle repatriations continuing, and a Red Lake child welfare crisis that raises ICWA-adjacent questions.
Staffing Failures Are Stalling Federal Investigations of Missing and Murdered Native People
An Interior Department Inspector General audit released September 9 found that the Missing and Murdered Unit had 83 open cases and nearly 400 pending referrals as of November 2024, with insufficient staff to work them. ICT obtained the audit; the numbers are damning. For tribal nations that have spent years demanding federal action on MMIW, this report confirms what advocates have said: the federal commitment has not been matched with resources. The audit is the kind of accountability document that belongs in the record.
Trump Administration's Border Wall Plan Would Split the Tohono O'odham Nation and Damage Sacred Sites
ICT reports that the Trump administration's expanded border wall construction plan would physically divide the Tohono O'odham Nation, separating community members from one another and from sacred sites that straddle the U.S.-Mexico boundary. Tribal leaders told ICT the plan disregards both tribal sovereignty and the Nation's treaty-protected relationship with their ancestral territory. NARF has filed a brief on behalf of tribal nations opposing the federal government's trespass on tribal lands (see candidate 185), making this a story with active legal dimensions.
NARF Files Brief for Tribal Nations Opposing Federal Trespass in Border Wall Case
The Native American Rights Fund filed an amicus brief representing tribal nations in Arizona and across Indian Country who are alarmed by the federal government's construction of border wall infrastructure on tribal lands without consent. The brief argues that the federal government is committing trespass on sovereign territory, a framing that echoes the easement-trespass logic at the center of Bad River's Line 5 case. NARF is the source; read it there.
An Unexpected Clue Reunites an Alaska Native Student Who Died at Carlisle with His Family After More Than a Century
ICT's reporting on the ongoing Carlisle repatriation effort focuses this week on four Alaska Native students whose remains are finally headed home after more than 100 years. The headline phrase, 'patient, gentle and brave,' comes from a historical record that provided the unexpected clue connecting one student to living relatives. The story is specific and human in exactly the way Patty's journalism ethics demand: not an abstraction about boarding school policy, but a particular young person with a name and a family who waited.
Red Lake Nation Responds After Federal Government Takes Over Tribal Child Welfare Services
The Red Lake Tribal Council issued a statement assuring citizens it is working to protect children and families following a federal takeover of some child welfare and child protection services at the tribe's family services program. The situation raises immediate ICWA-adjacent questions: when the federal government steps in to manage child welfare on a reservation, what happens to tribal jurisdiction over placement decisions? The source here is Native News Online, which we'd normally lean away from, but this story has no competing Native publication coverage and the underlying development is substantive enough to warrant inclusion.
Shoshone-Paiute Tribes Repatriate a Young Woman Who Died at Carlisle 126 Years Ago
Della Tuscarora Atkins, a 17-year-old from the Shoshone-Paiute Tribes, has been repatriated after 126 years, returned home from the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania where she died. The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes issued the statement; the repatriation is part of the ongoing federal boarding school investigation and the broader NAGPRA repatriation process. Two Carlisle repatriation stories in one week is not coincidence: the federal effort is accelerating, and the individual stories are the ones that carry the weight.
NARF Reminds the Class of 2027: Know Your Right to Wear an Eagle Feather at Graduation
The Native American Rights Fund has published a practical guide for Native high school seniors who want to wear eagle feathers at their graduation ceremonies, reminding students and families to begin the process now. This is the kind of rights-in-practice story that complements the Wisconsin graduation regalia law Patty saved for chapter earlier this year. NARF is the source, and the framing is about student agency, not institutional permission.
People Worth Knowing
Leonard Peltier at 82: Life After Prison, His Art, and What He Wants Native Youth to Know
More than a year after his release following 49 years of incarceration, Leonard Peltier sat down with Native News Online founder Levi Rickert for a wide-ranging conversation about his health, his artwork, and his message to young Native people. Peltier turned 82 on September 12. The interview is a primary-source document from one of the most consequential figures in 20th-century Indigenous political history, and his voice here is specific and present-tense, not elegiac. The source is Native News Online, which we'd normally flag, but Rickert's direct interview access makes this the authoritative text for this week.
High-Stakes Ballots and Courtroom Fights Are Reshaping Tribal Governance Across Indian Country
Buffalo's Fire (the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance newsletter) surveys a turbulent week in tribal governance: an incumbent upset at MHA Nation, a Northern Cheyenne council accused of governing unlawfully, and a push at Harvard to protect Native press freedom and voter access ahead of the midterms. Reporter Shaun Griswold joins the podcast. The piece is a useful aggregator of stories that don't individually rise to brief-level coverage but together signal real institutional stress in tribal governance structures.
Long Read: The Week's One Piece Worth 15 Minutes
Three Years After Her Son Died of an Overdose, a Lummi Mother Keeps Showing Up
Evelyn Jefferson, a Lummi Nation crisis worker, has spent three years responding to overdoses in her community with naloxone in hand, since losing her own son. This piece from Native News Online is unusual for that source: it is a sustained, Studs Terkel-style portrait of one woman doing the unglamorous, daily work of keeping people alive. Jefferson is not a spokesperson or a program director; she is a mother who turned grief into presence. The overdose crisis in Indian Country is real and documented, but this piece earns its place in the long-read slot because it refuses the victim frame and insists on her agency. Read it slowly.