Minnesota utility regulators discussing whether to allow controversial pipeline to reopen
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Tribal members packed a Minnesota Public Utilities Commission hearing Thursday to urge regulators to deny a permit to Magellan Pipeline Company to reopen its gas pipeline near the Pipestone National Monument, a site sacred to tribal nations.
Commission chair Katie Sieben noted as the hearing began that the PUC received a security threat, which forced the commission to move the hearing to a smaller hearing room. The threat was received earlier this week. About 150 people are watching in an overflow room.
Magellan attorney Christy Brusven said the company has satisfied the requirements of a 2025 order and has taken steps to avoid natural resources.
More than a dozen tribal leaders asked the commission to deny the permit to protect the ecosystem. The soft, reddish-brown pipestone at the site, also known as catlinite, is quarried by Indigenous people for carving pipes and works of art.
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“This is a sacred resource to the world,” said Kelly Applegate, Commissioner of Natural Resources for the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.
The Indigenous Protector Movement held a prayer circle outside the hearing room before it got underway. The group posted on its Facebook page that “Pipestone is sacred. It has been sacred for generations, long before the state of Minnesota existed, long before pipelines and corporations began carving up the land for profit.”
The commission had required Magellan to coordinate with tribal nations to complete an archaeological study along two possible, separate routes that put distance between the pipeline and the pipestone quarries.
The pipeline that closed in 2022 cuts diagonally across the monument. That line pumped gas between Sioux Falls, S.D., and Marshall, part of a large network of pipelines which run between Texas and Minnesota.
Kevin Pranis from the union LIUNA said the pipeline operated for 75 years through the monument, which was “completely unacceptable.” He told the commission it’s critically important to move it outside the area.
The 300-plus acre Pipestone National Monument consists of pipestone pits surrounded by a tall grass prairie. Created by Congress in 1937, the monument is administered by the National Park Service.
