Minnesota regulators narrowly approve gas pipeline near Pipestone Monument

Minnesota utility regulators on Thursday narrowly approved a crucial route permit for a gasoline pipeline near Pipestone National Monument, siding with an Oklahoma-based company over tribes who say the area is foundational to their religious beliefs.

On a 3-2 vote, the state Public Utilities Commission picked a route that is farther from the monument than Magellan Pipeline Co. wanted. The route was also initially suggested by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe but later opposed by the tribe.

The commission's chair and vice chair, both DFLers, pushed to delay a decision on the route to give time for "full cultural and archaeological surveys" of several potential paths to ensure the pipeline wouldn't damage Pipestone or other sensitive sites, as well as extra dialogue with tribes about the results.

But three other commissioners ― a Republican, independent and DFLer — voted to move ahead with the 13-mile route, though they also required a survey and tribal input along the final path before construction can begin.

"We're going to have that full, thorough consultation," said GOP Commissioner John Tuma. "It is not the normal way we do business and I think it's justified given the importance of this particular place."

Pipestone National Monument was created in 1937 to protect quarries of a brick-red stone that Native Americans have hewn for thousands of years to make pipes used in rituals. The pipeline was laid roughly a decade later and operated until 2022, when the federal government shut it down to protect the monument.

Magellan pushed to revive the pipeline — on a new path around the monument — to ensure a reliable supply of refined petroleum in parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas.

The company said customers are paying more for gas since the pipeline was shut down, and that it was necessary after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decided to mandate two special gasoline grades starting in 2025. Magellan is a subsidiary of Oklahoma-based OneOk.

"Without the pipe, that gas is getting trucked back and forth to the consumers who need it," Magellan attorney Christina Brusven said during the hearing Thursday.

Before the PUC vote, the issue drew thousands of public comments, including from several tribes who argued that reviving the pipeline so close to the monument violated their religious freedom and risked damaging an area of cultural significance. There are 23 tribes with an affiliation to the quarries.

Magellan said its surveys had not found pipestone, also known as catlinite, along a 3.4-mile route it pitched to regulators. Magellan said if that route was picked, it would continue to look for any of the stone, and promised to bore beneath any catlinite it finds.

The PUC felt it was still best to have more distance between the monument and the pipeline, and agreed with tribes that the sacred site and important cultural resources are not bound by park borders set by the federal government.

A spill could damage pipestone, contaminate water or hurt the landscape in other ways, the tribes said.

"It's just too much of a risk," said Samantha Odegard, tribal historic preservation officer for the Upper Sioux Community.

During the hearing, the Mille Lacs Band backed away from its original route and aligned with the Upper Sioux Community, which proposed an even longer path but also said that it preferred the pipeline never be reopened.

The Yankton Sioux Tribe and the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe also opposed the project.

Nina Berglund, a member of the Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota tribes, brought a sample of pipestone for the commissioners to see Thursday as they deliberated in a downtown St. Paul hearing room. She shed tears as the monument superintendent described the significance of the area.

"To have it be able to represent itself in a room where everyone's talking about it and no one knows what it looks like," Berglund said of the pipestone.

Brusven said granting a route permit would make it easier for Magellan to do survey work because it would be less reliant on landowners granting them access to look for items of cultural significance.

Tuma said if Magellan runs into anything, including catlinite, the company would have to reroute the pipeline to avoid it. He drove the site personally as he researched the issue and is confident the ruling will bring a "thorough examination" of the route before construction.

The ruling comes as the PUC has worked to improve relations with tribes after voting to approve Enbridge's Line 3 oil pipeline in northern Minnesota. That project, a much larger crude oil pipeline, was opposed by some — though not all — tribes before it was built.

Joe Sullivan, vice chair of the commission, suggested the PUC should match what it did in a 2021 ruling, when the commission pushed a developer to move wind turbines farther from the Jeffers Petroglyphs, 80 miles east of Pipestone, after tribal concerns.

At the time, that drew praise from the Lower Sioux Indian Community. Sullivan said the Magellan decision didn't show the same consideration.

"There's a number of people here who have a sacred interest in this land and I don't feel like they've been heard," Sullivan said during the hearing.

Chair Katie Sieben said the Mille Lacs Band's new position influenced her vote, and that the Magellan ruling was "not in the spirit of listening to what the tribes have to say."

Commissioner Valerie Means said she wasn't sure what a year of delay for researching the routes would accomplish, because the commission can still act if the route it selected uncovers cultural resources.

"We can cancel the construction," she said.