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SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. - Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians supports Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to the proposed pipeline crossing of the Missouri River near the northern boundaries of its reservation.

“We support Standing Rock’s concern for potential risk to its nation’s land and water and share the firm belief that alternative means should be explored for a method of transporting oil to market that has less potential for negative impact to the indigenous people and the lands they have inhabited and historically shared with fellow nations, friends and relatives,” Sault Tribe Chairperson Aaron Payment wrote in an Aug. 23 letter of support to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II.

Chairperson Payment also serves as an executive officer of the United Tribes of Michigan, Midwest Alliance of Sovereign Tribes, the National Congress of American Indians, and the chair of the five-tribe 1836 Chippewa Ottawa Resource Authority. “I can attest that tribal people at all levels have passed resolutions supporting Standing Rock,” Payment said.

Sault Tribe faces a similar threat from Enbridge’s Line 5. Every day, nearly 23 million gallons of oil flow through two aging pipelines in the heart of the Great Lakes, just west of the Mackinac Bridge. Installed 62 years ago with a 50-year lifespan, the two 20-inch-in-diameter Line 5 pipelines owned by Canadian company Enbridge Inc., lie exposed in the water at the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac, one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the world in the middle of the tribe’s ceded territory and its commercial and subsistence fisheries. In 2010, Enbridge’s spill into the Kalamazoo River, the nation’s largest-ever land-based oil spill, caused over $1 billion in damage. A catastrophe in the Straits would be far worse. During the winter months, containing a spill will be impossible as the pipeline is under 5 feet of ice.

“We stand in solidarity with Standing Rock,” Payment said. “We understand our traditional role in Indian Country as the indigenous stewards of the land, water and natural resources. We admire and appreciate your stand against corporate greed in the interest of protecting our natural environment,” Payment said.

“It’s a matter of cultural survival,” the chairperson added.