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The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has approved a pipeline route permit for Magellan to construct a pipeline along Alternative Route 1 on this map. The new pipeline will replace a pipeline under the Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge – Pipestone Creek Unit and the Pipestone National Monument that was deactivated and abandoned in 2022. File image
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) during a Sept. 12 meeting approved with a 3-2 vote a pipeline route permit allowing Magellan to install a pipeline to the west and north of Pipestone. The pipeline will replace a line under the Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge – Pipestone Creek Unit and the Pipestone National Monument that was decommissioned in 2022.
The PUC approved Route Alternative 1, which was one of four routes under consideration. The route was suggested by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and would put the pipeline about three miles west and north of Pipestone National Monument.
According to a draft of the PUC’s decision, the PUC is requiring Magellan to complete a full cultural and archaeological survey for the route in coordination with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Upper Sioux Community, Yankton Sioux Tribe and Flandreau Santee Sioux.
“The Permittee shall prepare a cultural and archaeological resources inventory of the route including any additional workspaces, such as temporary workspace, laydown/pipe yards, access roads, valve sites, and bore holes, to identify and avoid impacts to cultural, archaeological, and historic resources including pipestone/catlinite deposits,” according to the draft of the decision.
The inventory must be developed in accordance with standards established by relevant Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs), the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (MnSHPO), and the Secretary of Interior’s Standards and Guidelines for Archaeology and Historic Preservation. It must include specific mitigation and avoidance procedures for archaeological, cultural and historic resources identified and must be filed with the PUC upon completion, including comments from above mentioned entities.
After completion of the survey, Magellan must send the results to the 23 affiliated tribes and engage in additional consultation with the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Upper Sioux Community, Yankton Sioux Tribe and Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe. The consultation must consist of at least one in-person meeting with tribal representatives no more than 30 days after completion of the cultural and archaeological survey. Magellan must also provide affiliated tribal nations with an opportunity to provide feedback on the survey and confer with MnSHPO and the relevant THPO representatives regarding the results.
Magellan must then file a compliance filing providing the results of the survey, any feedback received and certifying that consultation with the above tribal nations has been attempted and/or completed. In the compliance filing, the company must recommend the appropriate number and names of tribal construction monitors informed by the results of the survey and in consultation with the affiliated tribes. After receipt of the compliance filing the PUC will schedule the matter for approval of the compliance filing prior to construction.
PUC Commissioner John Tuma, who made the motion to approve the permit, said the requirements allow the PUC to focus in on a route and obtain more detail, and that if something is found, the site might have to be modified.
“This is highly unusual,” Tuma said. “We’ve never done this before, but I think it’s appropriate given the significance of the site.”
Several people spoke during the Sept. 12 PUC meeting prior to the commission approving the permit. Most of them had spoken during public hearings held earlier this year in Pipestone to take comments on the proposed pipeline reroute project.
Representatives of Magellan said the pipeline was needed to restore services from Sioux Falls to Marshall and overcome reliability issues in the system, reduce transportation costs for gasoline, and handle specialty fuels as well as gasoline, diesel and jet fuel delivered to western Minnesota, eastern North Dakota and eastern South Dakota. They contended there was no reasonable alternative to constructing the pipeline and requested the PUC issue a permit for Route Alternative 2.
Union representatives said the pipeline would improve the availability of affordable and reliable fuel supplies and that safety measures existed to protect cultural resources.
Pipestone community members who spoke during the PUC meeting included Pipestone National Monument Superintendent Lauren Blacik, who provided prerecorded comments, and Pipestone Human Rights Commission Chairperson Gabriel Yellowhawk.
Blacik said Pipestone National Monument has boundaries, but the National Parks Service (NPS) does not know the boundaries of the sacred site. She recommended that the PUC utilize the expertise of the Native people who hold the site sacred.
“People have given this place meaning for over 3,000 years and it continues to be central in the spiritual lives of Native Americans all over the continent today,” Blacik said.
Yellowhawk spoke of the sacredness of the pipe made of the pipestone that comes from the quarries at Pipestone National Monument. He said there had been an outcry against the pipeline project from people near and far who were concerned about the pipeline’s proximity to the stone, and asked the PUC to reject all proposed reroutes of the pipeline.
“This proposed pipeline would be a desecration of our stone, of our blood, of our spiritual connection with our ancestors,” he said.