The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote today on a proposal to re-open a petroleum pipeline that runs through the Pipestone National Monument in Pipestone County. The proposal, which would re-route the pipeline around the monument, has met with objections from Minnesota tribes concerned about environmental risks to the area.

Agenda materials for the PUC’s Sept. 12 meeting said the commission will be addressing a route permit application from Magellan Pipeline Co. this afternoon.

The permit application filed with the PUC in 2023 said Magellan Pipeline Co. is seeking to re-route about 0.74 miles of existing eight-inch pipeline that are currently on federal land within the Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge and the Pipestone National Monument. The federal government shut down that portion of the existing pipeline in 2022.

In its permit application, Magellan said the pipeline, which ran from Sioux Falls to Marshall, was needed to supply fuel to communities in western Minnesota and the Dakotas. Initially, Magellan proposed a 1.3-mile re-route to the north and west of federal lands. Later in the process, they endorsed a 3.4-mile alternative route farther from the Pipestone Monument.

Documents submitted to the PUC said tribes including the Upper Sioux Community, the Yankton Sioux Tribe, and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe raised concerns about the proposed re-route of the pipeline, and the potential risks to the land and to the pipestone quarry at the National Monument. The site is considered sacred and culturally important by area tribes.

The Upper Sioux Community and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe have each suggested pipeline routes even further away from the Monument. Other tribes have requested that the PUC deny a route permit for the project.