Milwaukee, WI — As Governor Tony Evers took the stage during the annual Wisconsin Association for Justice dinner, an audience member rose to lead a toast for the state’s leader.

But rather than honoring Evers’ accomplishments, the patron issued a challenge. Thrusting a glass of thick black fluid into the air, Tom Hoy asked Evers to drink the liquid which served as a representation of Lake Superior’s waters which protesters say will be contaminated by oil and other hazardous waste from Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline if the state, and Evers specifically, doesn’t revoke the company’s construction permits.

“I have a glass of water with crude oil,” Hoy announced, holding aloft a cup filled with liquid resembling oil-laden water. “Will you drink the future waters of Lake Superior, sir?”

Hoy, an activist with the group Climate Defiance, continued to challenge Evers to have a drink as attendees, security personnel and police shoved them out of the audience and toward the door.

Protesters attended the dinner calling on Evers to reject the pipeline not on vague objections to the project but under specific conditions spelled out in the state’s agreement with the company.

See all of Unicorn Riot’s Line 5 Coverage

Under the Line 5 reroute permit issued in 2024 to Enbridge by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, the state has the right to terminate the project for good cause, including if the project is not completed according to the conditions of the permit.

Activists, and increasingly the state itself, say that Enbridge’s work has fallen outside the scope of the original permit and violated numerous state regulations.

On October 13, the Wisconsin DNR issued a Notice of Violation to Enbridge for what it calls a “persistent pattern of non-compliance” stretching back to at least March of this year.

The violations listed in the notice include unpermitted construction, unpermitted activity in wetlands and other waterways, and violations of air quality laws, among others.

Language in the permit says that no work outside the originally approved plan the company submitted is allowed, but in September the company began construction on an unpermitted reroute for the pipeline in response to a rupture this summer.

And on August 25, the company was responsible for what’s been called the state’s largest oil spill in more than 50 years when an unoccupied truck rolled into a section of Line 5 at a work site. The line ruptured, leading to 31,000 barrels, or 1.3 million gallons, of natural gas spilling just east of the Bad River Reservation in Iron county.

Related: Enbridge Line 5 Spills Natural Gas Liquids in Northern Wisconsin

In light of the violations and pattern of not complying with state rules, opponents are calling on Evers, the state’s top executive, to exercise his power to revoke the permit.

“If he has a conscience, he needs to act now on the power he has right now to cancel the Line 5 permits,” Hoy, the oil-toasting protester, said in a recorded statement shortly after the disruption happened.

Immediately after Hoy was ejected, another Climate Defiance activist approached the stage calling on Evers to reject the Line 5 permits. They were quickly confronted by an attendee, but resisted removal while demanding the governor consider his legacy and stop work on the pipeline.

The action is the latest in an ongoing battle against the Canadian oil company’s reconstruction of the Line 5 pipeline. For years, organizers have opposed the project on the grounds that it violates Native sovereignty and poses a dire threat to the region’s fresh water, all while accelerating climate change by propping up fossil fuel infrastructure.

Cover image by Sean Summers for Unicorn Riot using screen grabs from video by Climate Defiance.

See all of Unicorn Riot’s coverage on Enbridge’s Line 5 re-route by clicking the image below.

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