BRAINERD, Minn. - The 1855 Treaty Authority said Thursday it wants a resolution from each of the bands within the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe calling for more environmental study before all proposed crude oil pipelines being permitted by the state - including the Sandpiper line - can go forward.

Treaty Authority spokesperson Frank Bibeau said after a meeting Wednesday with officials from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, the treaty rights advocacy group plans to ask each of the tribal councils for a resolution calling for an environmental impact statement on the pipelines under the argument they're entitled to one based on their treaty rights.

"Minnesota isn't going to make the leap to allow us to protect the environment until they understand what our rights are," Bibeau said. "We have to make them understand we have rights."

Although it is not a part of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, the Red Lake Nation may also want to support such a resolution, Bibeau said.

"Yesterday we met with BIA officials who helped us focus our strategy for obtaining a full-cycle, full-blown environmental impact statement for all of the pipelines presently being permitted in northern Minnesota by the Public Utilities Commission," Bibeau said in a statement Thursday.

Talk at the meeting also included "strategies preceding any need to go to federal court for an injunction and declaratory judgment against the state of Minnesota for unlawful infringing on our federally protected usufructuary and treaty rights," the statement said.

The Authority had previously said it might stage more protests to follow up on civil-disobedient harvesting and gill netting last week if they did not receive adequate help from the federal government. Although the BIA did not commit to providing legal aid, Bibeau said, he was still satisfied with the outcome of the meeting.

"What I got from it was, 'We understand what you're saying, we understand what you want to do, we can't move as quick as you want to,’ " he said.

Bibeau said the treaty rights group did not plan further protests unless it saw examples of off-reservation harvesters or netters being "hassled" by authorities.