Viewing entries in
Drop the Charges
"Since the signing of the 1855 treaty for 14 million acres of land, we continue to live on our land, as instructed: Harvesting medicines, basket materials, and always food from this land. During that time, tribal members have been arrested and jailed for fishing, ricing, and hunting in this land, to which we belong. We are usually charged by the Minnesota DNR, essentially for the crime of being Indian, being Anishinaabe."
The Department of Natural Resources is the largest recipient of MNPUC funds that paid $2.2 million for policing of Water Protectors instead of the Line 3 construction operations ignoring frac-outs, aquifer breaches and gifting 510 million gallons of water during a historical drought.
"There is a tremendous conflict of interest," said Winona LaDuke, head of Minnesota-based Honor the Earth, an Indigenous environmental group.
Though the pipeline is now operational, Native activists and allies continue to resist its impacts, despite a wave of criminal charges.
BY ABE ASHER
FEBRUARY 28, 2022
Fibonacci Blue (flickr) via Creative Commons
Shanai Matteson grew up in Palisade, Minnesota, a small town of several hundred people set on the banks of the Mississippi River as it winds from its headwaters in northern Minnesota toward the border with Wisconsin and south all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. As a child, Matteson swam in the Mississippi.
When the coronavirus pandemic began, she decided to return to Palisade from Minneapolis—in part so her family could help her with childcare and rent, but also because the Canadian multinational corporation Enbridge was building a tar-sands pipeline through her hometown. She wanted to fight it.
“[The police] saw it as a way to get new gear. They all bought new boots, and they got new guns, and they get to keep all that stuff now—and they were able to evolve a way of policing protest movements.”
One-and-a-half years later, on July 6, 2021, with the appeals process exhausted and pipeline construction underway, Matteson and a group of water protectors, including Native American writer and activist Winona LaDuke, arrived at the site where Enbridge was drilling a tunnel for the pipeline beneath the nearby Willow River. What they saw was disturbing.
“We had gone into the river channel basically to witness, and we ended up discovering a frac-out where they had spilled drilling mud into the river channel and hadn’t reported it yet to the pollution control agency,” Matteson recalls.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has a presence in the vicinity, but was of little help. “They sent more police to arrest the protesters than they did monitors,” Matteson says. “There were no monitors.”
In October, Enbridge completed construction on the new Line 3 pipeline, which crosses the Willow River next to the land where Matteson’s grandmother was born. Tar-sands oil from Canada has been flowing through the 1,097-mile pipeline ever since.
But for the activists who fought the pipeline’s construction in Minnesota for nearly a decade—a collection of local Indigenous activists and non-Native allies—the fallout from their battle is still ongoing.
Scores of activists face ongoing legal cases, and many more are processing what they learned about the nature of state power and capital, the intricacies of movement building, and the lessons they’ll take into the climate fights to come.
For Joshua Preston, a movement attorney and member of the Minnesota National Guard, the experience of representing Line 3 protesters has been a crash course in understanding real world power dynamics.
“It’s one thing to engage with these ideas in the abstract,” Preston says. “It’s very different when you see it for yourself—when you actually begin litigating these cases and you see how much power differential there really is and how little accountability there is on the part of law enforcement.”
Preston says the Stop Line 3 legal movement has documented some 950 incidents in which the state arrested or cited a protester; he said there has only been one instance, in Itasca County, where a county attorney voluntarily dropped a charge related to Line 3 opposition.
Maybe we didn’t win this one, but we’re going to be better situated to win the next one.”
In a number of cases, those charges appear excessive. As The Guardian reported earlier this month, one protester who chained herself peacefully to a vehicle in the middle of a road last June was charged with felony theft—a charge that carries up to five years in prison.
Trials are ongoing. Michelle Naar-Obed, a member of the Catholic Workers who was arrested on the Prairie River in March of last year, appeared in court on February 25. Matteson has a court date set for April 11.
Many protesters have faced recurring court dates and decisions over whether to plead guilty to crimes in exchange for reduced penalties, or to go to trial and risk the possibility of hefty fines and incarceration. They see the prosecutions as emblematic of how the state’s criminal justice system has served Enbridge’s interests during the Line 3 fight.
In 2020, for instance, Enbridge set up an escrow account to be distributed to law enforcement to cover costs associated with policing the pipeline route ranging from overtime pay to riot gear. The corporation quickly poured millions into the account.
“[The police] saw it as a way to get new gear,” Matteson says. “They all bought new boots, and they got new guns, and they get to keep all that stuff now—and they were able to evolve a way of policing protest movements.”
For Matteson, who intends to stay in Aitkin County long-term, the experience on the Willow River that July day was instructive: People cannot rely on the state, let alone Enbridge, to ensure the relative health of the land and water.
Matteson is now part of a group that does regular water testing at sites across northern Minnesota as activists attempt to keep track of how the pipeline is affecting their rivers and streams.
Kerem Yucel via Creative Commons
Winona LaDuke (left) talks to the Hubbard County Sheriff near the stock pile of the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline in Park Rapids, Minnesota.
LaDuke, meanwhile, has turned her attention in part to several other fights threatening waterways and ecosystems near the White Earth Reservation and throughout the Upper Midwest.
In January, Tesla announced that it had reached an agreement with Talon Metals to purchase 165 million pounds of nickel over the next six years in a $1.5 billion deal. Talon Metals, a partner of the multinational mining corporation Rio Tinto, wants to develop a mine in Aitkin County just miles from the site of the Willow River frac-out.
In early February, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Talon a multi-million dollar research and development grant to explore carbon storage potential at the Tamarackwww.talonminerisks.com/ site. LaDuke calls the entire plan “the most absurd idea we’ve ever heard.”
“That’s our heartland over there,” LaDuke tells The Progressive. “They’re very shallow lakes that are full of wild rice, and the dewatering that they propose for that mine in fact would affect the viability. They are going to draw down those lakes. So we’re going to fight them.”
Despite the setback with Line 3, the fight against Enbridge continues. The corporation’s plans to build a new Line 5 pipeline through Wisconsin and Michigan are facing resistance both from Indigenous tribes including the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and government officials, including Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
But just as Enbridge and law enforcement have built their strategies for surveilling, policing, and countering protest movements over successive campaigns, the movements to stop them are getting smarter, too.
“Much in the same way that all the oil companies learn from every fight, from Keystone to Standing Rock to Line 3 . . . we’re also doing that as well,” Preston says. “Maybe we didn’t win this one, but we’re going to be better situated to win the next one.”
Activists also want to hold onto the energy and ideas of the “Stop Line 3” movement.
“What stuck out to me most, early on, was the importance and the power of handmade things and how much love and energy you can put into making something by hand then having it used in a movement that is human-led,” says Dio Cramer, a Twin Cities-based illustrator and designer.
LaDuke remains confident, too—not only because so many people “woke up” during the Line 3 fight, but also because the future of the oil and gas industry is so uncertain.
“These bad ideas are running out of steam, because you and I know what’s going on” regarding the long-term outlook for the fossil fuel industry, she says. “The party is over.”
For many who fought against Line 3, the mission remains the same even as the conditions of the fight evolve and change.
“We have to heal the land,” Matteson says. “Then the land will heal people.”
Alexandria Herr for Floodlight
Thu 10 Feb 2022 05.00 EST
Taysha Martineau of Fond du Lac stands in front of a police line while in ceremony on land that fell in the Line 3 pipeline’s path, on 23 July 2021. Half an hour after this image was taken, they were arrested. Photograph: Chris Trinh
Twenty states have passed laws that criminalize protesting on ‘critical infrastructure’ including pipelines. In Minnesota, at least 66 felony theft charges against Line 3 protesters remain open
Supported by
Alexandria Herr for Floodlight
Thu 10 Feb 2022 05.00 EST
Last summer Sabine von Mering, a professor of German at Brandeis University, drove more than 1,500 miles from Boston to Minneapolis to protest against the replacement of the Line 3 oil pipeline that stretches from Canada’s tar sands down to Minnesota.
Along with another protester, she locked herself to a semi-truck in the middle of a roadway, according to a filed court brief, as a means of peaceful resistance. But when she was arrested, she was charged with a serious crime: felony theft, which carries up to five years in prison.
“It’s very scary that they criminalize us like that, and to face jail time,” said Von Mering, 54, of her June arrest. “But what can I do? I feel responsible to my kids and future generations.”
The felony charges come as more than a dozen states have passed laws to criminalize fossil fuel protests, and as the federal government has ramped up its own tactics for surveilling and penalizing protesters.
Von Mering is one of nearly 900 protesters who were arrested in Minnesota for protesting against the pipeline’s construction, with the vast majority of arrests taking place during the summer of 2021, and one of dozens facing felony charges. Construction on the Line 3 pipeline was finalized in October 2021 and carries 760,000 barrels of oil per day across northern Minnesota. But its construction for years has stoked fierce protests and legal challenges, led by Indigenous activists in northern Minnesota who worried about potential impacts of oil spills and the pipeline’s threat to treaty rights to gather wild rice.
While most of the arrests have led to misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor charges for crimes including “disturbing the peace” and “trespassing”, felony charges like Von Mering’s mean protesters are facing years of jail time.
Legal advocates say that in Minnesota the elevated charges are a novel tactic to challenge protest actions against pipeline construction. They see them as furthering evidence of close ties between Minnesota’s government and the fossil fuel industry. It follows reporting by the Guardian that the Canadian pipeline company Enbridge, which is building Line 3, reimbursed Minnesota’s police department $2.4m for time spent arresting protesters and on equipment including ballistic helmets. Experts say the reimbursement strategy for arrests is a new technique in both Minnesota and across the US, and there’s concern it can be replicated.
“I do a lot of representation for people in political protests and I’ve never seen anything like that,” said Jordan Kushner, a defense attorney representing clients charged in relation to Line 3 protests.
Two of Kushner’s clients were charged with felony “aiding attempted suicide” charges for crawling inside a pipe. The charge is for someone who “intentionally advises, encourages, or assists another who attempts but fails to take the other’s own life”, according to Minnesota law and carries up to a seven-year sentence. Authorities alleged that the protesters were endangering their lives by remaining inside the pipeline.
Water protectors Gabe, left, and Rainbow, right, hold hands while facing off with police at Red Lake Treaty Camp, a ceremonial and indigenous-led protest camp against the Line 3 oil pipeline, on 23 July 2021. Photograph: Chris Trinh
“To put it charitably, it’s a very creative use of this law,” said Kushner.
Across the country pipeline protests have faced fierce backlash in various forms by both the oil and gas industry and various state legislators who oppose the often successful protest delay tactics. Since 2017, 20 states have passed laws that criminalize protesting on “critical infrastructure” – a broad category which can include pipelines and oil refineries, depending on the state. Other strategies for discouraging protests have included spying by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on Keystone XL opponents in North and South Dakota, and flyovers of protester’s homes by Custom and Border Protection drones.
Outside of the US, authorities in British Columbia have also used arrest and lawsuits as a means to dissuade protests challenging the Coastal GasLink pipeline. At Line 3, protests came to a head last summer when hundreds of protesters were arrested for misdemeanor offenses. But the lawyers representing those arrested say charges began to get more severe, some bordering on the absurd.
At least 91 felony charges were made against 89 protester defendants in Minnesota, according to data compiled by the Pipeline Legal Action Network, a network of lawyers representing Line 3 defendants, and confirmed by the Guardian. It’s likely the number of total felony arrests was higher, as the data does not include all of the arrests made of Indigenous protesters, many who had their cases transferred to tribal courts. At least 66 felony theft charges against Line 3 protesters remain open and ongoing in the Minnesota courts.
“I’ve never seen felony theft and I’ve never seen felony assisted suicide used in environmental protests,” said Tara Houska, a tribal lawyer, activist and citizen of Couchiching First Nation, located along the border between Minnesota and Ontario.
“Some of these charges are a pretty obvious overstep by prosecutors to try and punish people for engaging in demonstration.”
Jason Goward, 37, is another protester who was arrested for felony theft. A citizen of the Fond Du Lac Ojibwe Band located near the pipeline’s terminus in Duluth, Minnesota, Goward first started as a construction worker on the Line 3 pipeline in 2020. Yet, he soon became disturbed by his work. The pipeline crosses through the treaty lands of the Ojibwe tribe and he watched as sandhill cranes – the animals of his grandmother’s clan – fled the construction site. The guilt came to a breaking point and Goward walked off the job to protest. He was arrested last July for locking himself to a piece of pipeline equipment. While his charges were eventually dropped after his case was transferred to Red Lake tribal court, the impacts of the arrest still follow him.
“I still can’t get a job to this day … No one wants to hire someone [arrested for] felony theft,” Goward said. (Background checks routinely flag arrest records, even when charges are dropped.)
Yet Goward says he doesn’t regret his decision to protest against the Line 3 construction.
“What kept me going was knowing that someday my sons, when they come back to the reservation, [will know] that I tried to make sure that the water, the rice, and the nature is clean for them to live off the land,” he said.
Jason Goward of Fond du Lac attends a Zoom court hearing on his mobile phone, inside a yurt at Camp Migizi, a resistance camp along the Line 3 pipeline’s route. Goward is facing felony charges and potential prison time for locking down to construction machinery in order to delay work on the Line 3 oil pipeline. Photograph: Chris Trinh
Minnesota’s police officers weren’t the only group that sought reimbursement from the pipeline company for time spent processing Line 3 protesters. Minnesota prosecutors also requested payment from Enbridge for their time spent bringing cases against protesters. According to documents obtained by the Center for Protest Law and Litigation, prosecutor Jonathan Frieden – who is overseeing the prosecution of nearly 500 Line 3 cases – invoiced an escrow account funded by Enbridge for $12,207 in 2021. The request was ultimately rejected.
An Enbridge spokesperson, Michael Barnes, said the company does not “determine who broke the law or how they are prosecuted” and said Minnesota’s Public Utility Commission determines what charges are reimbursable. Frieden did not respond to a request for comment.
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, director of the Center for Protest Law and Litigation warns that the repayment of policing costs by Enbridge creates an “exceptional corruption and perversion of the justice system and of democracy” by “funding law enforcements to act against the political opponents of the corporation”.
Minnesota’s legislature has introduced 17 bills to expand penalties against protesting with six categorized as critical infrastructure bills. One bill introduced in the 2021 legislature but didn’t pass, would have extended the penalty of gross misdemeanor to those who “intentionally” recruited, trained or “conspired” with any trespasser.
Activists are building pressure to drop charges against Line 3 protesters. Others have moved on from Line 3 in Minnesota to protesting against Enbridge’s other oil pipeline, Line 5, in Michigan. But protesters like Von Mering still await their fate in the courts.
“It makes no sense that I have to defend myself against the charge of theft when I’m trying to protect the water,” she said. “They think I’m a criminal. But I’m not.”
CALL ON THE STATE GOVERNMENT TO DROP THE CHARGES
“We have an inherent right to be on the very land on which we belong.”
Winona LaDuke to testify in Aitkin County in of Defendants facing charges.
The time thieves: This month, nearly 300 Line 3 protesters will have court dates in Hubbard County alone.
EXPOSED: “Minnesota Prosecutor sought Enbridge funding to prosecute Water Protectors at Line 3”
The new music video -- “Shell River Seven #StopLine3” -- features seven courageous women* (including one journalist) who refused on a hot 2021 summer of drought day, in northern Minnesota, to get off the Line 3 construction easement on the Shell River near Park Rapids, Minnesota. All were eventually arrested.
