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Largely in response to the profound shortcomings in the State of Minnesota’s environmental review process for the proposed new Line 3 oil pipeline, six Ojibwe bands in Minnesota have announced their own review process for Line 3. Tribal governments are standing up to assert their rights of self-determination and to protect the lands, waters, and resources critical to the survival of the Anishinaabeg.
TransCanada has cancelled its proposed Energy East pipeline after years of intense opposition from Indigenous communities, local and provincial governments, and environmental groups.
Today, a coalition of Indigenous, national and international groups join a growing movement placing pressure on financial institutions to drop financially and socially risky projects, delivering a group letter to the 36 banks providing corporate finance to fossil fuel infrastructure giant Enbridge.
The tribal liaison for the environmental review of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline has resigned to protest of the state of Minnesota’s “failure to engage in meaningful and transparent tribal consultation” with impacted communities of the 1855 treaty territory.
Last week, the Minnesota Department of Commerce shocked us all with its formal testimony in opposition to Line 3. As the DOC is the direct arm of the Governor’s office (part of the Executive Branch), we all hope that their testimony marks a long-awaited political shift by the Dayton administration. After taking some time to review the 338-page DOC testimony, we now offer our analysis.
Join us to celebrate the Paddle to Protect youth as they conclude their 250 mile canoe voyage through the Mississippi headwaters honoring the territories and communities threatened by the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline.
After riding the existing pipeline route in Wisconsin in mid-July, we will start again and ride against the proposed Line 3 route in Minnesota. Our ride to #StopLine3 will open in East Lake on July 23rd and conclude in Bemidji on August 10th.
On Wednesday, July 12, the last of the 5 directly impacted Ojibwe tribes was given full status as an intervening party in the State of Minnesota’s contested case permit process for Enbridge’s proposed Line 3 oil pipeline. The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe now joins the White Earth, Mille Lacs, Fond du Lac, and Red Lake Bands of Ojibwe as intervening parties in the case, along with a long list of environmental groups and Enbridge partners, two farmers who live along the route, and a group of 13 young people known as the “Youth Climate Intervenors.”
Photo by Joe Brusky
The Minnesota Department of Commerce received approximately 3000 public comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for Line 3, including from landowners, tribal members, organizations, businesses, City Councils, tribal governments, state agencies, federal agencies, and elected officials. A group of 36 Minnesota legislators submitted extensive comments together, and expressed concerns about inadequacies in the DEIS sections on spill modeling, pipeline abandonment, climate change, disproportionate impacts on tribal people, treaty rights, and the No Build Alternative.
Minnesota Representative Mary Kunesh-Podein speaks after a "Dance for the Water" event in St. Paul, just before the DEIS public meeting on June 13, 2017. Photo: Jaida Grey Eagle.