No More Pipeline Blues (on This Land Where We Belong)

STOP LINE 3 PROTESTS



The Stop Line 3 protests are an ongoing series of demonstrations in the U.S. state of Minnesota against the expansion of Enbridge's Line 3 oil pipeline along a new route. The new route was completed in September 2021, and was operational on 1 October 2021. Indigenous people have led the resistance to the construction of the pipeline, which began following the project's approval in November 2020. Opponents of the pipeline expansion, called water protectors, have established ceremonial lodges and resistance camps along the route of the pipeline. Enbridge has funded an escrow account that law enforcement agencies may draw on for pipeline-related police work. Organizers have arranged marches and occupations of Enbridge construction sites. Following the blockade of an Enbridge pump station on June 7, 2021, nearly 250 people were arrested. Invoking treaty rights, organizers established an encampment at the headwaters of the Mississippi River at a site where Enbridge intends to bury the pipeline.

Treaty rights

The Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes treaties as the "supreme Law of the Land". Treaties between Anishinaabe bands and the United States government guaranteed certain treaty rights for their members, namely the rights to harvest wild rice, fish, hunt, and gather medicinal plants on ceded lands. These rights were upheld in the U.S. Supreme Court case Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians.
Both the existing Line 3 pipeline and the proposed expansion cross lands ceded in treaties. [...]

Enbridge and Line 3

Enbridge is a Canadian corporation that maintains vast pipeline networks in the United States. The Enbridge Line 5 pipeline, which was responsible for the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill, had its 1953 easement revoked by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in November 2020 due to concerns over the potential impact of a spill to the Great Lakes.
The Line 3 pipeline was built by the Lakehead Pipeline Company (now Enbridge) in the 1960s. It was the source of the Line 3 oil spill in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, the worst inland oil spill in U.S. history, which spilled 1.7 million gallons of crude into a tributary of the Mississippi River. It was also the source of the second worst oil spill in Minnesota history, when 1.3 million gallons of crude spilled near Argyle, Minnesota. […]

Anti-pipeline protests in the 2010s

During the 2010s in the United States, grassroots campaigns against proposed pipelines received widespread media attention. An Indigenous-led campaign against the Dakota Access Pipeline centered at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation evolved from a small protest camp to spark an international movement against pipeline projects. Following resistance to the proposed Sandpiper pipeline, which would have passed through Mississippi River headwaters and wild rice habitat in Minnesota, Enbridge cancelled the project, withdrawing its application in 2016.
Following years of opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, the Biden administration revoked its permit in January 2021.

Proposed expansion

In 2015, Enbridge announced that it sought to increase the capacity of its pipeline network by rerouting Line 3 through a newly constructed, larger pipeline along a different, existing utility corridor. The new […] 340-mile pipeline […] is being constructed along a route through the watersheds and ancestral Anishinaabe tribal lands in northern Minnesota, passing between the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, the Red Lake Indian Reservation, and the White Earth Indian Reservation. […]

Environmental concerns

Principal among the environmental concerns over the pipeline is the possibility of an oil spill. The route of the new pipeline runs through "some of the most pristine woods and wetlands in North America", crossing over 200 bodies of water, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River, lakes, streams, and wetlands. The route proposed by Enbridge passes over 3,400 acres (14 km2) of water in treaty-protected lands that support wild rice habitat.
Tar sands oil, heavier than regular crude, is among the world's most carbon-intensive fossil fuels. […]

Treaty violations

Tribal representatives say the pipeline expansion, which passes through treaty-protected lands, is a violation of their tribal sovereignty. The new route for the expanded pipeline runs through watersheds that support traditional wild rice habitat, a food source important to Ojibwe culture.

Protests

Resistance to the Line 3 pipeline expansion is led by Indigenous women and two-spirit people. Ojibwe-led groups including Giniw Collective, Camp Migizi, Red Lake Treaty Camp, RISE Coalition, and Honor the Earth among others have been at the center of resistance. Demonstrators and protesters organizing in opposition to the pipeline refer to themselves as "water protectors" and follow a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience that includes direct actions. Organizers aim to convince the Biden administration to revoke or suspend the pipeline project's federal clean water permit. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has not taken a firm stance on the pipeline expansion, which received federal approval under the [first] Trump administration. […]

The single "No More Pipeline Blues (On This Land Where We Belong)", written by Larry Long, was released on Earth Day in 2021. The track includes vocals from the Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt, Mumu Fresh, Pura Fé, and U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo. A June 2021 concert called Protect the Water featured several musicians performing on a pontoon floating on the Mississippi River including the Indigo Girls as well as singer-songwriters Keith Secola and Annie Humphrey. [...]

[Other actions included:
- Gathering on the first constructions sites of the pipeline, on January 9, 2021.
- Hunger strike by an Ojibwe activist in March 2021
- Camp of water protectors by Giniw Collective
- Treaty People Gathering in June 2021
- March to the Mississippi River headwaters with a Fire Light Camp in June 2021
- Two Inlets pumping station blockade in June 2021
- Bank protests
- State capitol protests
- Washington DC protests]