Tanzina: You're listening to The Takeaway, I'm Tanzina Vega. On his first day in office, president Joe Biden signed an executive order to halt the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Now some indigenous and climate activists are hoping he'll do the same for another controversial pipeline project in Minnesota, the nearly 400-mile Line 3 pipeline expansion. Enbridge Energy, the company behind the project says it will bring thousands of jobs to the region and boost the state's economy, but opponents fear it could destroy the surrounding waterways and ancestral lands, as well as further contribute to the ongoing climate crisis. Mary Annette Pember is the national correspondent for Indian Country Today, and a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe. Mary, welcome to the show.
Mary: Greetings.
Tanzina: The Line 3 project, explain it to us. It's part of a network of pipelines operated by a company called Enbridge Energy, right?
Mary: Correct. It's a part of what's called the mainline system and there are enormous a number of pipelines lines. Line 3, which is the pipeline in question, Enbridge is framing it as a replacement project. There is a Line 3 that does go from their headquarters in Canada down through Minnesota and then to Superior Wisconsin all the way through Northern Minnesota. This actually goes through, what's called a pipeline corridor. There's like five different pipelines, Enbridge pipelines, carrying all manner of petroleum products. This particular project, the cost is about $2.6 million. Although they are framing it as a replacement in terms of a safety issue, the opponents are claiming, and I think they probably are right, that what this is really about is putting in a new pipeline that has the capacity to carry tar sands which would require a larger circumference pipe and that transports the tar sands under pressure.
Tanzina: This is replacing or rerouting an existing pipeline or both?
Mary: Both. It depends on who you ask. According to Enbridge, they really want to frame it as replacement, and again, a safety issue, but opponents are just saying, "No, this is a new pipeline".
Tanzina: Obviously, whenever we hear about pipelines these days, particularly following the Keystone XL, there is a lot of controversy about that, you're already getting into that. what is Enbridge saying? They're saying this is a replacement?
Mary: Yes. They're claiming it's a safety issue, they're claiming it's aging. What's also interesting if you get down into the weeds a little bit and question them about that, the lines are numbered. I think there's like 1 through 6A in that particular quarter. That implies that these smaller numbers are in fact older and they are. I questioned them, they said, "Actually age is not a component". Yet, they claimed on the front end that it's a "Aging pipeline." Their justification, I think, perhaps is questionable.
Tanzina: Let's talk about the folks who are not supporting this right now. There are protestors against the Enbridge pipeline, largely indigenous and environmental activists. Is that right?
Mary: I think there's a lot of other people too, just folks on the ground, just regular people living in these communities that also have issues with what would potentially-- the impact of a spill. Tar sands actually is far more difficult to clean out. There was an enormous Enbridge spill in Kalamazoo river in 2010 in Michigan that was really devastating. I think they're still paying for that. It's like $1.2 million, the billion dollars rather than they've spent for cleaning that up. The potential impact for people along the line would be pollution for wild rice. Also, this pipeline goes through 1855 treaty lands and Ojibwe in that region. Part of the treaty rights guarantee them rights to hunt and gather. Potentially it would have an impact on their sustainable and their subsistence lifeways
Tanzina: There are indigenous communities that are split on the issue though.
Mary: Yes, there sure are. Native people, just like everybody else, we don't necessarily agree with our elected leadership and tribes are governed by elected political leaders. There have been a Fond du Lac tribe, which is actually quite close to Duluth was initially very opposed. They have an existing pipeline going through their reservation and they were opposed to this replacement project, but they eventually made an agreement with Enbridge. They've not been very transparent about it which they don't have to be as a sovereign nation. That is absolutely their right, but it's rumored to be in the area of $250 million that they received. They also claim it was a Sophie's choice in that if they had gone with the proposed reroute around the reservation, it would have in fact endangered more and more fragile wetlands. They thought, "We've already got this thing here. Let's just put it through the same route." That has been really contentious, there's some citizens of the Fond du Lac tribe that have built a water protector camp right next door to one of the construction sites. People are really split and Enbridge has done a really good job of exploiting those differences.
Tanzina: Mary, we've got a little less than two minutes to go. I'm just curious about the legal challenges against Line 3 that we're seeing at the state and federal level.
Mary: Yes. Right now there's two lawsuits. Oral arguments started in the state of Minnesota against the Minnesota Department of Commerce saying that the demand doesn't justify the extension of the line and against the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency that they haven't considered the long-term climate impacts of the project. At the federal level, there's like three tribes and the way they were [unintelligible 00:06:22] Ojibwe, Red Lake, and under the earth Sierra club organizations that are challenging the Army Corps engineers for issuing a water permit. What has happened, however, is several tribes have also tried to stop the construction while these lawsuits are being considered, but they have not been successful. Enbridge is building their pipeline very quickly.
Tanzina: Mary Annette Pember is a national correspondent for Indian Country Today and a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe. Mary, thanks so much for joining us.
Mary: Thank you for having me.
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