Preventing Damage: #StopLine3 Movement

*This was written as a school paper, which is why this is phrased as it is + is longer. This was reviewed in advance by a #StopLine3 leader*

When environmental disasters make the news, they don’t feel real. They’re tragedies that we see and sometimes feel just as empathetic to as we do to the fictional characters we love and adore. With tragedy after tragedy, can we blame anyone? This is the language that makes it hard to gain global support to prevent these disasters from happening in the first place. To the average human, prioritizing the environment may just be an elitist issue. Why should we care about plants or animals when there are children on the streets and people with their land being stolen from them? That’s the point. It’s not just about the land- the environmental fight is about the people. People are on the streets losing their lands and homes and migrating because there is too much risk to their health. As people fight for their lives in the building of new pipelines (and other products causing climate damage), Line 3 is the threat that the entire continent should care about. The movement to stop Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 Replacement is one of the biggest fights for human life.

Enbridge Energy, a multi-national energy company, is one of the strongest supporters of the products that create environmental disasters. Now, they are onto their biggest project yet. The Line 3 Replacement Pipeline spans over 1000 miles of tar sands crude oil. There is currently a movement to stop this.

Pipelines have a disastrous history, and Enbridge being the largest pipeline oil company in the world is no exception. As of 2018 according to the national environmental organization Greenpeace, Enbridge has one pipeline spill every 20 days. Additionally, Enbridge has had 40+ “significant” oil spills. “Significant” in these terms translates to 50+ barrels of oil being spilled in one disaster. Enbridge’s history of damage is including but is not limited to, the 840,000 gallon Kalamazoo River oil spill in 2010. An estimated 150 families had to leave their homes permanently. The damage from crude oil pipelines has caused such environmental damage that there are locations here in North America that are inhabitable to some and plenty of people have had to completely uproot their lives.

Enbridge’s feelings about the damages caused by the “Line 3 Replacement” is entirely descriptive in the name, once given the context. The new pipeline to “replace” the original 1960s Line 3 Pipeline will be much larger, carrying a heavier type of oil, in very new territory- at least in Northern Minnesota. This will involves deforestation as well as damaging land and water that have never been touched by Enbridge before. The “Line 3 Replacement” is only building anew is replacing nothing.

This fight has become a movement for Indigenous lives and cultures. While it would cause the equivalent of 50 new coal-fired power plants in climate damage (Minnesota Environmental Partnership, 2), this isn’t even just about that. This is about the people involved and the laws that Enbridge and the state of Minnesota are violating. In 1837, the US government signed a treaty with the Ojibwe people native to the land. This treaty “…explicitly grants the Ojibwe the right to hunt, fish and gather in the lands they gave up, and the 1855 treaty, which in 1999, the supreme court ruled also retains those rights” (“‘It’s cultural genocide,” Regan). This pipeline, prior to any damage that Enbridge has a vast history of making with smaller products, will already hurt the land, creatures, and water that many tribal members so deeply rely on.

Tara Houska, a tribal attorney and Founder of Giniw Collective, is a powerful voice on the frontlines of the #StopLine3 fight. She has been in the middle of the action for years, even though a pandemic and water protectors continue getting arrested for fighting for their land. She has said, “It’s really hard to be in a situation in which we’re looking at this beautiful place and thinking about the fact that our governor has chosen to support or at least tacitly allow a tar sands project, one of the biggest tar sands infrastructure projects in North America…It’s a perpetuation of cultural genocide.” (“It’s cultural genocide,” Regan)

#StopLine3 also continues to be a fight for the future that young people have to live in. Since this seemed unacceptable to the youth of Minnesota, they decided to do something about it. In 2017, thirteen young people, a part of a group called the “Youth Climate Intervenors”, got deeply involved in the legal process around the Line 3 Pipeline, as a generation that generally does not get a seat at the legal table. Akilah Sanders-Reed is the Oil-Free Organizer for the national climate organization Power Shift Network, as well as a Youth Climate Intervenor. She has discussed how unique their work is; “We wanted a seat at (the legal) table. We think that young people are really the best advocates for themselves and that we can tell our stories the best. Decision-makers need to hear directly from the people who are impacted by the decisions they’re making, and that includes young people.” (“Revolution Coalition Network 24-Hour Livestream,” Sanders-Reed). Young people are in a position where they understand their future and what is at stake- and are making demands to fight for a better world.

This fight, many believe, needs to be intergenerational. Some people are fighting for their histories and others are fighting for their futures. The important thing is to get the people involved who aren’t normally allowed to be there. In this case, it is the youth. “It is young people who are already bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, and it is future generations who will grow up in a world hollowed out by extinctions and ecosystem destruction. Rather than enjoying the privileges and stability generations before us took for granted, we are facing a future ever more ravaged by wildfires, hurricanes, and sea-level rise ― unless we rapidly end our addiction to fossil fuels.” (“Stopping Line 3 Is a Matter of Intergenerational Justice,” Sanders-Reed)

This fight is not regional- this is national and even more. In February 2020, over 50 organizers from around the country visited Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s office to speak against him allowing the pipeline to be built. Eriquah Vincent, an activist based in Newark, NJ, is a perfect example. She said at the time “We have similar issues down in the South because I feel like we are all kind of fighting against the same things for a similar situation. So we see these structures that are extractive in the way that energy is produced can be really detrimental to the health of frontline and fenceline communities.” When this pipeline breaks- and considering Enbridge’s history we wouldn’t hold out hope for them- that will cause damage to not only the land but polluting the air. Air doesn’t have borders, and when that pollution spreads, Enbridge won’t be able to buy their way out of the sickness and death that this pipeline will cause.

I was in Tim Walz’s office that day. When handing over a petition signed by all of the organizations and individuals in attendance, I warned “people across the country and organizations around the country are saying that this will affect them, and ‘we want better.’” I am a youth climate activist, Founder & Executive Director of climate education and mutual aid organization Revolution Coalition Network, and long-time Las Vegas fighter. I was born and raised in the fastest-warming city in the United States, where people die every summer from 120-degree temperatures and develop livelong allergy problems due to the colonization of the foliage. Additionally, I am a part of a tribe Indigenous to North America (Southern United States & Mexico) that has been erased from history and is not legally recognized here in the US. I fight to stop the Line 3 pipeline because it may impact my home here in the Southwest. I fight in solidarity with the Ojibwe people because I don’t want their tribe to be erased in the same way that mine has. There is so much at risk that will feel a ripple effect for generations to come- so we might as well do it the right way. This is why I was so incredibly proud to have joined hundreds of other activists and representatives to sign the Influencers Letter in support of halting the Line 3 Pipeline. This letter made the Star Tribune on January 31st, 2021. I’m also so glad that my organization is doing the work alongside dozens of other organizations to prioritize getting funding away from climate destroyers. We are a part of the national Stop the Money Pipeline coalition which is leading the Defund Line 3 efforts.

While the Line 3 Replacement pipeline permits have been approved and construction is currently in place, this isn’t nearly the end of the #StopLine3 fight. The Youth Climate Intervenors are still fighting Enbridge in ongoing lawsuits. Others are putting pressure on President Biden to cancel the permits of the Line 3 pipeline, as he did with Keystone XL, as well as pressuring big banks such as Chase to not renew their loans to Enbridge for the loan (deadline being March 31st!). There is so much action you can take right now. You have the ability to email CEOs, executives, and Board members who all have a voice in the Line 3 funding. You can call these leaders and spam them and so that they absolutely cannot ignore this issue. The number one request is to donate to the water protectors on the frontlines, making the demands that so many are afraid to do. This is an ongoing fight, and the only way to ensure a win for our survival is to be collective warriors for climate justice.

Works Cited

“Dangerous Pipelines.” Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International, 14 Jan. 2018, www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/dangerous-pipelines/#:~:text=On%20July%204%2C%202002%2C%20an,River%2C%20authorities%20set%20a%20controlled.

“Enbridge Found to Average One Pipeline Incident Every 20 Days and New Pipelines Are Not Risk Free: Greenpeace Report.” Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International, 14 Nov. 2018, www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/enbridge-found-to-average-one-pipeline-incident-every-20-days-and-new-pipelines-are-not-risk-free-greenpeace-report/.

“Line 3 Replacement Project.” Enbridge Inc., Enbridge Energy,
www.enbridge.com/projects-and-infrastructure/public-awareness/minnesota-projects/line-3-replacement-project.
Power Shift Network, director. #StopLine3 February 2020 — Power Shift Network.

#StopLine3, Power Shift Network, 6 Apr. 2020, fb.watch/3Mtm6tSBeq/.
Regan, Sheila. “‘It’s Cultural Genocide’: inside the Fight to Stop a Pipeline on Tribal Lands.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Feb. 2021, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/19/line-3-pipeline-ojibwe-tribal-lands.

Rodriguez, Lena, et al. “Revolution Coalition Network 24-Hour Livestream.” Revolution Coalition Network, 5 Dec. 2020, www.therevolutioncoalition.org/demand.

Sanders-Reed, Akilah. “Opinion: Stopping Line 3 Is a Matter of Intergenerational Justice.” Common Dreams, 18 Feb. 2021, www.commondreams.org/views/2021/02/18/stopping-line-3-matter-intergenerational-justice.