Tag: Line 3

Keystone XL is dead. Now it’s time to stop Line 3.

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UPDATE: Camp Firelight was peacefully evicted by the Clearwater County Sheriff Dept. on the demands of Enbridge on June 14th.

Now is the time to join the fight to stop Line 3.

Yesterday, TC Energy announced that they were terminating the Keystone XL Pipeline project after over a decade of organizing and resistance from the Alberta tar sands to the Gulf Coast.

We know that organizing, direct action and resistance to pipelines works. We just proved it again.

Courageous water protectors took action by the thousands on Monday supporting Treaty Rights and opposing the construction of Line 3 in Minnesota. Over 150 water protectors were arrested while shutting down Enbridge’s Two Inlets pumping station. They locked to equipment, blocked roads and stopped work for 30 hours!

At the same time, more than a thousand people marched, occupied and held a prayer ceremony on Enbridge’s drilling site on the Mississippi River. This has led to an indefinite encampment on the site. This has foiled Enbridge’s plans to drill under the river.

But, to continue to protect this precious place, the RISE Coalition has issued a call for all allies and accomplices to join them as soon as possible at Camp Firelight, a new Anishinaabe-led encampment at the Mississippi headwaters in the direct path of Line 3.  

We’re asking you for two things:

  1. GO! We need as many people to travel to support the fight against Line 3 as soon as possible. If you are able to join the camp at the headwaters of the Mississippi please contact the RISE Coalition at RiseCoalition@protonmail.com.
  2. DONATE! Over 150 people have been arrested in Giniw Collective-led direct actions against Line 3 this week. We need support for our water protectors. Please donate here.

If you are unable to attend or just getting back from Line 3, you can help put pressure on Joe Biden by organizing a solidarity action at a federal building. Contact us at info@risingtidenorthamerica.org for more information if you can organize an event.

The Treaty People Gathering has increased the pressure, and with Keystone XL dead now we need to stop all tar sands pipelines.

Can you help us get the word out? If so, AMPLIFY the call to action to join Camp Firelight on Twitter and Facebook.

Water Protectors Blockade Line 3 Construction Ahead of Full-Scale Assault on Minnesota Waterways

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cross-posted from Giniw Collective

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
May 24, 2021
Contact: giniw@protonmail.com

(Crow Wing, MN) Today, water protectors locked to each other through the treads of excavators tearing through the Earth constructing the Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

Enbridge is just weeks away from resuming full-scale construction through Minnesota’s wetlands and drilling 22 rivers, including the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Biden’s administration has expressed deep concern at the growing resistance in Northern Minnesota. To date, over 250 Water Protectors, largely young people, have been arrested through Minnesota’s hard winter protecting the sacred.

One water protector said, “I’m taking action today to prevent our societies continual reliance on fossil fuels. The flow of oil in Line 3 affects the rising sea levels of my home in New York City and I am honored to be working with Anishinaabe leadership in our collective struggle.”

Water Protector Chris said, “Enbridge should not be allowed to continue to commit its crimes against humanity, against ecosystems, and its assault on Ojibwe bodies & terrritories. We must stop Line 3!”
Mathew of New Orleans said, “I am here because we are fighting this pipeline, but beacuse we are fighting all pipelines. We no longer need to expand our fossil fuel infrastructure, when we are already in a moment of global climate apartheid. ”

Another water protector from Austin, Texas, said, “If we allow this pipeline to be put in, water will be poisoned, and people will die. We need to take responsibility for our water and our friends. Together we can Stop Line 3!
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Water Protectors Blockade Enbridge Line 3 Man Camp During MMIWG2S Awareness Week

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cross-posted from Giniw Collective

May 6, 2021
(Backus, MN) This morning, 11 protectors locked to each other in front of both entrances to Enbridge’s Backus, MN, man camp location to stop destruction of the sacred and stand against the community harms fossil fuels bring. Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2-Spirit relatives is an epidemic throughout Indian Country. Many of the water protectors this morning are grandparents.
Thousands of out-of-state workers have poured into northern Minnesota, despite Enbridge’s promises to employ mostly in-state. It asserted 75% would be Minnesotans, the number of locals actually employed by the company sits at 33%.
The violence committed on our land becomes the violence committed on our people. A MMIW-sensitivity training session for workers here to destroy Indigenous land will never be enough. 3 Ojibwe nations are suing against approval of Enbridge’s Line 3 project. The Line 3 project should’ve never been approved and the unnecessary risks to local communities never experienced.
Alex Chatfield, a father and social worker from Massachusetts, said, “Together with other members of my Episcopal Church, I have been fighting to protect the Earth’s climate for my children and vulnerable people on the front lines of the climate emergency.”
Marla Marcum, a (co)Founder of the Climate Disobedience Center and a person of faith who lives on Cherokee lands in Knoxville’s, Tennessee, said, “I feel called to take this action in solidarity with the Indigenous leaders who defend the lands and waters that are most directly impacted by Line 3 and the communities who search for and mourn the missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two spirit relatives taken from them by pipeline construction man camps like this one.”
Rachel Wyon, a mother and climate justice advocate from Massachusetts, said, “I answered the call to stand with Indigenous mothers and grandmothers here fighting to Stop Line 3, demanding respect for their sovereign treaties and telling the world to wake up and stop the destruction of our sacred Mother Earth by fossil fuel extraction — Resist Line 3 and Keep it in the Ground for all living beings and future generations.”
Melinda Tuhus, a climate activist and grandmother from New Haven Connecticut, said, “I came to fight line 3 in support of indigenous sovereignty and a livable planet for everyone.”
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Hill City, MN: Water Protectors Block Line 3 Construction in Honor of Earth Day

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: media@resistline3.org

(Hill City, MN) Early Friday morning, five water protectors locked themselves into concrete barrels at the entrance of Swatara oil pump station, halting construction of the Line 3 Replacement project. This action was taken with Camp Migizi in recognition of Earth Day, coming a day ahead of “Stop Line 3 x Earth Day”, a march that will be taking place in Duluth, Minnesota. Two of the protestors sat behind a hand painted banner reading “Earth Day Every Day”, while other banners in front of the pump station gate read “No Pipelines on Stolen Land,” “Land Back,” and “Protect the Water.”

Construction faces active and growing resistance led by Indigenous groups who see the project and the risk of a spill as a violation of treaty rights, as the project endangers wild rice lakes in treaty territories where the Anishinaabe have the right to hunt, fish, and gather. There have been over 250 arrests made since construction began in December 2020, making this the largest pipeline protest since Standing Rock.

One of the water protectors present at the action decried the construction of Line 3 for breaking treaties and desecrating the land. In their words, “What Enbridge is doing is perpetuating that colonial cycle of violence and disregard, until we are at a point where our waters do not flow, and our grasses wilt and die, and all we have in common are fires, floods, state surveillance, and the thin, decimated ozone hanging low above our heads.”

Groups resisting Line 3 in honor of Earth Day cite the ecological destruction that is being caused by the pipeline, particularly the project’s contribution to climate change. Oil from the tar sands is the world’s most carbon-intensive fuel, and the expanded Line 3 would release as much carbon as 50 new coal-fired power plants. Enbridge calls this construction a “replacement project”, omitting the fact that the new Line 3 pipeline would nearly double its capacity to carry oil, all but guaranteeing that our state would not meet its emissions reduction targets. The new route also goes through hundreds of acres of wetlands and over 200 bodies of water untouched by infrastructure projects.

This action was taken in recognition of the colonial violence and ecological destruction that is being caused by the construction of Line 3, and in honor of Earth Day. As one of the Water Protectors present said, “We take this stand today, to celebrate creation in the face of tyranny.”

Additional photos and interviews with movement leadership available upon request.

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