Canadians rally in solidarity with New York City at the People’s Climate March in reaction to a proposed Enbridge Pipeline Project on September 21, 2014, in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Photo: Chris Yakimov)
Hundreds of residents gathered in front of the Minnesota State Capitol in Saint Paul last week for a rally to “Hold the Line” against a pipeline project called Line 3. Backed by the Canadian pipeline company Enbridge Energy, the inter-state project was the subject of the city’s only public meeting held later that day, and residents were firmly determined to make their voices heard.
With an hour to go until the public hearing, they marched over a mile to the InterContinental Saint Paul Riverfront hotel. Once inside, they argued against the project’s approval to the judge who will decide Line 3’s fate next year.
“It’s just nice to be in a sea of people who feel the same way that you do,” said Mysti Babineau of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe in northwestern Minnesota. “It gives me hope because a lot of these people I’m seeing nowadays are so young.”
Enbridge is proposing a replacement of its old Line 3, which was installed in the 1960s and is now considered to be inefficient and too costly to remove. Once decommissioned, the old Line 3 would be cleaned and left in the ground and a new $7.5 billion pipeline would be constructed. While taking a slightly different path through northern Minnesota, it would end at the same oil facility in Superior, Wisconsin.
Enbridge claims the project is the “best [way] to maintain system integrity while minimizing disruption to landowners and communities.” But many Minnesotans disagree and think the plans for both pipelines raise serious concerns — one of which is the violation of treaty rights. These rights, guaranteed by treaties signed over 150 years ago, include the right to hunt, gather and fish. If a leak were to occur with the new pipeline — which is not farfetched, considering the company’s history of over 1,000 spills — it would…