Tania Aubid began her hunger strike on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cValentine\u2019s Day is about love and having that love for your partner \u2014 but for me to have the love, I need to start from the ground up, which is Mother Earth,\u201d Aubid told me. Her hunger strike is in protest of the Line 3 oil pipeline project that is being built in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Aubid is Anishinaabe, a term that refers to a group of Native tribes found in parts of Canada and the US, and comes from what she describes as \u201ca little village called East Lake, Minnesota.\u201d When I spoke to her, her hunger strike was on day 33. She\u2019s surviving on \u201cpretty much anything that\u2019s liquid water,\u201d including \u201cnourishment tea from the Seneca nation, which heard about my hunger strike and sent some tea so I can drink,\u201d Aubid said.<\/p>\n
Aubid is one of the many Indigenous and climate activists protesting to try to convince President Joe Biden to cancel the Line 3 pipeline project, the way he canceled the Keystone XL with an executive order back in January. <\/p>\n
The fight over the roughly 340-mile Line 3 pipeline expansion project, which when completed will transport 1 million barrels of tar sands oil per day from Alberta, Canada, across much of northern Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin, has been heating up since December, when Enbridge, the Canadian multinational energy transportation company responsible for the project, began construction on the new portion of the pipeline. <\/p>\n
Enbridge says the project will create thousands of jobs and pump billions of dollars into Minnesota\u2019s economy. The company also said via email that it has done everything required under the law to receive approval for the pipeline and ensure it operates safely.<\/p>\n
But Indigenous groups and climate activists say Line 3 poses a significant risk of oil spills that could destroy precious water resources, wetlands, and ancestral lands. Line 3 will have the equivalent climate impact of bringing 50 new coal plants online, according to one report. <\/p>\n
At this point, the Line 3 project, which is actually a rerouting of an existing pipeline, would see the original pipeline abandoned and a more than 300-mile section laid through new Minnesota land, is about 50 percent complete. Enbridge will begin what it says is a planned pause on construction for two months beginning April 1. <\/p>\n
In the meantime, there are both state and federal lawsuits challenging Enbridge\u2019s permits, but activists are holding out hope that Biden will cancel the pipeline altogether.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what the Line 3 project would mean for the region, why Indigenous groups and climate activists are opposed to it, and what if anything can stop it from becoming operational later this year.<\/p>\n
Line 3, briefly explained<\/p>\n
First built in the 1960s, the current Line 3 crude oil pipeline stretches more than 1,000 miles from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, through Minnesota, and on to Superior, Wisconsin, where it ends.<\/p>\n
In 2014, citing corroded pipes and the demand for more oil, Enbridge began the designing and permitting process to reroute Line 3 farther south across more than 330 miles of northern Minnesota. The expansion would add a new pipeline corridor and double the amount of oil transported through the pipeline to 1 million barrels per day. The old pipeline has been operating at half capacity.<\/p>\n
Enbridge says it has done the necessary work and received the necessary permits for the Line 3 replacement and that modifications have been made to minimize the pipeline\u2019s environmental impact. <\/p>\n
In an email to Vox, Enbridge spokesperson Juli Kellner said Line 3\u2019s replacement is \u201cthe most studied pipeline project in Minnesota history [and] has been the subject of more than six years of science-based review by regulatory and permitting bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kellner said the process included \u201cmore than 70 public hearings, a 13,500-page Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), four separate reviews by independent administrative law judges, and 320 route modifications in response to stakeholder input and reviews and approvals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Enbridge claims that, over two years, Line 3 will create 4,200 jobs in Minnesota, half of which will be for local union workers, and that it will provide a $2 billion jolt to the Minnesota economy during project design and construction. But according to the Star Tribune, so far only 33 percent of workers on Line 3 are from Minnesota. <\/p>\n
Enbridge also argues that the Line 3 expansion is needed to safely deliver tar sands oil and prevent leaks, because otherwise that oil would travel by train.<\/p>\n
\u201cLine 3 is not like the Keystone XL pipeline. It already exists,\u201d Enbridge\u2019s Senior VP Mike Fernandez told CNN. But on this point, Fernandez is mistaken. The Keystone XL pipeline was also an extension of existing pipeline infrastructure, so Line 3 is in fact very much like Keystone XL.<\/p>\n
And activists are arguing Biden should cancel Line 3, just as he canceled Keystone XL.<\/p>\n
Concerns about oil spills, land impacts, and climate change are driving Indigenous-led opposition to Line 3<\/p>\n
Opposition to Line 3\u2019s new route stems from the risk of oil spills, disruption to the land, and its contribution to climate change.<\/p>\n
Line 3 will deliver oil from Alberta\u2019s tar sands \u2014 a thick, dense substance called bitumen \u2014 which is more expensive, more difficult, and even worse for the environment to extract than other forms of oil. <\/p>\n
And if the oil spills, activists worry Enbridge won\u2019t have the ability to clean it up. A 2016 report found that tar sands oil is much more difficult to clean up than non-tar sands oil.<\/p>\n
Most of Alberta\u2019s tar sands oil is trapped beneath the boreal forest, which means trees must be cleared for companies like Enbridge to get access to the oil. Once the forests are cleared, a lot of the tar sands oil requires in situ mining, in which hot steam is pumped underground to help liquefy the tar sands oil so it\u2019s ready for extraction.<\/p>\n
Once pulled from the ground, the trouble doesn\u2019t end there: Throughout its lifetime, a gallon of gasoline made from tar sands oil emits 15 percent more carbon dioxide than one made from conventional oil, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the spills \u2014 which always happen with pipelines. It\u2019s the disruption itself of just the pipeline going into 800 wetlands, 200 bodies of water. Then there\u2019s the climate change piece, emissions of this 50 coal plants, absolute insanity,\u201d attorney Tara Houska of Couchiching First Nation, founder of the advocacy organization Giniw Collective, told CNN in a March 18 interview about the Line 3 project.<\/p>\n
Concerns about oil spills are understandable. In 1991, the original Line 3 pipeline leaked 1.7 million gallons of crude oil into the nearby Prairie River in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Luckily, it was the dead of winter and the river was covered by thick ice, which prevented the oil from entering and polluting the water used by millions of people downstream on the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n
Activists say the 1991 spill is proof oil pipelines are too dangerous in Minnesota, but concerns about oil pipelines in the region don\u2019t stop there. <\/p>\n
In 2010, there was the Kalamazoo River Oil Spill in Michigan \u2014 the second-biggest inland oil spill in US history. Enbridge\u2019s Line 6B pipeline ruptured, spilling more than 1 million gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek, which spread to the Kalamazoo River. <\/p>\n
It took Enbridge 17 hours to notice the spill, raising concerns about whether the company could properly monitor its pipelines for leaks. Cleanup for the spill took years and ultimately cost Enbridge $1.2 billion.<\/p>\n
Line 3 activists are concerned that the same or worse could happen along the more than 300 miles of proposed pipeline that would extend across bodies of water, wetlands, and wild rice beds in northern Minnesota. <\/p>\n
Water is of particular concern to the Anishinaabe women who see themselves as responsible for protecting it. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe consider water not a resource \u2014 not something to be bought or sold, but a living, thinking, sentient relative and the portal through which everything comes to life,\u201d Simone Senogles, the Food Sovereignty Program coordinator at Indigenous Environmental Network, told me. For some, Senogles admits, \u201cit can sound \u2018New Age-y,\u2019 but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s just a worldview that Anishinaabe have.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a way that has allowed us to live in this place forever and not to have done harm the way colonizers have done,\u201d Senogles said. \u201cThey\u2019ve only been here 500 years and they\u2019ve already screwed it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Line 3 extension would also cross through the Leech Lake and Fond Du Lac reservations \u2014 land where, according to the terms of an 1855 treaty, Ojibwe tribes have the right to gather, hunt, and fish. For this reason, Anishinaabe activists say the pipeline violates the terms of the treaty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is spelled out in the treaty \u2014 the pipeline could pollute food sources, water sources, everything spelled out in the treaty what we as Anishinaabe people can do \u2014 hunt, fish, gather food, medicine. Line 3 goes against what we do spiritually as a people,\u201d Aubid told me.<\/p>\n
In her email, Enbridge\u2019s Kellner said the company \u201chas demonstrated ongoing respect for tribal sovereignty.\u201d Citing negotiations with tribal leadership that led to routes that avoided reservations, Kellner said that \u201cBoth Leech Lake and Fond du Lac have spoken and written repeatedly in support of project permits.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about the tribes who agreed to Line 3\u2019s expansion, Aubid says when faced with the decision, \u201cthe [tribal] leadership pretty much had a Sophie\u2019s Choice<\/em> type of deal: either this or that.\u201d<\/p>\n Aubid also blamed some of the Native support for the pipeline on lateral violence, in which members of a marginalized group act in counterproductive ways that end up harming their community. \u201cThey try to speak for all Native communities which they do not have the right to do,\u201d Aubid said of the members who approved Line 3.<\/p>\n But Aubid also stressed that when faced with the fact that there are already pipelines running through Minnesota reservations, it\u2019s a case of \u201cdamned if they do, damned if they don\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n Beyond concerns about the land and water resources, a January 2020 report by 13 environmental groups found the proposed reroute of Line 3 would reverse any gains Minnesota has made in its fight against climate change. <\/p>\n The report estimated that the Line 3 expansion and the resultant doubling of its capacity would have the same impact on CO2 emissions as adding 50 new coal plants or 38 million additional gasoline vehicles to the road. <\/p>\n