The Pandemic Pipeline- An Appeal to the Governor
Governor Walz has just issued all the state permits for Enbridge’s Line 3.
That’s including the Minnesota Pollution Control Permit called the 40l permit, which approves the water crossings on the Mississippi, Willow, Crow Wing and other rivers in the heart of Anishinaabe territory. The Governor’s Department of Natural Resources issued all permits, including one which allows Enbridge to kill endangered species, and then pay Minnesota $2,532,860 for the destruction of endangered species in the line of the pipeline.
There is no bonding for tribes, no protection for our wild rice and no justice.
Supporting our Water 💦 Protectors, Dawn Goodwin of Rise Coalition to protect our water.
Love Honor and Respect our Nibi. Photo by Sarah LittleRedfetherDesign.com
#WaterIsLife
Governor Walz has just issued all the state permits for Enbridge’s Line 3.
That’s including the Minnesota Pollution Control Permit called the 40l permit, which approves the water crossings on the Mississippi, Willow, Crow Wing and other rivers in the heart of Anishinaabe territory. The Governor’s Department of Natural Resources issued all permits, including one which allows Enbridge to kill endangered species, and then pay Minnesota $2,532,860 for the destruction of endangered species in the line of the pipeline.
There is no bonding for tribes, no protection for our wild rice and no justice.
Then there’s the pandemic.
This is a legacy Walz will have to deal with- shoving a pipeline down our throats during a pandemic, for, in the end 23 jobs. What’s clear is that all permits have been issued. The Governor should issue a stay in construction, to protect Minnesota and our people. There’s no urgency in a pipeline project.
To be clear, COVID is in an exponential growth period, and the counties along the proposed pipeline route, many of them with higher populations of Native people, are at risk. This is what exponential growth looks like: In Minnesota, our first 1,000 dead came by May 30 (4-5 months), our second 1,000 by Sept. 26 (4 months), our third by Nov. 18 (7.5 weeks), and, if trends continue, we’ll hit 4,000 dead before year’s end.
Native people are very high risk in a corona virus pandemic. .An analysis by U.S. News & World Report indicates that Native Americans have the highest racial disparity when it comes to COVID-19 hospitalizations of any group in the U.S. Native Americans are 5.3 times more likely to be hospitalized due to COVID-19 than white Americans. The inquiry shows that in 23 of the 31 states studied, Native Americans were at greater risk for COVID-19 infection. In Arizona, Mississippi , Montana, New Mexico and Oregon, Native Americans were more than four times more likely to contract the disease. We would prefer to not be studied after death, and instead request that you support our lives. We have already lived through small pox and influenza epidemics. And we should not be subjected to a state sanctioned expansion of the COVIC pandemic.
Now that all approvals have been issued, Enbridge is unrolling 4200 workers in the territory of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe , into trailer parks, RV sites, hotels , and on site man camps. All of those workers pose a threat to the health and wellbeing of the Anishinaabe and to the people of this state. We note particularly that the Enbridge pipeline route is also a route of significant COVID impacts. We also note a number of cases in western states where Pipeline workers and camps have increased the COVID rates and exposure with itinerant workers. See below a map of COVID cases and the pipeline.
“Minn. Tribes Seek To Halt Imminent Pipeline Construction”
The Red Lake Band of Chippewa and White Earth Band of Ojibwe, both of northern Minnesota, filed with the commission on the eve of Thanksgiving, pointing to cases currently before the Minnesota Court of Appeals seeking to undo state regulators' approval of the pipeline over unaddressed environmental risks.
The tribes sought speedy consideration of their motion Wednesday, citing the COVID-19 pandemic as well as a letter from Enbridge stating construction could begin this week.
"Since Enbridge has informed landowners that it is 'estimating construction on or near your property will start on approximately November 30, 2020,' and that it intends to complete construction within six to nine months of the start of construction, the tribes respectfully request that the commission expedite consideration of this motion," they wrote.
Health Care Capacity
Health Care professionals are deeply concerned about the raging pandemic. Health care professionals from Aitken county have called on the Governor to put a stay on the construction, noting that Aitken County has only four ICU beds, and a significant high risk population of Native and elderly residents. Cornerstone Nursing and Rehab in Bagley called on the National Guard the third week of November to support their diminished staff. Duluth hospitals are at risk, Bemidji and more. Our Indian Health Service is not equipped for a pandemic.
Minnesota is seeing increased community spread among health care workers. The Minnesota Hospital Association, noted an Nov. 11 spot check of their system showed “over 6,000 of our frontline health care heroes were out of service in our hospitals.” Bed counts mean nothing without qualified staff. Meanwhile, Children’s Hospital is similarly impacted, with Dr. Marc Gorelick reporting that over 200 Children’s Hospital of Minnesota staff were affected. Our tribal health care systems are already stressed, and this pandemic should not be expanded for the benefit of a Canadian multinational which has put our state and people at risk for fifty years.
The Public Trust Doctrine
Walz’s permits are a puzzle in a time when tar sands economies are collapsing, and when no other state has approved a pipeline project. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, revoked the 1953 easement that allows Enbridge to operate pipelines through the Straits of Mackinac. That’s, also the heart of Anishinaabe territory. Governor Whitmer, acted under the state’s public trust doctrine, which requires state authorities to protect the Great Lakes.
“Enbridge has routinely refused to take action to protect our Great Lakes and the millions of Americans who depend on them for clean drinking water and good jobs,” Governor Whitmer said in a statement. In 2010, Enbridge’s Kalamazoo oil spill occurred sending 850,000 gallons of tar sands oil into the water. The spill had continued for l7 hours before it was noticed by Enbridge. Minnesota actually had the largest oil spill in US history, and it was an Enbridge spill in Grand Rapids.
Seems like someone should have a memory.
Elsewhere, the tar sands industry is collapsing and in other states, like New York, (Constitution pipeline), projects are being cancelled for economic reasons. In turn, the Bad River Band of Anishinaabe has rejected Enbridge’s continued use of an easement, now over 50 years old and asked that Enbridge remove the l3 miles of pipeline crossing that reservation. It’s baffling the Governor would approve this pipeline, in the face simply of the poor economic forecast for tar sands oil, and the fact that Enbridge has already cut throughput in the line by 400,000 barrels per day and moved the equivalent of any new proposed line into other pipes. More than that , the state, and tribes have appealed all the Public Utilities Commission decision ( an agency which needs to be entirely rebuilt). While Governor Walz has stated that he intends to follow the science and the process, allowing all construction and water crossings to be completed prior to a Court hearing., is a hollow promise .
That’s to say, that the state and our tribes have yet to have our day in the Minnesota Court of Appeals, where we have challenged this pipeline in terms of the Certificate of Need and the Route. This pipeline during a pandemic is a disaster for your state, and for our people. This is not an essential pipeline project by any means, and your legacy will be tarnished by the deaths resulting from this project.
In the end, this pipeline, according to Enbridge will leave 23 new jobs.
Those jobs, are conflict jobs, born of a battle, and dividing your state, and adding a huge carbon footprint in a time of climate disaster. We understand your commitment to labor and jobs, and respectfully request that you look beyond a dirty pipeline during a pandemic, and make, instead a legacy of hope, courage and well being for all of our people.
Please issue a stay on construction.
Important to know:
There are outstanding legal challenges to Line 3, however, “one is from the state’s Department of Commerce, an agency that contends Enbridge hasn’t properly shown demand for the oil the pipeline would carry. Agency spokeswoman Mo Schriner said Commerce is still reviewing its options for the appeals process.”
STOPLINE3.ORG
What we can learn from bats by Winona LaDuke
There are many old stories in Ojibwe culture. Those stories often tell of lessons brought to us by animals. There’s an old story about how the bat helped us win a lacrosse game and now that’s why the birds migrate. This time might be known as the time that the bat, or the bapakwaanaajiinh, taught us a lesson.
There are many old stories in Ojibwe culture. Those stories often tell of lessons brought to us by animals. There’s an old story about how the bat helped us win a lacrosse game and now that’s why the birds migrate. This time might be known as the time that the bat, or the bapakwaanaajiinh, taught us a lesson.
Written By: Winona LaDuke | Mar 16th 2020
It’s said that the coronavirus (COVID-19) originates from bats in China. Researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology found the genome in the virus found in patients was 96% identical to that of an existing bat coronavirus, according to a study published in the journal Nature. It’s not clear the intermediaries between bats and humans, but what is known is that the virus has traveled, and it's not done yet.
What does the bat teach us?
Well, first of all, it might teach us to slow down. That’s OK. Google and Amazon sent home their people. God only knows that their teams must have enough technology that they can work at home. And, what if that works out well, because people don’t have to commute, and can be happier and around their families.
Maybe there’s a lesson in this for some industries.
We learn about global trade. It turns out that we make a lot of stuff in China. We‘ve globalized our markets in such a way that if China closes down, a lot of stuff spins. Take the example of shrimp. Most restaurant shrimp are today farm raised in Scotland, shipped to China to be deveined and processed, then shipped to the U.S. to be served at the salad buffet. That seems like a lot of travel for a shrimp, if you ask me.
We learned that money is also fragile. There’s rich people crying over their investments. Investors continued to blame the spread and economic impact of the coronavirus for steep losses. They might want to invest in local, not global, economies.
Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte announced that all the country’s stores except pharmacies and groceries will be closed in a move deemed both necessary to safeguard human health and a threat to the country’s output.
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Wall Street worries that such measures could tip the global economy into recession, especially if Washington decides the disease is rampant enough in the U.S. to warrant similar measures. The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. We learned that it might be good to have local food security, and make sure there’s toilet paper, because everyone is stocking up, and there might be a crisis.
We learned that we are not prepared for outbreaks of viruses of this scale. When the first coronavirus case showed up in Seattle, Dr. Helen Chu, an infectious disease expert, needed some questions answered. According to a New York Times story, she asked for help from state and federal officials and was denied. She tried for a month to get approvals, then pushed ahead, finding that the virus had already established itself. The lack of coordination by federal officials, gutted research programs and what I refer to as “white tape” slowed our response. While South Korea can test l0,000 people a day for the virus, the U.S. did not have that capacity. We are still scrambling, and time matters.
Here’s another challenge: we don’t have a national health plan, so 44 million people don’t have health insurance and are probably not going to go in and get checked.
We learned that we don’t need as much oil as we thought. According to Bloomberg News, China is turning back oil from Saudi Arabia. “Chinese refiners have reduced the amount of crude they’re turning into fuels by about 15%, and may deepen those cuts in coming weeks. State-owned and private processors have pared back refining by at least 2 million barrels a day…” The price of oil has plummeted, and the largest tar sands mining project in the world was cancelled. We just don’t need it; we never did. We learned that we are not in control of everything we think we are.
For me? I’m going to head to the sugarbush and slow down. That’s the place in the north country where sugar comes from a tree, with the medicines of spring. Getting outside, getting fresh air, smelling sap as it boils is pretty healthy.
Then there’s the pleasure of continuing a tradition from time immemorial. The Ojibwe maple sugar bush doesn’t need anything from China or from the rest of the world. That seems like a good idea to me.
