The March 6 Water Protector Defendant Gathering near Palisade Minnesota
Arrests in Aitkin County and charges are increasing, but in early March, 70 people were arrested in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, charged with Unlawful Assembly as they gathered to commemorate the largest oil spill in history in a March 3 gathering. The spill was the LaPrairie River Spill of an Enbridge line, in l99l. The spill sent l.7 million gallons of tar sands spewing into the river.
Photo by Keri Pickett
The March 6 Water Protector Defendant Gathering near Palisade Minnesota brought almost two hundred Minnesotans together to celebrate spring, in a festive and yet sobering convening.
Charged across the north country, clergy, school teachers. Grandmothers and college students gathered, shared their reasons for getting arrested, and as the trumpeter swans return to the north by the thousands, they land on fields, lakes, and rivers in the complex and biodiverse north.
The lakes, and rivers still frozen, come alive as the birds return, excited to land in their old nesting grounds. With the abrupt and early change from a deep winter to springtime temperatures of 50 degrees, the maple syrup season is just beginning. Water protectors joined with Anishinaabe in tapping the trees.
The Anishinaabe are known maple syrup and sugar producers, at one point, the Keewenaw Bay reservation produced over 463,000 pounds of maple sugar in one year- exceeding by far, most production in the largest operations in Minnesota and Wisconsin today.
Joe Hill and his chief competitor Paul DeMain.
The Welcome Water Protector Center also hosted a friendly, and deep historic competition of the Snow Snake Races carried out on a track of about l50 yards parallel to the Mississippi. The traditional game (video) has been played by northern nations, and in this round included a robust competition between Oneida and Seneca competitors including the renowned Joe Hill and his chief competitor Paul DeMain and Dan Ninham.
The game is making a big come back up north.
“This is a medicine game, we get out in the winter, and sometimes we throw for people in need, thinking about them as we send the snakes,” Joe explains.
On a more serious note over l70 people have been charged with misdemeanor offenses for opposing Line 3, the controversial Canadian mega project. Arrests in Aitkin County and charges are increasing, but in early March, 70 people were arrested in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, charged with Unlawful Assembly as they gathered to commemorate the largest oil spill in history in a March 3 gathering.
The spill was the LaPrairie River Spill of an Enbridge line, in l99l. The spill sent l.7 million gallons of tar sands spewing into the river.
Minnesotans downstream including the Twin Cities ( whose water comes from the Mississippi) were saved by a layer of ice on the water. Spill clean-up consisted of a squeegee and a burn-off.
At that commemoration, Itasca County Sheriffs Department, Northern Lights Task Force, Department of Natural Resources and Highway Patrol corralled Water Protectors who were present, citing seventy.
Water Protectors who gathered today included those charged in Grand Rapids and many charged in incidents in Hubbard and Aitkin County. Legal observers are questioning whether Enbridge is incentivizing arrests and police escalation. With the corporation reimbursing police agencies through an escrow account, reimbursements for overtime hours are increasing. And, there’s equipment to go with it. The intercept reports “
MINNESOTA SHERIFF’S OFFICE has requested that the tar sands pipeline company Enbridge reimburse the department for nearly $72,000 worth of riot gear and more than $10,000 in “less than lethal” weapons and ammunition, including tear gas, pepper spray, bean bag and sponge rounds, flash-bang devices, and batons. The sheriff’s office of Beltrami County, which sits at the center of an Indigenous-led fight to stop the construction of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline replacement project, labeled the weapons as “personal protective equipment.”
The invoices, some of which were first described by the blog Healing Minnesota Stories, await review by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. The agency maintains an escrow account set up so that Enbridge can reimburse public safety agencies for expenses associated with Line 3 construction, especially costs for policing protests. In its construction permit, the utilities commission clarified that the fund
“may not be used to reimburse expenses for equipment, except for personal protective gear for public safety personnel.” The commissioners did not define the term “personal protective gear.”
“I don’t think by any stretch of the imagination batons could be considered PPE — or grenades,” said Tara Houska, an organizer with the anti-Line 3 Giniw Collective. “Those are obviously militarized equipment to be used to subdue and oppress the Indigenous people and allies that are resisting this project from going through our territory.”
Constitutional Rights Violations
As the Enbridge pipeline continues to move ahead, the company’s influence on local governments exceeds that of just law enforcement. In early February, Water Protectors and residents of the town of Palisade were told that they could not have a lawful assembly in Palisade. The Just Transition Celebration was barred from the use of county parks. A letter from The Center for Protest Law to County Commissioners and the sheriff on February 3, 2021.
“ Your offices have unlawfully attempted to deprive Ms. LaDuke, Ms. Matteson, Ms. Spolarich and Ms. Aubid and others of their lawful rights to assemble on public land and, by statements and the inclusion of the County Sheriff Daniel Guida in the chain of communications, have conveyed a threat to arrest persons who may peaceably assemble as intended.
In a shocking and outrageous pattern of retaliation, harassment, bias and discrimination, Sheriff Guida and Aitkin County directly threatened arrest against Ms. Matteson, a resident of Palisade, in response to her efforts to obtain authorization to hold an educational and religious event in a public park, and then used their police and prosecutorial powers to punitively issue multiple count charges against Ms. LaDuke, Ms. Aubid and others seeking to imprison and fine them for peaceful activities on treaty lands.”
Enbridge’s pipeline costs are increasing dramatically, the company announcing $l billion in additional costs (“from Minnesota regulatory complications) in mid-February. The cost escalations have been in Minnesota, with legal cases filed by tribes. Organizations and the state to oppose the pipeline and hundreds of water protectors standing in the way of pipeline construction, several days a week. Enbridge’s most expensive project in history, the pipeline faces an uncertain future on the ground and certainly in oil markets, as companies flee the tar sands. Facing increasing costs and concerns, Enbridge appears to be increasing the pressure on law enforcement officials to protect the pipeline project.
“if this was such a good idea, why would they need so many police?” Good question.
As spring comes to the north country, the swans return home- waabiziiwag azh-igiwewag, and as they return north, the skies fill with joyful sounds and the lakes and biodiversity protected by the Water Protectors seems eternal. Enbridge is hoping the pipeline will proceed easily, but this spring will likely bring not only swans but thousands of more water protectors to the north.
Camping is good, and it’s COVID safe.
Winona LaDuke Winona LaDuke, executive director of Honor the Earth, is an economist, environmentalist, activist, hemp farmer, author, and former Green Party VP candidate with Ralph Nader. She lives on the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota
To Be A Water Protector
The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers
PAPERBACK $25.00
Winona LaDuke is a leader in cultural-based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy, sustainable food systems and Indigenous rights. To Be a Water Protector, explores issues that have been central to her activism for many years — sacred Mother Earth, our despoiling of Earth and the activism at Standing Rock and opposing Line 3.
For this book, Winona discusses several elements of a New Green Economy and the lessons we can take from activists outside the US and Canada. In her unique way of storytelling, Winona LaDuke is inspiring, always a teacher and an utterly fearless activist, writer and speaker.
This book is written in the spirit of acknowledging that Water is Life. This book is a testimony of the resistance and defeat of the Wiindigoo. The term, “Water Protector,” became mainstream under a hail of rubber bullets at Standing Rock. This book is about that spirit, and that spirit is forever.
I am pairing this book “To Be a water Protector,” with my Louis Riel Coffee - the coffee of the resistance with a 16 0z Ceramic Travel Mug. Make this a holiday gift for a friend, and I will sign the book. Join me in the reading, and during these times of winter, stay warm, drink coffee, and join the New Green Revolution.
Winter Count - The lake, The river, The drill
Credit Kirk Sidlo
Winter Count - The lake, The river, The drill
by Winona LaDuke
Sandy Lake
We sit on the shore of Sandy Lake. She’s marked on the migration scrolls of the Anishinaabe. She’s a big one, this lake, the place where 400 of the Anishinaabe perished over the winter of l842-1843, when the Great White Father, that would be Zachary Taylor denied treaty rations. They say that there were so many bodies wrapped in birchbark, that the shores were white. That was then.
The lake, and the flowage, from Sandy Lake, are some of the richest waters of the Anishinaabe- full of wild rice, and teeming with fish. The rice, or Manoomin from Sandy Lake Flowage, Minnewawa, are prized, as is the rice from Rice Lake, today called the Rice Lake Refuge. Akiing, the land to which the people belong is half land and half water. Waters deep, shallow filled with rice, sturgeon, and muskies of great lengths, and all the mysteries of the deep waters. Mermaids too. Those are the mysterious and wonderful waters of the north country.
Photo by Edward Iron Cloud III
This is where the wild rice grows, it’s the only place in the world. Each year in succession the Manoomin returns to the waters of the Anishinaabe, providing twice the protein and half the calories of brown rice. It’s the only grain Native to North America.
A couple of years ago, Enbridge forced the Fond du Lac band to make a Deal with the Devil. That’s to say, that the Fond du Lac Tribal Council, led by Chairman Kevin Dupuis, had to choose, which watersheds and sets of lakes he would sacrifice for an Enbridge pipeline. The price tag, rumored to be around $225 million to a tribe fighting a big mine upstream from the reservation, is something to hold on to.
The tribe chose to protect Sandy Lake. That’s because it’s on our migration scrolls, and our people died there as well. So it is that the Enbridge Pipeline project was pushed north- pushed north of Palisade, to the deep woods and wetlands.
The Willow River Enbridge is destroying
The Drill
I don’t know how to describe rape except that‘s what it feels like. That’s what it feels like here. First, there’s the big dozers, and excavators, backhoes, and bunch of fellers. That last one just sort of walks through the forest, beheads a tree, and then drops it to the side, coming back for the rest of the tree after that. It’s violent. Really violent how Enbridge rolls through a forest.
It’s a lot like pillaging a village, maybe a village in Rwanda, or maybe a village in Vietnam. It’s full of hatred.
Photo by Sarah LittleRedfeather
Then what’s left are the women. Then they go for the women. Lots of gang rapes, from Kosovo to Sand Creek. The woman is the river. It’s the Mississippi. The Willow River, the Shell River, the Little Shell River, the Crow Wing Rivers. Enbridge and the contractors, most of them from Texas, Utah, Louisiana, and elsewhere, are gunning for the rivers- heading straight towards the rivers. Enbridge wants to complete the River crossings, or the pipes under the rivers, as soon as possible. Enbridge is coming in with something called a High Directional Drill. That’s a drill under the river, like they did at Standing Rock, right there by the Cannonball River. There’s a big set of jamming generators. Those are going to drive this drill under the river. And it’s all really phallic. That’s what it feels like here. Like rape.
In fact, Enbridge would like to get the whole pipeline done and fill up the north country with oil, as quick as it can. Then what happens legally, is that they begin to slut the ecosystem. That’s to say, that there’s a newly introduced legal theory called the degradation principle.
That’s the legal theory that if an ecosystem is already polluted, you don’t have to apply standards like the Clean Drinking Water Act or the Clean Water Act. Sort of like saying if you’ve been raped, you’re no good. And, who cares if you get raped again?
Occupied Palisade
There are about l00 souls who live in Palisade most of the year. It’s a small town, you can be sure most people are related and know each other for a couple of generations back. Welcome to the North Country. There are about 400 workers surrounding Palisade right now, driving big trucks and equipment down windy icy roads. It looks like an occupation. And then there’s the pounding, the pounding of big equipment ripping through the forest and the land. There are about l00 water protectors gathering north of Palisade. They are gathering down by the River. Down by the River to Pray. And, it’s all during a pandemic.
Palisade and Swatara are sort of an unusual neck of the woods. Nestled in the deep woods and muskegs of Aitken County, or the lands of the Chippewa of the Mississippi as we are called, are these small towns. There are also springs, bountiful freshwater springs throughout the area. These towns have seen a lot. A set of proposals from downstate include an experimental city of 250,000; a plasma gasification garbage to energy proposal, a nuclear waste dump, and now a pipeline. It’s just a crazy set of ideas that people come up with from elsewhere. No one really needs it, any of it.
The Pandemic Pipeline
Enbridge wants to get this pipeline done before someone stops them. That’s what this is about. Final approvals on the Water Crossing permits by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency came out in November.
The MPCA set aside any pretext of environmental justice or protection of water quality in sensitive lakes. That was followed by the resignations of l2 of l7 members of that advisory committee. Advisory Board members said.
Then there’s what’s called Corporate Welfare. That’s when the state of Minnesota gives away a bunch of public land to a Canadian corporation. And public waters. The Department of Natural Resources had been busy giving away lots of Minnesota, and lots of Anishinaabe territories. That includes about 630 million gallons of water so that Enbridge can dewater and then flush it’s pipeline with water- moving it across watersheds, with no accounting for the quality or impact. Crazy stuff, add to that the large chunk of Minnesota being laid to waste, and ALL the cops.
That’s corporate welfare at its best, in this case, giving it all away to a Canadian corporation.
Sara Pajunen
What’s the Rush?
They want to have a pipe in the ground and full of oil before the people and the state of Minnesota get a day in court. That‘s the hurry. On August of, 2020, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the Red Lake, and White Earth Nations filed suit in Minnesota Appellate Court to overturn both the Certificate of Need and the Route Permit. That’s because the math of this pipeline doesn’t work out, financially, and it doesn’t work out for the environment.
One big problem: There’s no plan if Enbridge Oil gets into Lake Superior. There’s no real plan.
And, then there’s the economics, which makes no sense. Companies are fleeing the tar sands, and Enbridge itself is putting 400,000 barrels a day less through its main lines than they did a year ago. They’ve got the Pandemic Pipeline Blues, and it’s the end of the tar sands oil world. So the company wants to sell the last pipeline.
The last Tarsands pipeline. It’s a blue light special on bad infrastructure, and the Walz Administration has taken the bait. While the state needs real infrastructure, like water, sewer and bridges, and such, we’re just getting a big Tar Sands Pipeline.
Time to heal. Time to move on.
To Be A Water Protector
The Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers
PAPERBACK $25.00
Winona LaDuke is a leader in cultural-based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy, sustainable food systems and Indigenous rights. To Be a Water Protector, explores issues that have been central to her activism for many years — sacred Mother Earth, our despoiling of Earth and the activism at Standing Rock and opposing Line 3.
For this book, Winona discusses several elements of a New Green Economy and the lessons we can take from activists outside the US and Canada. In her unique way of storytelling, Winona LaDuke is inspiring, always a teacher and an utterly fearless activist, writer and speaker.
This book is written in the spirit of acknowledging that Water is Life. This book is a testimony of the resistance and defeat of the Wiindigoo. The term, “Water Protector,” became mainstream under a hail of rubber bullets at Standing Rock. This book is about that spirit, and that spirit is forever.
I am pairing this book “To Be a water Protector,” with my Louis Riel Coffee - the coffee of the resistance with a 16 0z Ceramic Travel Mug. Make this a holiday gift for a friend, and I will sign the book. Join me in the reading, and during these times of winter, stay warm, drink coffee, and join the New Green Revolution.