The biggest pipeline protest since Dakota Access is taking shape in northern Minnesota, where opponents are seeking to mobilize thousands of protesters to disrupt construction on the Alberta-to-Wisconsin project known as Line 3.
Enbridge Energy, the Canadian company that owns the pipeline, ramped up work Tuesday on a critical stretch of the $4 billion pipeline replacement even as dozens of environmental groups, backed by celebrities and liberal Democrats, prepared for a mass show of opposition scheduled to spike this weekend.
The objective is to make enough noise — or create enough chaos — to persuade President Biden to revoke the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit.
“It never has happened on a project like this, and not just on pipelines, but on any U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project,” said Mike Fernandez, Enbridge senior vice president for communications. “To be pulled at this stage would be unprecedented.”
He said the upgrade of the 337-mile Minnesota segment of the 1,097-mile oil pipeline is 60% complete. Most of the remaining work is scheduled for the summer.
The enormous undertaking involves a union workforce of up to 5,500 that began in December after six years of regulatory hearings and environmental studies.
The new pipeline is thicker and the alloy stronger, and the pump stations and computerization behind it are “state of the art,” the company spokesman said.
“This is a win-win-win on a number of different levels,” said Mr. Fernandez. “The worst thing that could possibly happen would be that somehow they stop this, and then what happens is the new project stops with some of these holes open, and we’re still running the oil through the old pipeline.”
For opponents, the goal is not merely to stop Line 3 but to dismantle the entire fossil-fuel-based economy.
“There’s this understanding that it’s just another pipeline, and there are so many pipelines in the ground, and this one is just a replacement, it’s meant for safety,” Tara Houska, the founder of Giniw Collective, said on a May 20 organizing call.
“No, the issue is that human beings are killing themselves and that we’re doing the same status quo that we’ve been doing since colonization began.” …snip…
Fighting on multiple fronts
The difference with Line 3 is that everyone sees it coming. Enbridge has contributed $750,000 to a fund set up by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to cover additional policing costs associated with the construction.
Even without Mr. Biden‘s support, pipeline opponents could shut down the project with a win in any of their three lawsuits.
A decision is due June 21 in a state lawsuit to force the Minnesota PUC to conduct a revamped environmental impact study with an emphasis on climate change.
Organizers of the Treaty People Gathering have made it easier for outside protesters. They plan to provide two meals a day, assist with camping accommodations and child care, help arrange carpools and “solidarity caravans,” and schedule buses from the District of Columbia, South Carolina, and Washington state.
“There’s 22 rivers that need to be protected. A good showing is important, and probably a prolonged showing because they will try to cross those rivers in July,” Ms. LaDuke told would-be “water protectors.” “So we are out there on the public lands calling people to the public lands to defend our water, and I’m asking you all to come up. That’s how things change.”
Pipeline opponents have billed their effort as an indigenous uprising, but Enbridge has secured the backing of the two tribes that matter most: the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
The pipeline runs through the reservations of both tribes. To win their support, Mr. Fernandez said, Enbridge conducted a “tribal cultural asset study” along the full length of the project in Minnesota. The company used tribal groups to conduct the survey and hired tribal monitors at the construction sites.
Enbridge has spent about $250 million to ensure that the project would benefit the tribes economically. It trained about 500 indigenous workers and brought on subcontractors, exceeding its original commitment of $150 million.
Read rest at Washington Times
These Nit-Wits must realy be into this Gaia load of poppycock they must think(If the realy do)that the Fossil Fuels is the Blood of the Earth and Gaia is being bled to death by Exxon Just shows even in the 21st Century we still have lot of this Liberal type Ignorance and Superstition running loose
There is a more subtle point about the Gaia concept. Earth, seen as a “living” body, produced life, us included, out of its own processes, and in that sense we are part of it, made of it, linked to it. So are oil, gas, coal, etc. Laid down over countless billions of years of Earth processes, linked to the whole pattern of the solar system and sun – and galaxy – it was discovered by humanity itself part of Earth “process”, and humanity transformed everything we now are and have, standards of living never before know, all our inventions, even bringing us the awareness of our common humanity and other life forms. Now, AGW fanaticism seems consumed with an Edenic guilt, and wants to get back into the womb of a lost Eden. Yet those very fuels themselves hold the key to refining them, a cleaner planet. XR, AGW ideology would and will stop this. The road to hell is paved with good intentions….
Right on …….
Gaia experienced an environmental incident in Alberta, millions or billions of years ago.
Athabasca is being cleaned up by the oil companies. Nobody gives them credit for their efforts.
Mar 22, 2021 Wind & Solar Subsidies
Why were federal tax subsidies extended for wind and solar by Congress? We are against subsidies because they distort markets.
https://youtu.be/WsjrhuMLae4
March 3, 2021 California City the First to Ban New Gas Stations
With the state mandating a switch to electric vehicles by 2035, Petaluma is aligning its land use regulations with its climate goals.
https://www.planetizen.com/news/2021/03/112463-california-city-first-ban-new-gas-stations
It is interesting how this issue pits white liberals against blue-collar union workers.
Why are Socialists anti-prosperity?
Their talent seems to be exploiting wedge issues they themselves conjure, for power.
Once in power, well, you got Jimmy Carter 2.0.
Everytime I drive my gasoline powered car I am killing the planet… or not.
It is this kind of cult hysteria that cannot be addressed with data or facts or science, after all, it is allegedly science that is the basis of the hysteria to begin with.
Well states, succinct and to the point. Those who have a better idea should bring their technology to the market for energy and compete on merit. The need for activism and violence is itself the evidence that the alternative technology on offer is not competitive.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2021/02/17/the-market-for-energy/
We stated