- Details
- By Rob Capriccioso
- Economic Development
In a bit of history repeating itself, Native Americans find themselves feuding over a system and ideology that makes much more sense (and cents) for outside interests.
On June 8, a group of environmental and Native American activists, who have long been making legal, political and sovereignty-based arguments against a reconstruction project of the deteriorating Line 3 Pipeline in Minnesota, took their protests to the next level. That’s when hundreds of organized protesters trespassed at the Two Inlets pump station of the line and chained themselves to construction equipment, resulting in 200 arrests. It was a peaceful protest, but some equipment was reportedly damaged at the site, which is owned by the Canada-based Enbridge energy corporation.
“It’s going to be really sad when someone gets hurt in the name of protecting Mother Earth,” says Jim Jones, a citizen of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe who lives in northern Minnesota.
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“Some of the crazy stuff that has taken place — jumping down in the trench, jumping down on the line or up on the pipe, going into the pipe: You know, if that pipe should fall with people in it or on top of it, that could be devastating. But I guess it’s the risk some people are willing to take.”
Jones, who owns Dirt Divers CRM, a firm that consults with the Fond du Lac Tribe on various aspects of the Line 3 development through the tribe’s reservation, makes a compelling case for safety. He also says most of the protesters were non-Indian, young, and he knows full well that more are on the way.
“There’s a false narrative that’s being spun,” he says. “And who’s twisting this narrative?”
Jones was one of six Native American co-signers of a recent letter that said the protesters involved in the June 8 incident were disrupting Native Line 3 workers’ livelihoods and creating a false storyline about the overall project. Tribal Business News received a copy of the letter from Enbridge after it had been published in several Minnesota press outlets.
“Protests that disrupt work, damage property, and threaten our employees while claiming to be on behalf of our Native people is creating additional tension and consequences within our tribal communities,” the Native contractors wrote in their letter. “They also intentionally create a false narrative that there is no Native American support for this project and the economic impacts and opportunities it brings to our people.”
In addition to Jones, the other signers were Josh and Thomas Whitebird, of Whitebird/Casper consulting, listed as citizens of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa; Mike Bass, owner of MB Customs Development LLC who was listed as Boise Forte Band of Chippewa; Robert Abramowski, president/CEO of FDL Pipeline Services, FDL Star Construction Inc. and a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa; as well as Matt Gordon, listed as vice president of Gordon Construction and a citizen of the White Earth Nation.
Each of them have a financial interest in seeing the line proceed, and they all said in the letter that they support people’s right to protest, but not to prevent them from working.
Enbridge officials confirmed that the Native-owned Gordon Construction was one of the two companies that was working at the pump station when the June 8 protest occurred. Workers exited the site after protesters entered, according to Enbridge officials. No confrontations were reported.
Michael Barnes, a spokesman for Enbridge, says that the company is supportive of Native Americans. “Enbridge has invested $250 million to date in contracting with Native-owned businesses and hiring and training Native American workers,” he said via email. “More than 500 Native Americans currently work on the pipeline replacement project. And we have strong Native voices of those who have worked for Enbridge.”
‘Not a smokescreen’
As an increasing number of protesters against Line 3 set up camp at Shell City Campground in Minnesota’s Huntersville State Forest, Enbridge has worked to highlight the concerns of the small group of Native Americans who work for and consult on behalf of tribal interests involving the company. It has also provided them media training, according to Jones and others.
Soon after the protest, well-known Native activist and two-time U.S. vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke was quoted in local newspapers as saying Native workers involved with the line were being used as a “smokescreen” by Enbridge to continue its destruction of Native lands and potentially harm Indian water, food sources, traditions and health.
A citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, LaDuke and organizers with her Honor the Earth organization have been the leaders in setting up the Shell City camp. She has already personally been charged with trespassing, unlawful assembly, harassment and public nuisance in relation to her opposition to Line 3.
Jones felt compelled to defend himself.
“I am not a smokescreen,” he said. “I respect Winona for who she is and what she’s all about. I have talked to her many times in the past about all this. I’m here to protect these resources.”
Jones said he is doing important cultural site and natural resource protection work on behalf of the Fond du Lac tribe, which was hired to provide tribal monitors during the construction of Line 3 as part of an agreement the tribe has made with Enbridge.
“I helped lead, back in 2018, the cultural survey that was done by the tribe,” he said, adding that the tribe hired him because of his experience previously working on the line. “We went back and told Enbridge that there were sites that they had to avoid. They moved the line. They changed the route. They went around them, or in a couple cases, they went under rivers and other places.”
“If it’s not me, who’s going to do it?” Jones asked. “It has to be our people involved with an open mind and an open heart.”
LaDuke, in an email from camp, responded to Jones’ arguments.
“Jim Jones did not notify our tribal historic preservation officer of most of the proceedings and (the) process of the pipeline cultural resources survey,” she said. “The job done by Jim Jones and others was very inadequate.
“When the White Earth THPO (tribal historic preservation officer) wanted to go to the lodge site we have on the Mississippi River, which had a stake in the middle of it put there by Enbridge, and we stopped them from actually mowing over our lodge, there was no one there from Jim Jones’ department,” she added. “In fact, our THPO was told she would be arrested if she came to my lodge. That’s egregious.”
LaDuke further said that when the cultural survey involved with the project was completed, there were sections within it that said “proceed with caution.”
“What does that mean?” LaDuke asked. “There was no cultural resources monitor out when Enbridge put a stake in the middle of my waaginoogan, my lodge.”
LaDuke places a lot of blame on the Fond du Lac tribe, which, she says, “took the money for this contract, and really has done an embarrassing job in protecting our cultural heritage. It’s sad that money is more important than water and wild rice and our way of life.”
“It’s a tragedy when Native people are forced to participate in their own destruction,” she added.
Treaty-based appeals
Tension is clearly mounting. It escalated further after a June 14 Minnesota Court of Appeals 2-1 decision found that the state’s Public Utilities Commission was right to grant Enbridge a route permit and certificate of need to begin construction on the 337-mile, $4 billion Minnesota-based rehabilitation project for the line. The crude oil pipeline, originally built in the 1960s, currently runs at half capacity and it’s deteriorating like much of America’s infrastructure.
Nearby tribes beyond Fond du Lac — including the White Earth Nation, the Red Lake Nation and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe — continue to make treaty-based arguments in court that say state and federal governments, under established law, are required to protect the environment that affects the tribes.
Joe Plumer, a tribal lawyer for Red Lake Nation arguing against Line 3, says he knows many of the Native contractors working on Line 3.
“They do it for purely profit reasons,” he said. ”You know, we’ve seen Enbridge buy off contractors.”
“Our tribe, we were almost part of it, too,” Plumer said of Red Lake Nation, noting that Enbridge offered the tribe $25 million to develop a solar project that would help power some of the pipeline’s pumps. “They gave the tribe an ultimatum: If you don’t withdraw from the appeals, then we’re not going to be the power purchaser on the solar farm. That’s the way they do business.”
Plumer further said that the Treaty of 1863 gives his tribe’s citizens the right to gather, hunt and fish in areas off their reservation, and to do those things, they need to have an environment conducive to doing so, which he believes Line 3 prevents.
Red Lake and White Earth, focusing on sections of the Treaty of 1855 that preserved their rights to protect their resources, currently await more rulings from state and federal courts on the tribes’ treaty-based motions, which also say that Enbridge failed to meet legal requirements to prove Line 3 is even necessary.
Tribal lawyers and citizens are concurrently making appeals to the Biden administration to consider climate issues as the project proceeds.
DAPL 2.0?
As the protest effort gains more publicity, hundreds, if not thousands of additional people are expected to descend on the area this summer.
Some, including LaDuke, envision a Dakota Access Pipeline 2.0 protest situation happening, again making water protectors and land defenders a big part of the national conversation when it comes to energy production and infrastructure. (Since the widely publicized protests of 2017, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Lakota tribes have closely followed the progression of DAPL and recently urged a D.C. federal judge to keep jurisdiction over their challenge to the project. The Army Corps of Engineers is currently doing an environmental review of that project.)
The backwinds seem promising for a DAPL 2.0, with the controversial Keystone XL pipeline being canceled altogether on June 9 by TC Energy Corp., the company that faced numerous obstacles over recent years in trying to ship Canadian tar sands oil though American lands, including tribal homelands.
Protesters, including environmental activists and Native American water protectors, view themselves as having played a huge role in that outcome. Indeed, they were successful in getting the Obama administration to delay the project after much internal stalling, while the Trump administration went full-steam ahead. President Joe Biden immediately canceled the process upon entering office in January. Legal fights remained, but the company decided it just wasn’t worth it.
Regarding Line 3, Jones wonders if the protesters all know what they really want to happen in the end.
“We can’t just shut the pipe off one day and expect green energy to keep running everything for us the day after,” he said. “There’s a Catch 22, and we have to think about these things. Just by shutting off the line on one side here, what happens to the other communities at the other end of it?”
LaDuke says she knows exactly what should happen: “We need to be demanding decommissioning plans from Enbridge and these companies. The Biden administration, as a part of its trust responsibility, needs to support these demands legally, and begin planning.”
“We need to be trained for decommissioning and safety,” LaDuke added. “And, the easiest way to mitigate is to stop them from putting in new lines.”
Plumer, the Red Lake lawyer, believes Enbridge holds a lot of what are going to be “stranded assets in the very near future.” He estimates that there is an excess of 2.4 million barrels of oil each day that run through Line 3 right now, which all goes to the global market.
“The demand for what they are promoting — tar sands — it’s not going to last,” he said. “It’s not going to last for the useful life of the pipeline.”