In what was then known as the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history, the 1991 rupture of the 34-in.-dia Line 3 pipeline, which carries crude oil 1,097 miles from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wis., sent 1.68 million gallons into the Prairie River about two miles north of Grand Rapids, Minn.
The “integrity risks” of the 53-year-old pipeline, now owned by Calgary-based Enbridge, along with the related reduced capacity of oil flow, are among reasons cited when the company sought approval for its Line 3 replacement project, now almost complete.
Read morehereof ENR's "Engineering Justice" report.
The line adheres to the original route until it reaches Clearbrook, Minn., then cuts a different path, with construction performed by MasTec subsidiary Precision Pipeline, until it reaches Chub Lake, Minn. Construction for that route change is at the center of a resistance movement involving Indigenous and environmental groups that has led to mass protests, hundreds of arrests, an array of legal battles to stop line completion and commissioning and even the intervention of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which sent an Aug. 25信要求美国应对违反条约和歧视的指控。
这封信说：“据报道，该项目将加剧气候变化对明尼苏达州土著人民的不成比例的影响，使他们的分水岭和野生稻生态系统面临风险。”
An unpermitted groundwater spill stemming from a January aquifer breach in a sensitive wetlands area, just recently disclosed by the state, highlights those concerns.
“The Line 3 site I think illustrates how communities can stand up and speak up about the issues that are happening,” including with the request for intervention by the UN, says Catherine Collentine, associate director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign. “But there's no point in any permitting process that we shouldn't be talking about environmental justice issues.”
Environmental justice has been the subject of both internal and external conflicts around permitting.
When the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in November 2020 issued a state certification for the project to gain a federal dredge and fill permit in protected waters, 12 of 17 members of a group made up of both internal and external members that was created to advise the department on environmental justice issues resigned because they didn’t agree with the decision.
The optics of the group might have looked good, but officials "don't actually take your advice in any sense of the word—it’s just a lie,” said Lea Foushee, environmental justice director of the North American Water Office, and one of the resignees.
Seeking Tribal Rights
Court decisions affirmed the state permit certification and a certificate of need, but indigenous opponents have now filed on behalf of wild rice, or Manoomin, as a plaintiff, along with the White Earth Band of Ojibwe and tribal members.
In thecomplaint8月5日在部落法院提交针对明尼苏达州自然资源部（DNR），部落律师弗兰克·比波（Frank Bibeau）和乔·普鲁默Chippewa部落成员的决心和自治”，其中包括White Earth Band。
“A spill of tar sands in those waterways would be deeply problematic and would put at threat those treaty rights, and possibly destroy those bodies of water” where the rice is harvested, says Collentine.
Not just a food, “wild rice is part of our creation stories, and our migration stories from the east coast to where we are here in the Great Lakes in northern Minnesota,” says Bibeau.
原告还希望第3行的水允许取消，并特别引起人们对2020年发出的关注，最初允许Enbridge在沟槽建造过程中撤出多达5.1亿加仑的水以脱水。2021年6月颁发的修订许可证允许公司和承包商撤回近50亿加仑的原始金额的10倍，而Enbridge表示这是必要的，因为地下水比以前想象的要多。
Pipeline opponents are concerned that the dewatering process itself could affect the quality of environmental conditions in which the rice grows.
Water Permits Challenged
投诉称，该国机构发布了修订的许可证“突然，单方面，没有正式通知部落领导人（准秘书），未经奇佩瓦同意，”继续说，这是“未能保护Manoomin的淡水资源……无视自然权利，人民的权利和奇珀瓦斯的权利，由美国与美国的一系列44条条约保留。”
An Enbridge spokesperson said that the project employed a “first-of-its kind Tribal Cultural Resource Survey led by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa who managed review” of the Minnesota route, with 60 “tribally significant cultural locations identified and recommended for further avoidance, mitigation treatments or Tribal monitoring.”
最初反对该项目的Fond du Lac乐队允许Enbridge根据2018年的协议，通过其领土建立了管道替换，并返回其原始路线。乐队当时面对的替代方案是通过条约领土重新路线的管道。
Enbridge发言人还补充说：“允许条件保护在建设过程中，尤其是野生大米。”
但是明尼苏达州DNR因“未能遵守环境法”的一月罚款332万美元事件。DNR确定Enbridge在Clearbrook航站楼附近的建筑过程中违反了自流式含水层，导致“地下水流量不受控制”陷入了比该机构批准的计划更深的战trench。允许在钙质Fen湿地附近的码头上工作，并取决于这些计划。该机构称，据该机构称：“钙质芬是一种独特的湿地类型，具有严格的法定保护措施，”该机构的生存依赖于富含钙的稳定地下水和碳酸氢镁的生存。
On Aug. 19, Minnesota DNR filed for a preliminary injunction against the tribal lawsuit. U.S. district court Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright denied the request, writing that the federal court lacked jurisdiction. Minnesota is appealing the dismissal to the federal appeals court in St. Louis, saying it “must address these jurisdictional issues before anything further in this litigation can be resolved.”
The route of the new pipe is covered by a series of treaties between the Chippewa and the U.S. government, giving the tribes the right to hunt, fish and gather in lands ceded to the U.S., according to plaintiffs.
Bibeau说：“他们从本质上消除了我们行使收获野生大米的权利的能力，他们已经取出了水，从本质上促进了我们最严重的气候变化威胁。”“这可能是我大概30年来见过的最短，最快的[收获]季节之一。”
The amended permit was issued just as the state began to enter a drought that would quickly grow in severity, and is still ongoing in northern Minnesota.
The Minnesota agency says “any localized impacts to natural resources due to the temporary lowering of the water table are short‐term and minimal,” and that between 95% and 97.5% of the original volume of pumped water is returned. “This summer’s dry conditions have reduced the amount of dewatering that was required,” it added, with Enbridge reporting that 814.4 million gallons were used by the end of August.
Manoomin属于一个相对你的权利ng legal doctrine called rights of nature, which seeks to recognize and protect the legal rights of the natural world. The case is the first of its kind to be filed in tribal court, and just the second such case filed this year in the U.S. “There isn’t a whole bunch of case law against us because it’s all new,” says Bibeau.
The White Earth band established the rights of Manoomin in 2018. In recent years, indigenous tribes, cities and some countries have established rights for everything from bodies of water to the animal kingdom.
Whatever happens in tribal court will likely not be the last step for Line 3 opponents. “When it comes to the injunction that I'm seeking, I’ll still probably have to go to federal court to have that enforced against the state of Minnesota,” says Bibeau.
本文于9月21日更新。
