ABOUT THE EPISODE:
A small group of artists from We Rise Production went to the Mississippi headwaters in July 2021 and – with permission – gathered stories and sound. On this episode you’ll hear directly from people who have been on Anishnaabe land in Minnesota for months. What have they been doing there? Rising up against the construction of a tar sands pipeline called Line 3.
As we continue to experience climate emergency after emergency, we have so much to learn from the struggle against Line 3. Despite the ongoing violence and destruction to people, land, and water, mainstream media is not picking up this narrative. While the Biden administration canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, they continue to support the Line 3 pipeline.
On this episode, we learn about Line 3 and how it relates to our survival. You’ll hear water protectors – people taking action against these pipelines – talk about the pain of the devastation to the land and people – and – the joy of building community as an act of healing and resistance.
ABOUT LINE 3:
Line 3 is a pipeline expansion project that will process tar sands from Alberta, Canada and carry the refined oil across Anishnaabe treaty land in Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Enbridge Corporation, the Canadian pipeline construction company, is responsible for the largest oil spill in the U.S. in 1991, Grand Rapids, MN. They’ve been permitted by the state of Minnesota to remove 5 billion gallons of water from the Mississippi headwaters to complete this project, which has already wreaked havoc on the land, water, and water protectors: the Mississippi headwaters have dropped 10 feet since April 2021, there have already been 28 drilling spills in the wetlands, and over 700 water protectors have been arrested by local sheriff departments, which are being paid off by Enbridge. The situation is dire, worse by some accounts than the Dakota Access Pipeline, as this pipeline will cross over 227 waterways, including the Mississippi twice. The project’s destruction and violence perpetuates climate catastrophe, and the brutalization of indigenous people, the vital wild rice, the animals, and land.
JOIN THE MOVEMENT: stopline3.org
Transcript for The People Are A River, We Rise podcast episode 35