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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'They screwed up our lake': tar sands pipeline is sucking water from Minnesota watersheds
They screwed up our lake: tar sands pipeline is sucking water from Minnesota watersheds
The Anishinaabe people are rallying to save their lakes and their traditional wild rice harvests
Will Parrish
@willparrishca
Sun 19 Sep 2021 04.00 EDT
(Guardian UK) Along the eastern boundary of the White Earth Indian Reservation in north-western Minnesota, Indigenous Anishinaabe wild rice harvesters Jerry and Jim Libby set down a row of wooden pallets into the mud just beyond the dock of Upper Wild Rice Lake. It was a clear day, and tight, lush clumps of green rice heads were visible across the lakes horizon.
In a typical year, the entrance to this one of a long necklace of wild rice lakes in northern Minnesota to which the regions Indigenous people flock every year in the late summer would be covered in at least two feet of water. But now it is composed of suspended sediment as solid as chocolate pudding, through which the Libbys need to create a makeshift ramp simply to carry their canoe out to the waterline.
Minnesota is weathering an historic drought, but there is another problem beyond the weather: Enbridges Line 3 tar sands pipeline has taken a substantial toll on watersheds in the region, including through a permit to pump five billion gallons of water for construction. In the case of Upper Wild Rice Lake, a road construction contractor named Knife River Construction stuck a pump directly in the lake this past June, sucking out an unknown quantity of water, which locals suspect was related to the use of heavy trucks for the pipeline.
As far as Im concerned, Enbridge screwed up our lake, and theyre taking money directly away from our families, Jerry Libby says. It makes us feel anguished this is our staple food, you know.
The Indigenous-led struggle against Line 3, which seeks to move 930,000 barrels of tar sands bitumen daily from Alberta to a shipping and refinery hub in Superior, Wisconsin, has been the biggest environmental and Indigenous land protection campaign in the US this summer. More than 900 people have been arrested opposing the pipeline, including nearly 70 who were kettled in late August during protests outside Minnesota governor Tim Walzs residence in Minneapolis. .............(more)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/19/tar-sands-pipeline-minnesota-lakes
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'They screwed up our lake': tar sands pipeline is sucking water from Minnesota watersheds (Original Post)
marmar
Sep 2021
OP
CrispyQ
(36,231 posts)1. When the water wars start, things on planet Earth are gonna get really ugly.
When is our big brain going to save us?