Line 3 101
Enbridge’s controversial Line 3 pipeline expansion project was recently completed and started running Canadian tar sands oil, among the world’s dirtiest extreme fossil fuels. Violating Anishinaabe treaty territories in Minnesota, the new stretch of Line 3 was approved without full consent or proper impact studies, threatening safe water sources for millions. It carries the carbon equivalent of 50 coal plants. More than 68,000 Minnesotans testified against this plan.
Over 1 million people signed petitions asking decision makers to stop it. Banks were implored to decline funding it. A stream of letters and petitions were delivered to state and federal decision makers by Indigenous leaders and allied activists, major environmental organizations, federal and state politicians, health professionals, celebrities, donors and other influencers, requesting the project be halted due to treaty violations, historic drought, climate emergency, global pandemic, absence of full environmental review. And over 1,000 arrests of peaceful protesters were made during Line 3 construction. Yet the black snake persisted, defying our treaties, to poison sacred water and wild rice, land and air.
Every day, the expanded 1,031-mile Line 3 pipeline carries 760,000 barrels of crude oil from Alberta, Canada, through hundreds of previously untouched wetlands, the Mississippi River headwaters and over 200 water bodies, to the shore of Lake Superior in Wisconsin for refining. From there, Line 5 carries oil back into Canada for export. Enbridge is the Canadian pipeline company responsible for the largest inland oil spill in US history. Tar sands oil is nearly impossible to clean up because it sinks to the bottom of waterways.
According to Enbridge, the purpose of this project was “to address pipeline integrity and safety concerns related to the existing Line 3 and to restore the throughput of the line to its original operating capacity of 760,000 barrels per day.” Regulators had to choose between keeping the old unsafe line or approving a new unsafe line.
BEYOND THE ABSENCE OF A FEDERAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT, egregious issues with the newly expanded Line 3 include:
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On September 16, 2021, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced it had ordered Enbridge Energy to pay $3.32 million for failure to follow environmental laws. Enbridge breached the confining layer of an artesian aquifer, resulting in an unauthorized groundwater appropriation during the construction of the Line 3 replacement project near Enbridge’s Clearbrook Terminal. The DNR also referred the case for criminal prosecution. The DNR’s published documents reveal Enbridge caused major damage to the water table when it deviated from its approved construction plan in January, the damage is ongoing, and it is unclear how it can be repaired. An estimated 100,000 gallons of water have been lost daily since the aquifer was pierced in January, covered up, and unreported until late this year. At least two other aquifer breaches are under investigation by the state.
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The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) reported that Enbridge spilled drilling fluid 28 times at 12 river crossings between June 8 and August 5, 2021. Of the 28 spills, one was in a river, 13 were in wetlands, and 14 were on land, according to the MPCA. The amount of drilling fluid spilled ranged from 10 gallons to up to 9,000 gallons. Seven involved at least 100 gallons. The largest was a release of 6,000-9,000 gallons in a wetland near the Mississippi River. The fluids contain up to 17 harmful additives.
Unreported drilling spills: Ron Turney of Indigenous Environmental Network identified a large drilling fluid spill site near the Mississippi headwaters (video), not previously reported or mitigated by Enbridge or state agencies, in addition to the 28 known “frac-out” incidents where Enbridge spilled drilling fluid into wetlands and waterways.
Waste containment failure: At the Clearwater River Crossing, emergency waste containment holding tanks were erected (video) as untreated wastewater and chemicals continued seeping out from the land where Line 3 construction bored under the river.
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Enbridge’s new Line 3 pipeline route crosses the 1854 and 1855 treaty territory, which established that the Anishinaabe people retain the right to hunt, fish, gather medicines, and harvest wild rice. The impact of construction — or worse, an oil spill — stands to permanently damage the Anishinaabe’s ability to exercise these rights. Building Line 3 is a human and treaty rights violation — cited by the United Nations — that would carry on a legacy of state and U.S. government-sanctioned oppression of Indigenous people, ignoring Native voices that are demanding this pipeline be stopped.
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The total lifecycle emissions from the Line 3 pipeline are estimated to amount to 193 million tons CO2e, more than doubling Minnesota’s 2016 total of 154 million tons CO2e and more than five times Minnesota’s 2050 state goal of 35 million tons CO2e.
This is equivalent to 50 new coal-fired power plants or 38 million additional gasoline vehicles on our roads. The Minnesota Department of Commerce estimated Line 3 will cost more than $287 billion in health care, agriculture and other sectors of our economy and society due to its pollution and contributions to climate change.
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Enbridge has so far reimbursed Minnesota law enforcement $4.8 million for the policing of protests against construction of Line 3. Enbridge set up a fund called the Public Safety Escrow Trust in May 2020, as part of its permitting process. The funds in this account have been used to reimburse costs associated with “maintaining the peace” around the pipeline, including officer wages, overtime, lodging, and boom trucks, according to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) and Line 3 permits.
Rubber bullets, paid for by Enbridge: On July 29, 20 water protectors were brutalized as they peacefully protested at the drill pad on the Red River. Police officers at the scene met the peaceful water protectors with rubber bullets and pepper balls (video). Activists were taken to Pennington County jail, where several reported they were denied food and medical care for their injuries, and held in solitary confinement.
The lead prosecutor in Hubbard County, who is seeking to jail hundreds of peaceful Line 3 water protectors, sought Escrow Trust reimbursement for these prosecutions.
Beyond reimbursements, coordination with local police included an Enbridge color-coded mapping system to track Indigenous opposition "threat" areas.
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In less than six months, four sub-contractors working on Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline were arrested in sex trafficking stings, in Itasca County and Beltrami County. Advocates fighting the problem of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) had warned the Line 3 pipeline would raise the risk of sex trafficking. A 2019 report by First Peoples Worldwide at the University of Colorado at Boulder and a report by the US State Department have shown that areas in which extractive industries operate experience higher rates of sex trafficking.
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Building the new Line 3 pipeline required Enbridge to remove water during construction. They originally applied for a permit to drain 510 million gallons from wetlands and waterways along the new pipeline route, impacting critical resources including sacred wild rice lakes. Over the summer, amid one of the worst droughts in Minnesota history, Enbridge requested permission to drain 10 times more water from the pipeline trenches than originally approved, resulting in approval for up to 5 billion gallons.
Enbridge began to ask for these permit changes last winter, the DNR asked local, state and federal governments about it in March, and they didn’t let Minnesota Tribal Governments know until May. The public didn’t get to find out until it was approved. The risk posed by moving this amount of water is unstudied and dangerous and all of this happened behind closed doors.
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During the Line 3 permitting process, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission required Enbridge to obtain $200 million of "environmental impairment liability" insurance, in addition to general corporate liability coverage of $900 million, and to include the State of Minnesota and several American Indian tribes as additional insureds on its policies. But Enbridge submitted a report to the Public Utilities Commission saying it will likely not be able to obtain this insurance “in the near future.”
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Most of the old Line 3 pipeline will remain in the ground.
While removing the old pipeline would mitigate environmental risks and create jobs, most landowners chose a payout to let it stay and decay. As for the new Line 3, the “Decommissioning Trust Fund” Enbridge had promised to have in place by the start of operations has not been set up. The Public Utilities Commission has yet to open proceedings about this fund, which should have been established “to cover the costs of decommissioning and removing the new Line 3 at the end of the pipeline’s operation.”