Enbridge Energy, a transporter of fossil fuels, has proposed plans for a new pipeline to the Minnesota Department of Commerce that will carry crude oil and tar sands from Canada through Minnesota and into Wisconsin. The manager of the Energy Regulation and Planning department Kate O’Connell said, “Minnesota would be better off if Enbridge proposed to cease operations of the existing Line 3, without any new pipeline being built.”

Enbridge’s proposed replacement pipeline would be constructed south of the original line crossing the Mississippi River and intruding onto Native American lands. The proposed line would disrupt Ojibwe wild rice lands, one of the largest in the nation, and the Red Lake sovereign nation located southeast of Leonard, MN. According to a spokesman from the Indigenous Environmental Network, Enbridge does not have permission to build the line on their lands.

It is not just or right to destroy Native lands that may be holy or important to the tribes living there simply for the sake of Enbridge’s new pipeline. 

Native leaders and groups, such as Honor the Earth, have threatened to mass protest if the new line were to be approved by the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Tribal members said the new line will “have a disproportionate and adverse affect on tribal resources and tribal members.” Not only will the new pipeline destroy native land, but Enbridge plans to construct without permission from the reservations or native leaders living on the land. Native Americans should have a right to dictate what happens on their reservations and lands. The United States Federal Government has recognized tribal nations as a “domestic dependent nation.”

Furthermore, Enbridge has not demonstrated enough evidence as to why they must deviate from Line 3’s old route.

The proposed line will run through Minnesota’s lake country crossing the Mississippi river and if oil were to spill it could be detrimental. Environmentalists and businessmen alike have attended State-led meetings concerning the new line. The Minnesota Department of Commerce will decide Dec. 11 if the proposed line meets all of the legal requirements, then again on April 30 to decide whether the department will approve or dismiss the new route.