Climate Subcabinet Hoax?

Remember all the fanfare about Governor Tim Walz’ Climate Subcabinet? Apply today!

I applied. Thought I could bring perspective. But did they really want perspective?

I guess it was an easy job?
That Annual Report certainly looks to be running late… by a couple years now.

Yep. First and last.
Another nothing burger financed by taxpayer funds?
A boondoggle for friends to gather and pretend they were working?

No wonder we’re seeing things go downhill fast?
Who is really doing anything?

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A Letter to My Dentist

Tags

Aquifer, Aquifer Breach, Breach, DNR, Drilling mud, Enbridge, Frac-out, Frontier Project, HDD, Heywood Banks, Huber, Inches and Miles, Line 3, MPCA, OSB, The Revenge Song

Good evening!

I told Doc I’d send him something so if you can get this to him, it’s much appreciated. This song – Inches & Miles – is one of my faves and it came to mind during my numbing shot. 

We were also talking about the damages done by Enbridge during their construction up here and how extensive it is and how the public is largely ignorant of the impacts – as Enbridge, with the apparent help of MN agencies, has worked hard to assure. Thought I’d send more info in case other questions arise or you wanna share info with folks there. [And… it turned into a novel… Take what you like and leave the rest! I been doing this too long. And… trigger warning: There are references below to some of the human impacts to women that are not easy reading.]

PLUS… Y’all may not realize it (as there is a lot of “behind the scenes secret stuff” in infrastructure work!!) yet the newest threat in southern Minnesota is CO2 pipelines. WAY MORE DANGEROUS than these tar sands pipelines – far more risks for citizen fatalities. I know CURE is working on this issue in case it affects any of your folks. [I heard Friday that State Farm is REFUSING to insure farmers who have CO2 pipelines in their land… so, THAT’S how dangerous they are.]

Anyhow… back to the ongoing horror of Enbridge up here in Lake Country.

Y’all saw the front page Strib piece last Tuesday on DNR finally reporting on the THREE aquifers Enbridge destroyed – bleeding our landscape dry in a year of already historic drought.  Two breaches are within 8 and 25 miles of me; the third is near a friend’s house on Nagaajiwanaang / Fond du Lac Reservation (the breach is just off Reservation land). So many suffered here this summer. Wells drying up… So many who had to truck in water…  Well, that’s just PART of the story. 

And the worst on these aquifer breaches is that Paul Stolen, retired MNDNR, PREDICTED the troubles in LaSalle Valley – as he’d been on a PREVIOUS FRAC-OUT FAILURE… (see page 40 in the link; photos below). This testimony was from November 19, 2014. Six years before construction began.

Enbridge has worked very hard, spending millions, to assure most Minnesotans have no idea what they’re up to in Indian Country.  

Friends of the Headwaters FB Post 3/23/22

They talked of all the jobs they were going to bring, promising us locals HALF of them, then only delivering (MAYBE) 30% of the jobs to Minnesotans. Maybe… We don’t know. Seems Enbridge stopped reporting Minnesota jobs after their first dismal reporting on their numbers in Q4-2020. 

Enbridge hides data from public on promised Line 3 job creation for Minnesotans

“The PUC should have treated the Line 3 permits like a contract: “We will give you permission to build this pipeline under these conditions. If you fail to meet those conditions, then there are consequences.” It could be a $10 million fine, permit revocation, something to make sure that Minnesota got some meager benefit from this unnecessary pipeline.”

Enbridge hides data from public on promised Line 3 job creation for Minnesotans

And then other media… keep the Enbridge lies growing:

AP buys Enbridge’s Line 3 jobs claim without needed skepticism 

The main concern I’m facing at present are the impacts of Horizontal Directional Drilling frac-outs that happened during construction last summer. It seems these fluids may remain in our landscape and we see citizens monitoring water crossings – as MN agencies are largely unresponsive to the risks, parroting Enbridge talking points to assure all is well.

These are water samples taken March 1st in the Mississippi Headwaters a couple miles from my house (yeah, that’s my hand). The background of these photos is the Mississippi River Valley along Great River Road in Clearwater County, just a few miles north of the Headwaters crossing in Itasca State Park – as the crow flies. You can read more about this sampling in this FB Post from Indigenous Environmental Network or my blog: Minnesota Water Protectors: Now Working to save Wisconsin and Michigan Waters You can read more about the Aquifer issues in: My Birthday Blog Post… to the US Army Corps

Test Samples from Mississippi Headwaters in Clearwater County

Enbridge said in their Line 3 application to Minnesota there was a “Potential for inadvertent release of drilling fluids” and continued through the permitting process to submit evidence that the risk was “Low” at rivers like Mississippi. 

[Bottom of page 612/1059.]

Enbridge’s own documents (full of mis-statements and deception) point to the MPCA… “• According to the MPCA, release of drilling fluid is not unexpected.” {suddently they’re the experts on HDD???} instead of giving you the truth… which Enbridge knows… that frac-outs are common and expected.

Yet, even, prior to construction – during the boring process – samples taken to determine the geology of the route made clear that spills of drilling mud were common. That is not a LOW risk… but appears to be an assurance frac-outs would occur during HDD for the pipeline.

Slide from an HDD presentation by a MN Geologist to state agencies and lawmakers ~ December 10, 2021

Imagine the increase in losses for, not a small diameter boring hole but a 36″ diameter pipeline drilling 60′ below Mississippi… Now you have an idea of what is “potentially” in our landscape at the Headwaters in the aftermath of Enbridge.

Agencies have been unresponsive to citizen outcry. Though we’ve been asking for 9 months.  Even in 2022, as evidence accumulates, Minnesota Senators continue to be stonewalled.

And, moving to the clear human impacts here along the Corridor, from those faced by local citizens… to Indigenous women, who face a 10X higher risk of assault, including rape.

This story covers the frac-out experience from the perspective of a friend of mine who I refer to as “the lady at the second Mississippi crossing” while I’m the “lady” at the first. She lives on land at the crossing near Palisade, MN. Her family has been here for generations.

I personally know dozens of women who have been brutalized along this construction route. Maybe the most disturbing case to hit the public news was a woman who was raped in Bemidji outside a bar. The rapist was released on bail and… when they sent his trial notice, it came back from Idaho undeliverable. So he’s still out there somewhere. This is Enbridgeland.

The most disturbing story shared to me was of a friend brutally beaten and raped with chunks of her hair being torn from her scalp. She’s Native though. So we’ll likely never see justice for the men who raped and beat her. It’s a different system of justice for Native women than white women up here. This is why you may be familiar with the term MMIW, as, in recent years, Minnesota has finally created an office to deal with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

Sorry if this is too much. My own marriage is struggling and this feels largely due to the trauma imposed by the Enbridge pipeline in our backyard. The treads on the timber matting road sound like military tanks rolling through… and the devastation they leave is worse than that feeling. My life has been consumed by working to protect the land and water, and Dan has struggled to watch as he’s unable to stop the attacks on women and the devastation to the land. It’s hard for a man in this country to live with being unable to protect those he loves. It seems to be destroying him.  It’s devastated us both.

Adding Covid to the mix didn’t help. Enbridge rejoiced as they were able to work largely unimpeded or unseen by locals, who were locked down in their homes while Enbridge workers ran amok. […all except that crazy lady in her back yard who filmed most of their work there!] 

Our covid case counts and deaths along the corridor were higher than necessary because the state of Minnesota would not consider the pipeline work to be unnecessary – and delay it until after the pandemic surge. Thousands of  pipeline workers from places like Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, Michigan, North Dakota, Idaho, Arkansas… converged on Minnesota likely hurting our overall Covid performance and bringing more death locally. How much lower could these middle and third waves have been – as they correlate to the times Enbridge came (October-2021 through March-2021 & June-2021 thru October-2021).

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

Many felt this was another piece of the genocide as Natives were at far higher risk for Coronavirus and this pipeline runs straight through the heart of Indian Country.

Though you all know the horrors of Covid far better than I do. Dealing with infrastructure changes like plastic panels was the least of it I’m guessing. Figuring out how to do your work – IN PPL’S MOUTHS, no less! WOW. More  though, I’m guessing, was the living in fear each day as you wondered if you’d be exposed… get really sick… or, worse, carry the disease to someone you love. This has been a horror of wondering and waiting… and it feels we’re all still recovering – maybe we will be for years yet? 

I know I missed most of that foregoing my cleanings for so long. And my teeth suffered, though perhaps more from the trauma of living in a pipeline construction zone, being rumbled from bed by heavy equipment day after day, watching them clear cut the forest you love.  That trauma has been key in my own physical deterioration. I can only imagine how hard it’s been for those less fortunate than us.

Not sure if you realized but one of the original corridors of consideration for Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement pipeline was along I-94. Could have brought those promised “Minnesota jobs” to Alexandrians… so I guess you guys lucked out on that one? Cold comfort when you come here and see the impacts. Thousands of trees have been culled from the landscape. I’ve heard from ppl along the corridor that their vacationing/cabin neighbors and visitors to Lake Country have been pretty astounded to see some of the changes. And we still have equipment present near Fond du Lac. 

Thanks again for all your good work. You guys Suck the Best!! ;D
This eyetooth is still a bit sensitive this morning so I’ll keep an eye on it. Maybe that’s normal for a few days? Looking forward to seeing y’all again in May. And if anyone you know is interested, send my info to them as I’m always glad to help educate people about what Enbridge and other polluters are working to bring to Minnesota. 

Huber Frontier Mill in Cohasset seems the next big unnecessary debacle… a new OSB plant built a few miles down the road from an existing OSB plant that’s closing…  again, screwing over the Native Nations in our fair state (the tree take circle includes most of the Reservation lands here). And… wait for it…  MN taxpayers forking over $80M to help it happen! 

This time, the decision was made – not by a state agency but a CITY COUNCIL – with NO Environmental Impact Statement! AND without public input allowed at the vote… though MANY had shown up to have their voices heard that day!  WTF? There goes our Democracy??? 

It’s really getting scary how government is working to sell off our state resources as fast as they can… this time, more of our Tree Nation. 

I’ll end with another of my favorite Heywood Banks selections… this one is pretty appropriate for the above rantings? 

I See Dead People

Tags

Covid, Death, Excess Dead, Excess Death, Excess Mortality, mandates, Vaccines

As we watch information come leaking out from various places, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore that we may have been sold a bill of goods with these mRNA vaccines. It’s a deep and complex topic and today I’m simply going to pose questions for consideration.

As we find so little available data that shares the needed details to understand much of what we’d like to understand, it’s hard to know the truth. Though I keep working to discover it.

So today we look to excess deaths as an indicator of how well we’re faring. And things don’t look too good overall. Here’s what we see globally:

Cumulative Deaths per Million Ppl by Country

Here’s what we have on US mortality.

Excess Mortality US 2020-2022 compared to 2020 expectation

Based on this info, hard to say vaccines are doing much? In fact, could it be argued that, with deaths at least 10% above expectations since last summer, we’re continuing to see higher death rates in spite of vaccination… or might it perhaps be because of vaccination?

Source: https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

What this graphic depicts is that, early on in the pandemic, we were actually seeing LESS DEATHS than normal! You can see the excess deaths were less than zero (so, lower than expected rates) right up until about when the WHO declared the pandemic on 3/10/2020. We crossed the zero-line around March 1st and there followed a MASSIVE SPIKE in excess deaths to almost 40% by Spring 2020.

Starting in mid-April, we saw a drop over two months in excess deaths to about 10% excess deaths. Was this a result of restrictions that prevented travel and encouraged social distancing, mask-wearing, and hand washing? [It certainly was not about vaccines as those had not yet been developed.]

2020 continued with a summer uptick (as we re-opened and tried to go back to normal, largely failing to protect with our Covid countermeasures and plans). This uptick bumped excess death rates to over 20% by early August and then fell again to bounce around 10-15% as “flu season” began again, when we saw a corresponding bump in excess deaths – back up to over 40% this time.

This next big spike seemed a result of returns to school and family holiday gatherings as many tired of being cooped up. By Thanksgiving 2020 we were halfway to this next bump over 40% excess deaths which, by the end of the year was starting to drop again. Was it people returning to more mindful practices after some scary stories of the Covid experienced by others? School holidays? We’ll likely never know. Still, three and a half months later, by mid-March 2021, we were back down under 5% excess deaths.

One might argue that the drop in excess deaths we saw in early 2021 was a result of the vaccines. Since excess deaths fell starting in late 2020 (when some had been vaccinated – though mostly only the elderly at that point in the game) and fell steadily through the first quarter of 2021 from over 40% to under 5% by early April, it seems logical to say it was vaccines. Though was it? Or could it have been mask mandates, lockdowns, people taking precautions, or all of the above?

Through the spring and summer of 2021, excess deaths remained between 5-10% over expectations. But by August-2021 we see another surge to almost 40% excess deaths again. So, if it WAS Vaccines that brought the drop in early 2021, it seemed they were no longer effectively keeping death in check as excess deaths shot up from under 10% in mid-July 2021 to almost 40% again by the end of August-2021.

Again, due to causes we may likely never truly understand, excess deaths began to fall to about 20% by the end of October-2021. While in the beginning and end of summer-2020 we saw drops to only 10% excess dead, our drop in 2021 never took us below 15% (actually, about 16.8%) excess dead.

In November-2021, as the Omicron wave hit on the other side of the world, we watched our excess dead hover from 17-20% and then, as 2022 came to be, we watched the rate continue to rise – this time to over 25% excess dead.

Some called Omicron a “vaccine variant” – as it created natural immunity without severe disease, bringing herd immunity to Nations of Africa and others which had been denied access to man-manufactured vaccines by more affluent (hoarding/uncaring/profit-driven/pick-your-adjective) nations. [Lucky them? As we see vaccine adverse events data continue to pile up and data concerns on vaccine trials continue to look skeptical as whistle blowers speak to the details?]

As of the latest available data, the US Excess Mortality remains at about 25% of expected death rates.
Even with vaccines in place.
Even with Coronavirus mandates dropping like rocks from the hands of politicians fearing re-election chances?

There are a couple dozen first-term Governors facing the voters this fall – and we’re suspecting many will find it rough going. [Walz in MN, Evers in WI, Whitmer in MI. Dunleavy in AK, Newsom in CA, Polis in CO, Lamont in CT, Desantis in FL, Kemp in GA, Little in ID, Pritzker in IL, Kelly in KS, Beshear in KY, Mills in ME, Sisolak in NV, Sununu in NH, Grisham in NM, Hochul in NY (already a victim there), DeWine in OH, Stitt in OK, McKee in RI, Noem in SD, Lee in TN, Gordon in WY.] I’m guessing Desantis might hang on, maybe Newsom? I figure Dems who locked down too long and hurt their economies (does that maybe include everyone?) and Republicans who didn’t use mandates and saw high deaths (also several?), may both face angry constituencies? Though… Who knows?!?!

Meanwhile… I’ve pulled data for the deaths and will be investigating it more closely.

A quick look at the figures for Minnesota are frightening. Alzheimer deaths were 240 in 2020… and 810 in 2021. And the cardiac categories continue this troubling trend. Hypertensive disease accounted for 60 dead in 2020… and 254 in 2021. Other diseases of the circulatory system almost quadrupled year-over-year (jumping from 124 to 482). That kind of growth seems to say there’s something abnormal causing this surge in deaths.

Here’s the data from the CDC itself on America’s excess deaths.

We can see that their figures show our children – and even our younger working age folks – have not been at much risk during the pandemic. Folks arguing for an end to vaccine mandates – especially for children – based on the adverse affects and apparent concerns about how mRNA works in the body long-term… might have a point it seems.

And what do the CDC say is on the rise? What is causing this uptick in deaths above normal expectations?

Diseases of the circulatory system. Heart concerns. Aneurysms, Blood clots, Cardiac Ischemia, Heart attacks, Strokes, that kind of thing.
[Coincidentally, exactly where we’re hearing most of the impacts of mRNA happen in the body? Blood clots that appear to form after vaccination may be the source? Perhaps it’s not all conspiracy theory and conjecture… as the CDC tells us nothing on what they’re doing to study the apparent increases in blood disease deaths?]

Unfortunately, the US data is limited or difficult to access (as well as being suspect as the influence of financial incentives have impacted how data was recorded and reported… affecting many of the medical decisions made for our citizenry, sadly).

I’d ask: If vaccines have been so effective, why are we still seeing excess dead at the rate of 25%? Why did the fully vaccinated breakthrough cases in Minnesota account for 52% of our dead in the latest reported week – and today we will see new data on those figures. Thus far, about 30% of all Minnesota dead were fully vaccinated per Minnesota Department of Health.

Anyone?

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Update, after looking at MDH Covid Breakthrough Case figures for fully vaccinated residents.

52% last week… 52% this week… 31% of all our Covid dead since 1/1/21. And what % of our total dead were fully vaccinated? What portion of the quadrupling excess dead figures might they represent? 😖

Landowners Along Enbridge Line 3 BEWARE.

Tags

Big Oil, Enbridge, Fossil Fuel, Landowner, Landowner Choice, Line 3, Line 5, MN PUC

Watch out landowners along the Line 3 corridor… New or Old.

Enbridge may have given Old Line 3 landowners $10/foot to leave their abandoned pipeline in the ground… but might these folks later be stuck with a bill from the EPA because they took that deal? And might it be a bill that charges $500-1000/foot of pipeline then? [Enbridge estimated their own cost for removal at $800/foot – in the documentation for their New Line 3 permitting process. So are those landowners who took deals getting screwed to the tune of about $790/foot of pipeline? Hmmm….]

#EnbridgeScrewsEverybody… if they can!!!

Don’t let them screw you.

As part of the agreements for permitting the Line 3 Expansion and Relocation Project, one of the last minute sweeteners Enbridge offered was to create a Decommissioning Plan for their new project… in hopes it would push the PUC over the line to approve the deal. Enbridge knows how to do these kind of decommissioning agreements… as they already have them in place in Canada… which may be why Enbridge wanted to build here in the U.S.? Where we don’t have those pesky decommissioning requirements? Hmmm.

This would be the first decommissioning agreement of its kind in the US. And Minnesota’s Public Utility Commission failed to assure it was put in place PRIOR TO CONSTRUCTION. The goal is to assure future landowners don’t get screwed on pipeline removal…. you know, like Enbridge was allowed to screw Old Line 3 landowners, by giving them pennies on the dollar to “keep it in the ground” – the old pipeline that is, not the tar sands oil that SHOULD be kept in the ground.

Yet how many landowners are even aware of the required program?

The PUC opened Docket PL9/CN-21-823 to take comments about how much funding Enbridge should set aside for abandonment of the new Line 3 Pipeline. If we want the process to include the voices of Minnesota landowners, we might want to request that the PUC initiate a contested case hearing that requires Enbridge notify all New Line 3 easement holders about this docket. [Perhaps Enbridge was banking on Minnesotans to forget about their new project… after they quickly rushed it into the ground on a 10-month (not 2-year) build. What Could Go Wrong?]

So… what brings this topic to my attention? A recent piece on some landowners being fucked over in Buffalo by Big Oil and their close associate, the US Government. Here’s what the article on that situation said:

The federal agency asked the Newhouses in 2012 for access to their 61 acres of swampy woodlands along Route 219 in Cattaraugus County so crews could inspect abandoned, decades-old oil wells and plug any leaking ones.
Sure, the Newhouses replied, because years earlier the state’s environmental agency told them a previous owner was liable for the dozen or so wells on their Carrollton property. The couple bought the property for $8,400 in 2000, mainly as a place where her father could hunt, and the deal did not include rights or royalties to the abandoned wells, they said.
The next letter came three years later – with a bill attached for $768,529. …

The federal government billed the Newhouses for inspecting and plugging 13 wells. And the charges kept piling on for the Newhouses.
Four years later, in 2019, another letter arrived from the National Pollution Funds Center, with the bill then put at $1 million.
Five months after that, the U.S. Treasury sent a notice of debt, and it put the past due bill at $1.3 million. Wage garnishment letters soon followed. …

When they purchased the land, they did not even know how many wells were on the land, had no right to extract oil, had no interest in assuming control over the wells and had not talked to those who owned the mineral rights, the couple said in their affidavits. …

“If we had any inclination that we would be responsible for the cost to close and plug the wells, we never would have bought the property,” he said in his affidavit.
They contested the debt and appealed the wage garnishment, sending materials through their lawyer to a federal government hearing officer. The Treasury Department held the hearing in November 2020, according to the Newhouses. The hearing officer denied their appeal after reviewing documents but without hearing from them personally. The Newhouses were not allowed to appear at the hearing in person or by video conference call.
“In other words, no participation by me or by my attorney was allowed – either in person or remotely, and there was no oral argument,” James Newhouse said in his affidavit. …

The 2012 letter to the Newhouses from the EPA said the federal agency was initiating the project to permanently plug the abandoned crude oil production wells on their property under the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.
“This project is being funded with federal money from the Oil Spill Liability Trust,” according to the letter.
The last-known operator of the wells failed to plug them under a consent order he had entered into with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, according to the EPA’s letter.
Wells were leaking oil into Tunungwant Creek, a tributary of the Allegheny River. In addition to plugging the wells, the four-month project included removing any oil pipelines and oil storage tanks and excavating and treating contaminated soil, according to the project description.
The 2015 letter from the National Pollution Funds Center said multiple wells were found to be leaking oil, but listed the Newhouses as owners of the wells and indicated they were responsible for the costs and damages.

Landowners sue after ‘federally funded’ EPA program sends them million-dollar cleanup bill by Patrick Lakamp Mar 7, 2022

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We know we can count on Enbridge to mold the Decommissioning Plan to assure they get the BEST DEAL possible. Unless a contested case is called, landowners have only until May 19 to submit comments on the size and terms of this trust fund. [AG Ellison’s office, on January 24th, requested an extension from the original comment due date (issued 12/20/21 – just before Christmas when no one was looking?) of 2/18/22.]

Notice for Comment, with extended Comment Period

If even the AG needed an extension to find the needed expertise to investigate, where is the typical landowner to get understanding of what might be reasonable? Besides the $800/foot estimate given by Enbridge in testimony, how likely is it the everyday Minnesota landowner will understand the costs of removing a behemoth like a tar sands pipeline from the landscape? Will those per foot costs likely be higher for an individual landowner to remove pipe from his brief stretch of land… than for a pipeline company contracting a much larger project?

Like most government decisions, might this one, without our voices, go solely to Enbridge and the PUC… neither of whom have thus far looked out for our well-being?

Comments to the PUC must include docket number (21-823) and can be submitted online, via email to publicadvisor.puc@state.mn.us, or by mail to:
Public Advisor
Minnesota Public Utilities Commission
121 7th Place East, Suite 350
St. Paul, MN 55101

Don’t let Enbridge remain the ONLY ONES IN THE ROOM with our state officials – who seem so easily entranced by the Enbridge narrative that they’ve agreed to all their wants thus far.

Stand up for yourselves… as it doesn’t look like the Corporations or the Government will be there to help when the bill comes due.

#OnYourOwn #FuckedByBigOil as they roll in bigger profits all the time. FFS.

Be sure your voice is heard.

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Update 3/24/22:

Looks like the Minnesota Legislature is pushing for… Pipeline Abandonment? Not 100% Removal? They require removal of fuel tanks at gas stations, right? What is it I’m missing? Is this just how they name it to get Republicans to vote on it… but it really asks owners to assure landowners can require pipeline companies to remove their “abandoned” pipelines? Will it be retroactive for already abandoned pipelines? So Many Questions.

All ya gotta do is: submit a notarized written removal request to the pipeline owner that stipulates the specific infrastructure and equipment to be removed and copy said request to the Public Utilities Commission, the Pollution Control Agency, the Department of Natural Resources, the Board of Soil and Water Resources, and the appropriate county recorder and soil and water conservation district.
Easy Peasy!
[And apparently the process you must also complete if you want to relieve the pipeline owner of their responsibility to remove said pipeline. So it’s fair and balanced?]

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Update: 5/19/22 Comments Submitted:

PUC Commissioners:

I am writing today to ask that all Landowners and Abutters to Enbridge’s Line 93 (formerly known as the Line 3 Replacement pipeline) be formally and factually notified of the decommissioning process discussion at the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) so that they can participate and be kept abreast of the proceedings’ outcomes. I am also asking for a Contested Case Hearing to be held to gather the evidence needed to make a proper assessment of this fund and Enbridge’s plans for decommissioning.

As this case is setting a historic precedent in the US, the PUC must consider the ramifications of this process and use full due diligence to assure that Enbridge is forthright, transparent in disclosure, and complete in their assessments of costs as well as the engineering ramifications of “decommissioning”.  As was noted with the Old Line 3 decommissioning, that might or might not include removal of the pipeline. It is clear the public needs to be informed of Enbridge’s intentions and the PUC must hold this foreign entity in our midst to account.  We the citizens of Minnesota and the PUC as representatives on our behalf must be the ones determining what is acceptable. Yet Enbridge is responsible to truthfully advise on the issue for a full understanding that allows best decisions for Minnesotans and our future generations.

May, 2022 reporting in the Bemidji Pioneer, noted this from Enbridge:
However, according to Juli Kellner, Enbridge communications specialist, the company is in regular contact with landowners and has no intentions of leaving any decommissioning costs to landowners now or in the future.

I have to call BS… because they already have!!
We watched with the Old Line 3 decommissioning how Enbridge enticed landowners to simply leave the old pipeline in the ground, rather than remove it. For that allowance, Enbridge offered as paltry a sum as $10/foot of pipeline. Meanwhile, their own assessments of removal costs were upwards of $800 or more per foot. So… already Enbridge has shown they will undercut their costs, pushing them onto Minnesotans, to the tune of a 99% savings to the Canadian Corporation.

As was noted in a Minnesota Reformer piece in 2021:
Removing pipe is much more expensive than leaving it buried. Enbridge estimates the cost of removing the pipeline in Minnesota would be approximately $1.28 billion — or $855 per foot, according to the Environmental Impact Statement prepared by the state for the Line 3 replacement project.
To pay property owners to keep it in the ground would cost about $10 per foot, or $85 million, plus an additional $100,000 a year in Minnesota for monitoring.

There was a case filed in May 2021 at the PUC complaining that Enbridge hadn’t fully informed landowners along the Old Line 3 pipeline properly. I’d speculate that, had landowners taken the time to determine their costs and liabilities, they might have pressed Enbridge for more than that measly 1% of the cost of removal, which would leave the landowner with the burden of later removal or mitigation, should pipeline removal become a requirement. As the fossil fuel industry faces its end, more requirements for infrastructure cleanup are a possibility, yet Enbridge seems to be buying its way out of responsibility for cleanup.

Again, from the Minnesota Reformer piece:
Carlson claimed that Enbridge didn’t properly inform his clients (who were not identified) that they were entitled to hire a third-party engineer at Enbridge’s expense to assess their land, to negotiate a price to leave the pipeline in the ground, and to engage in mediation at Enbridge’s expense if there is a dispute.
“Enbridge has effectively and intentionally hidden the existence of the third-party engineer for the purpose of keeping landowners uninformed,” Carlson wrote in the motion.

If Enbridge and the PUC are the only ones in the room deciding the decommissioning plans, I’m concerned Landowners will be left hanging – as was noted in a piece by The Pilot-Independent:
If the fund is too small, private landowners including homeowners, farmers, and railroads, as well as state and local government landowners and highway departments could all be forced to pay if the abandoned pipeline causes harm to their properties.

If already we observe Enbridge offering a pittance of actual costs to Minnesotans, what makes anyone think they will be making reasonable offerings to the State of Minnesota via the PUC’s Decommissioning Fund?

Enbridge showed their lack of care for Minnesota during their RUSHED construction.

And we continue to discover the ways Enbridge left our land in a mess of trouble, impacting water quality via frac-outs (promised to be ‘minimal’ during permitting but noted as ‘a normal part of the process’ during construction – the lies Enbridge tells are endless…) and breached aquifers (some still leaking…) across northern Minnesota. Each day we see the ongoing impacts of clearcutting and impacted water movement through our land.

Let’s assure that Enbridge not only cleans up the messes that REMAIN in our landscape, but also that we hold them FULLY ACCOUNTABLE for the costs of cleaning up their old infrastructure once they’re through using Minnesota as a highway for dirty oil. Assuring a Decommissioning Fund, as large as possible, and with as many assurances and guarantees as possible, will mean less heartache and loss for Minnesotans.

I think less troubles for Minnesota is something we can all agree is a good thing.

To be clear to the Minnesota PUC, I write today to request:

1) Require Enbridge to notify all landowners and abutters to the Line 93 project of the Decommissioning Trust Fund initiative and request their participation in the process.

2) Hold a Contested Case Hearing to determine relevant factors for consideration in the determination of the Decommissioning Fund parameters.

3) Assure follow-up communications are delivered to all Landowners and Abutters along the Line 93 corridor of the requirements agreed to once all investigation and decision-making is complete to assure these most affected citizens are informed of their protections.

Miigwech bizindawiyeg. Thank you for listening.
Jami Gaither
Climate justice advocate and Line 93 Abutter

Submitted to Docket CN-21-823 5/19/22

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Dan’s Comments:

PUC Commissioners,

I ask simply that we all acknowledge the lies Enbridge has presented during the permitting process as we consider the details of their Decommissioning Trust Fund.

I request a Contested Case Hearing be held to assure that all necessary details of decommissioning are considered fully.

I request this include full disclosure to the public – including an invitation to landowners and abutters to the route – to assure a robust plan is put into place AFTER we have an understanding relevant to the situation.

As an abutter to the Line 93 project, and witness to the destruction that occurred and remains unaddressed along the corridor, we must assure we do all we can to hold Enbridge accountable for the impacts of their profit-making pipeline. Else we will be left with all the costs… as they walk away with all the proceeds.

Thank you for your consideration.
Dan Gaither
Clearwater County

Sent 5/19/22 to PUC re: Docket CN-21-823

Deja vu… all over again.

So it appears we’re in another Vietnam (rubber), Korea (nukes), Afghanistan… well, there we just took turns fighting the locals for the drug trade? It appears to me, all we’re seeing are two big boys, trying to prove how big their militaries are. And using, in this case, Ukraine (wheat, natural gas, coal) as a place to do it. Another innocent country doing their best, as two of the biggest superpowers spend all their taxpayers’ dollars fighting each other to prove who might be tougher. And the whole world suffers.

It’s really closer to the Bay of Pigs… but without the disastrous outcome for the invaders? Not yet? What is this distracting us from… what are we not supposed to see?

That’s what we wonder in our house. What is happening that were not yet hearing about? Who gains by us all watching this unfold…. instead of some other big news?

The largest users of fossil fuels are our militaries. Not our schools, not our hospitals, not our food systems… but our armies. Protecting us.

Really?  How is it protecting us when our lives aren’t assured to be healthy, prosperous, happy… but instead we’re working for slave wages, paying huge bills to educate ourselves to that job that will make the difference. How can we commit $1B in weapons to Ukraine… just this year already… but we can’t cancel student debt?  Which would put dollars from those relieved of that debt into our own desperate economy? FFS  When will the US end their imperialism and begin to assure the safety and well-being of their CURRENT Citizenry?

How many countries have we already invaded… JUST THIS CENTURY?

How is the only winner in all of this is the military industrial complex? Here and in Russia and China…

And the American people simply abide it? But WE’RE Free? A democracy serving the people? Laughable. If it wasn’t so horrifying and tragic.

Looks like only the players getting rewards are big ag, pharma, oil, and weapons.

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So we pray for the people of Ukraine. We pray for THEIR highest good for THEIR free will to be realized, for their Country to be protected as these big baby boys figure out how to be men and speak to each other. And more importantly listen to each other. And most importantly, carry the voices of their people.

Pray for Ukraine

I hope we all recognize our parts played in getting to this point… and that we each decide to live from this point further… so that others may simply do the same…
without threatening them for their resources,
without poisoning their air,
without taking more than is needed and preventing them from having enough,
without stealing their children,
without taking their land,
without disrespecting their culture.

Because what we do to others, comes home to US.

WE ALL take steps each day that affect the other. I hope we tread thoughtfully and with care. 

Please. Be kind. Every chance you get. ❤

DNR M.O.: Ignore, Oppress, Gaslight

Tags

DNR, Enbridge, Line 3, MDNR, Minnesota, Minnesota DNR, Pipeline

This past week sure has been a long, fun, crazy week of planning and preparing, learning and loving, understanding and sharing… as we approached the one-year anniversary of the day Enbridge ruptured the Clearbrook Aquifer adjacent to their Terminal Tank Yard.

Hands and hearts working together in the public, as the State continues to ignore, oppress, and gaslight those of us working to protect Sacred Water, Nibi, the Source of all Life.

Ignoring the Public

We know the Agencies are ignoring us as we’ve been working to wake them up to Enbridge’s lies, dangers, and destruction for almost a decade now. And yet, Line 93, Enbridge’s Relocation and Expansion Pipeline, has been built and flowing Tar Sands through my back yard since October. Meanwhile, Enbridge’s reporting to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shows their imports to the Mainline System ARE ON THE DECLINE!

Mainline System Imports vs. Capacity Q1-2004 through Q3-2021
Why is capacity going up… while imports are on the decline!

So WHY did we need to cull our water-holding, oxygen-giving forests? WHY risk our water-filtering wetlands and rivers, if the declining fossil fuel extraction could have been served with EXISTING infrastructure… WITHOUT DISTURBING and DESECRATING the NATURAL INFRASTRUCTURE – on which all life depends?

It seems humans are so intent on their own wishes, they forget that ALL of those wishes are only fulfilled by a robust and healthy biodiverse environment.

Oppressing the Public

While we found solidarity in our work this week, none seemed possible with the Agencies who continue to conceal the damages done by Enbridge across our state, all while not monitoring the ongoing concerns.

The Twin Cities Breach-iversary event Friday ~ planned for the front walk of the DNR Office Building in St. Paul where previous Press Conferences have been carried out in the past ~ found Water Protectors instead pushed to the street!

DNR Security harassed people about parking… in a parking lot that was perhaps 15% full! They would not allow us to be on the sidewalk in front of the DNR building!! Instead, they PUSHED the group to the public sidewalk by busy Lafayette Road!

Why this continued HARASSMENT of Water Protectors by DNR Officials???

I suspect it is because the DNR is telling us that We Are NOT WELCOME and WILL NOT BE HEARD.

My good friend Jaci posted about this situation on Friday:

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources why do you discriminate? What did you base your decision on today—which press conference can stand at our DNR doorway and which one gets pushed to the sidewalk? We are literally trying to work with you to protect our water (train us to be monitors!) but you “greeted” us with security hassles while parking and then told us we could not stand at our state agency. Next you’ll be arresting us for standing peacefully, exercising our first amendment rights. Oh wait! You’ve already done that to me and many others!
I used to be so proud of you, DNR, and had dreams of working for you but honestly, I don’t know who you are and what your purpose is anymore. Well, other than to protect the interests of foreign corporations. I know there are good folks that do good work for the DNR but it appears you are being suppressed. Please, I beg of you (I’ve been known to get down on my hands and knees!) it’s time to blow the whistle! There are millions of Minnesotans who will support you!
First photo is Stop PolyMet press conference I was honored to attend in 2018. Second photo is from today.”

I commented:

Thank you for speaking to the oppression citizens are seeing by the Minnesota DNR. Most wouldn’t believe our stories of the DNR but we all know we’ve seen a lot of gaslighting of citizens and refusals to meet with us, or even to respond to our inquiries.
I imagine there are many employees whose hearts are with us… even if their job restrictions don’t allow them to stand with us in public in front of their employer.
We all know the Mark Toso v. MPCA cases could be far more common. We’ve seen the process. We’ve watched the hearings, read the documents, heard the stories, had the quiet conversations.
The people will stand for protection of all life. We pray for everyone to join us in this work, whether agency employed or not.
Because it’s clear the process is broken. When a foreign multinational can destroy our lands without any way for us to stop them… or even slow them down… let alone hold them accountable… for the unfixable, it’s clear the people take second place to corporations ruining our landscape and poisoning our water, one project at a time.”

My response to 1/21/22 FB Post

At least there was a quick chance for a Photo Op at the DNR Entrance… Photo courtesy of Honor the Earth

Gaslighting the Public

And, yes, they are gaslighting us as well.

On Thursday afternoon, the DNR held their first 2022 Commissioner’s Office Hours event – focused on 2022 Legislative priorities. I asked my questions and, when I finished, Gail Nosek, Communications Director of the DNR said this:

Thank you for the questions and comments, Jami. I do want to make sure to remind people that we understand there is a lot of passion around these issues, but these are meant to be respectful conversations as well.”

Gail Nosek – implying I’d been disrespectful!?!?! …without any evidence provided to back that up?

I’d ask you, WHERE EXACTLY was I disrespectful??? Here’s what I said (including the MANY corrections to their meeting transcript capture below. My actual words are in non-italics amidst their often incomplete and stricken inaccuracies. Interesting to note that, for as many interactions as they have with them, the transcriber simply CANNOT SEEM to capture the word “Enbridge”… not ONE single time! 🧐 I highlighted the most interesting of their misquotes…):

I took a look at the DNR proposals for funding and noted that it appears the lion’s share of the focus is on anthropogenic purposes like trails through the wilderness and economic management of selling off our natural resources as opposed to instead of protecting them and the rich biodiversity on which we all depend.
We watched as the DNR has done a miserable job of monitoring the line three project that tore through our state at a breakneck pace resulting resulted in a flurry of environmental damages throughout the new corridor that still await re-meditation. They’ve While Enbridge has been pumping oil since October, we see just this morning to a report that they finally managed to stop the flow at the Clearbrook Aquifer Breach which they created by willfully violating the DNR’s lo-res Low Risk Construction Permit. It is obvious from the re-meditation order details that they the DNR failed to manage the monitoring the process to detect this egregious violation, in part because Enbridge failed to report it for, really clearly, for almost six months. And it appears we need to address the permanent Permitting activity for which we give the DNR authority. I would ask, where were the on-site DNR officials during the obvious permit violations and environmental concerns, why did the egregious violation of the construction permit not result in a stoppage of work until the aquifer was repaired, instead they were Enbridge was focused on completing their pipeline, allowing the uncontrolled flow of the aquifer throughout the last year, and the DNR allowed them to do so.
I would ask, what it is exactly that would’ve called for a stoppage of the project if not violations of the permit. It is Is the agency to fill us toothless with regard to protecting our natural resources from bad acting applicants willfully desecrating our land? Will the DNR be seeking legislation that allows more authority as we look to reduce the environmental impacts of humans or will you continue to look at what appears to be a tech Check-box approach, allowing our state to be destroyed one project at a time?
It seems the agency lacks technical capacity to determine that the engineering data and bridge Enbridge provided did not accurately account for the geology and the topography of our landscape, which was truly the worst place for our a Tar Sands pipeline. If So can you could speak to the funding around the permitting work and I just close with this. I It would’ve really to me seemed— it would’ve been a better use for DNR commission Conservation officers and in deploying them along the project route with unannounced monitoring visits to determine what exactly was happening and in our environment instead of what they mostly spent their time doing, which was banging heads of citizens to quell the public outcry to this destructive project. Which we know is not needed as we’ve seen in this a decrease in imports for the Enbridge’s mainline system. So please let me know, what are you doing to assure that you have the technical expertise to complete the projects that we need done in a way that doesn’t damage our landscape, but instead protects the things that are important to life.

My comments to the DNR during the January 20th Commissioner’s Office Hours event

While I asked Gail, both publicly and privately for an explanation in the chat, she gave me NO RESPONSE WHATSOEVER. THIS is how the DNR treats ENGAGING CITIZENS. They IGNORE us, OPPRESS us, and/or GASLIGHT us.

Later in the meeting, another citizen asked (again, with corrections to the DNR’s transcript, and a key concern noted early on…):

I actually wrote my comments in the chat. It seems to me that the DNR [Perhaps THIS RIGHT HERE – inaccurate listening and transcribing – is one of the problems???] isn’t IS engaged in promoting recreation by building more and more trails in on public lands. Motorized recreation exasperates climate change in a number of ways by burning fossil fuels, but also by requiring bigger vehicles, trucks, SUVs to pull trailers, that consume fossil fuels at a higher level, to pull these trailers of ATVs and snowmobiles to their recreation destinations. I’m wondering how does the DNR — square their development and it’s engagement in the development of more and more OHV trails with its responsibility trying to mitigate climate change impacts and on all the natural resources… and so forth. I was I’m still having trouble seeing the DNR doing those, things that are really in conflict with one another. That is my question. Thank you.

Don Pietrick’s OHV (Off-Highway Vehicles) Question at January 2022 DNR Office Hours event

Gail had NO Criticism for Don being disrespectful… though perhaps it’s because she was confused trying to hear him… even though his question had already been posted in the chat… TWICE!?! [Which he mentioned as he began speaking… meaning she could have simply read along, as some of us did to understand Don’s question? Alas, she could not.] But HEY! At least the Chat was PUBLICLY TRANSPARENT!! That’s a change I often requested in complaints to the DNR in 2020 & 2021 regarding their continued apparent unwillingness to have publicly visible comments between attendees at these events. Just giving them clues on how to TRULY Engage the Public!! 😀
[One small change I was able to help bring about… only took a couple years, eh? Though we’ll see if they continue this practice in February? We now know that they can!! So if they don’t continue this bit of transparency, it will be just one more nail in the coffin labeled “The DNR Just Doesn’t Want Public Engagement”?] Here are a couple of the great public chat comments:

Public Chat is NOW AVAILABLE in the DNR Office Hours events!

Perhaps most concerning is, for those hard of hearing or reading the transcript after the fact, the real question Don asked is HIDDEN by DNR’s verbiage. Their transcript 1) implied DNR is NOT making more trails, 2) minimized the impacts Don shared about trailering and increased fossil fuel use, and finally 3) obfuscated Don’s main focus of SQUARING the DNR’s heavy OHV focus with their proposed mission of mitigating climate change. Though, reading this sentence – as DNR captured it – may be telling: “I’m wondering how does the DNR — trying to mitigate climate change impacts and all the natural resources.” Yeah, they do seem, Don, to be “mitigating… ALL the natural resources” …and by that, I mean all these appropriate synonyms: reducing, diminishing, weakening, and, most often… deadening our natural resources.

MinnPost had a good piece on these concerns Friday as well, noting: “Sustainable environmental policy needs more holistic oversight and that is limited in this state.”

MinnPost 1/21/22: Environmental inequality: the other Minnesota paradox by Peter Calow

Peter closes with a strong argument and a few great suggestions:

The state should have a high-level group for strategic thinking on sustainable environmental policy options, but then decisions on priorities need to be refined by preferences elicited across all the important stakeholders including the tribal nations. There will undoubtedly be urgency and political pressures to act as more funds flow so it will be impractical to ask everybody about options all the time. Community leaders will be important. Increasingly, though, we should involve the power of the internet, big data and crowdsourcing in informing decisions.
To deliver for the economy, environment and people taking account of the present and future generations needs a holistic approach. Balancing the inevitable trade-offs in a way that is transparent and sensitive to public preferences is the challenge. The state has a way to go in delivering on this. 

MinnPost 1/21/22: Environmental inequality: the other Minnesota paradox by Peter Calow

I’d agree on the Minnesota Agencies’ LONG WAY TO GO in Transparency, for sure… as well as their inability to be sensitive to public preferences… though I might take friendly disagreement with his earlier statement on technical expertise. While technical experts may exist in our agencies, it seems they lack the capacity to piece through the misinformation and deceptions presented by Engineers representing Applicants. This might be no more clear than in the Enbridge Aquifer Breach at Clearbrook.

The DNR was unable to detect the inaccurate information presented in applications by Enbridge’s engineers, which drove them to allow Enbridge a “Low Risk Construction Permit” at this location. A huge mistake as the site of the breached aquifer is quite close to two Calcarious Fens, which are specially protected entities. It’s hard to comprehend, as the state geologists and hydrologists should surely have been able to understand that this area – an old washout of a long ago river – would be full of irregular geology that might cause problems in trenching?

OUR experts could see the issues. And we testified about the problems of putting a new tar sands pipeline through this area of our state, giving proposed alternative routes, and begging for agency officials to COME SEE THIS LAND with their OWN EYES… all to no avail. And, in the end, the DNR obviously lacked the necessary technical resources to properly and/or completely READ THE MONITORING REPORTS and determine that something was amiss and more urgent attention was clearly needed at the work site… for over 5 months!

Perhaps Gail’s comment on my being “disrespectful” was because she didn’t like the FACTS that I was disclosing about the DNR? 🧐

All this said, it does seem the tide is turning.

• The people continue to speak… even when they are PUSHED from the Public Right-of-Way.
• We continue to make valid points and ask concerning questions that the Agencies CONTINUE TO IGNORE and NOT ANSWER.
• Yet we persist. Even with all the gaslighting techniques employed by the DNR.

Last Real Indians posted this Friday:

US Attorney Drops Charges Against Indigenous Water Protectors and Allies Who Occupied Bureau of Indian Affairs Demanding Indigenous Rights Be Upheld

US Attorney Drops Charges Against Indigenous Water Protectors and Allies Who Occupied Bureau of Indian Affairs – 1/21/22

It’s time for Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to FOLLOW THIS LEAD, writing an amicus brief to all Law Enforcement Agencies that banged heads for Enbridge along the corridor – arresting PEACEFUL CITIZENS and Tribal Members ON THEIR OWN LAND – as Jaci mentioned at the start of this blog. He must insist that they DROP THE CHARGES!

The counties were reimbursed by Enbridge to the tune of almost $5M – with more filings expected so likely to be higher still? – for their LE officers “trouble” in harassing citizens on Enbridge’s behalf. But Enbridge’s escrow account manager refuses to FINANCE the prosecutions… as they are outside the allowed reimbursables. Just another way Enbridge creates more costs and cleanup for local people as it leaves their environment and communities in disarray.

It is ridiculous to me that Water Protectors, standing for us all, face criminal charges and fines geared to disable them in major ways… while the real criminal, Enbridge, gets to continue hiding it’s damages, paying pittances of fines, and facing no criminal charges for poisoning our air, land, and water.

Still, we have pending suits remaining against the project. (Why is Biden’s Court taking OH SO LONG to rule on filings made 12/24/20 and 1/24/21? And WHY did they refuse to even HEAR the case where Tribes asked for an injunction on the Line 3 project?) Seems so many agencies, courts, and officials have colluded to keep this project from stopping… while ignoring the obvious science, climate chaos, and voices speaking in opposition.

To close, here’s a little Fun Stuff from the Clearbrook Breach-iversary event! It seems perhaps Enbridge is ready to get involved with us!?!? 🧐

This is a little clip of their operator… blocking the entrance to the work site… as we all watched… and filmed. He’s got a whole new technique!! 😜

My Take on the PUC Rule Change Plans

Tags

ALJ, Electric Power, Minn, Minnesota, Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, Public Utilities Commission, Treaty Rights, Tribal Rights

Kate Kahlert
Supervising Attorney
Minnesota Public Utilities Commission
121 7th Place E, Suite 350
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-2147

RE: Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to Amend Rules Governing Certificates of Need and Site Permits for Large Electric Power Plans and High Voltage Transmission Line, and Notice Plan Filing Requirements

Dear Ms. Kahlert,

While I spoke at the ALJ Hearing, I am submitting my comments with additional concerns I witnessed during the Hearing. The irony of this Hearing being a microcosm of the failures we’ve experienced as “the public” with the PUC was not lost on me. And I am hopeful, after reading this, it will not be lost on you.

As a wheelchair user, I would hope that Judge Kimberly Middendorf would be better suited than most to understand the limitations that our systems create for some, and not others. Our systems are primarily designed for those who are white, housed, educated, and male… not those who are blind, deaf, or without good access to food, mobility, or medical care. Surely she sees more clearly than most, the changes happening? With more access being available today for those, not only in wheelchairs, but also those with other conditions of limitation in this system as it exists? Though injustice continues to abound.

What we need now is a focus on allowing those who are impacted to be able to speak to the things impacting them, which has been lacking for a plethora of reasons, notably, poor communications and practices by our State Agencies and Commissions, and a focused effort, it seems, on not including the voices of citizens.

Just as the State is providing more access to those who’ve been ignored in our day-to-day lives, we Climate Justice Advocates are seeking equal participation in the processes and policy-making as that given to Applicants and others, who find a much friendlier welcome by not only the Public Utilities Committee, but State Agencies across the board.

How many are surprised by the horrific results we’re seeing with water quality degradation, land-use favoring white and privileged places, and an inability to be prepared for the weather chaos – a result of the changes we’re making, often and usually, with regard to energy production?

In the ALJ Hearing, there were three objectives:
•     Does PUC have legal authority?
•     Has PUC fulfilled all relevant legal and procedural requirements?
•     Has NEED FOR and REASONABLENESS been assured? 

I’d answer that they have usurped their legal authority by not including voices they are required to hear, namely the voices from the Tribes of Minnesota. Perhaps the laws are written for them to proceed in all other veins, but this one, they cannot pretend they have heeded legally. And with regard to Need, we might consider the health of the planet as a Reasonable thing to protect? You know, since our very lives depend upon it? Just a thought…

During the ALJ Hearing, Susan Gretz noted, “We had many commenters express concern about the rules not addressing Climate Change, Greenhouse gasses, and environmental justice. The Briefing Papers recommend to the Commissioners, and again, they are the decision-makers, that the rules explicitly require consideration of these factors in several different places. So that is Staff’s recommendation to the Commission.”

She continued, “We also received many comments that the rules do not properly reflect tribal sovereignty and the need to consult with Tribes on these projects. Staff is also recommending in the briefing papers that the Commission be required to maintain a separate list of the eleven federally recognized Tribes … the purpose of this list is to provide notice of applications and to require the Commission to engage with Tribal governments in accordance with its Tribal Engagement and Consultation Policy.”

I’d ask: If the Commissioners haven’t adhered to date… and they have been asked to do so, including in their own policies, then WHY SHOULD WE BELIEVE they will do it if asked again? If having a policy that requires it allows the Commission to IGNORE SAID POLICY, then why should the public have any trust that this quasi-judicial body will be ADHERING to any NEW policy moving forward?

I’d further ask if this is something the Commission is being advised to do NEXT TIME??? Or are they being asked to revisit this decision itself? Are they just going to run with their near decade of work on this and pretend to include some indication of where they felt they DID engage with the Tribes and simply MOVE FORWARD? Or will the process be STOPPED and RE-DONE to INCLUDE the Tribal voice – as required by law and policy?

I ask because this is something we’ve seen over and over in the Line 3 opposition. We ask for consideration and the MPCA, DNR, USACE all say some form of: ‘Ah, Thanks for letting us know you’re interested! Next Time We WILL Consult with you! Pinky Promise!!’

WHY SHOULD WE TRUST THAT ANYTHING WE SAY WILL HAVE ANY INFLUENCE?

Why should we trust that we will be given even an appearance of consideration?

Yet, still, I write to you today. Because what else can I do?

We’d like to see changes made with public engagement in our civic processes, a situation which has, via my experience in Minnesota, proven to be DIFFICULT, even in the best of circumstances.

Your own presentation of the Rulemaking Advisory Committee – a point of contention mentioned in many of the public comments shared at the December 6^th Hearing – shows no Tribal representation and including mostly monied orgs and those hoping to profit from said rule changes:

Look who is MISSING on the Public Utilities Commission Rulemaking Advisory Committee… and who is included.

WHERE IS THE PUBLIC??? Where are Minnesota SCIENTISTS?

And most especially, where are the Tribes whose land upon which Minnesota was founded? They were Excluded from Participation. Never even notified?

The shame of our injustice toward Anishinaabeg continues to present day.

And this lack of public engagement was itself the focus on an audit process, for which we are still awaiting outcomes to provide remedy. I ask again: Is there any real interest in engaging us?

Or is this all simply a smokescreen to pretend our voices matter? Our only option remaining… to MAKE you SLOW DOWN and LISTEN by requesting a public hearing when the PUC wanted to rush these rules through without it? As my good friend from Fond du Lac keeps asking me, “How many times do we have to say ‘No’, huh?”

Bret Eknes, whose presentation was so garbled as to be unintelligible was again an example of how unimportant it appears to be to the PUC for the public to be informed, even during the actual process designed to bring better understanding, the ALJ Hearing.

Utter frustration filled me as I listened to this poorly done response to public concerns. An addition of 150+ pages of information… less than ONE BUSINESS DAY prior to this hearing??? We get a LARGE NEW ADDITION of data from Staff for consideration? {Note: Clearly stating in one instance that this information is “illustrative and not binding.” Well, of course! The PUC can do as it wishes, this seems to further indicate.}

Where were these recommendations during the development process? Why ONLY after dozens and dozens of citizens let the PUC know we’re watching… do we get any response? And perhaps this is just lip service, as this body seems want to do as it wishes… and continues to push the public from their processes, and seemingly from their consideration?

Save Matt perhaps, as one public speaker – Jaci, speaking for many of us – commented on Commissioner Schuerger’s courage to stand for the right decision on the Enbridge Line 3 project – the focus of my comments as it’s been the focus of my life for the last half dozen years. As is obvious in the graph below, Schuerger has been proven right, it seems, as the throughput on the Enbridge lines is on the decline as CJ Advocates suggested it would be. Throughput is not surpassing the capacity Enbridge had with OLD Line 3 in service… when all our forests and wetlands were intact across Northern Minnesota.

FERC Reported Data Q3-2021

So while I hadn’t planned to give comment, as I watched the time remaining in the hearing and knew we must give as much reason for our requests to STOP this rule change, ensure the voice of the Tribes and citizens was heard, and that the urgent factors of our rapidly changing world incorporated, I simply couldn’t NOT give testimony. This is what I shared:

Thank you for providing this venue for participation of the public voice in our state process. I recognize many of the voices speaking today as fellows who have struggled to get State Agencies to hear us, most especially the PUC, which for me has been over the last six years. The concern with the PUC’s seeming unwillingness historically to allow the public to participate in its decision-making was evident throughout the Line 3 hearings and the resulting OLA audit of their public engagement process as mentioned by others.

We all know that Applicants are going to present their projects in the best light and only provide as much information as demanded from them. In the case of the PUC on Line 3, we watched as Enbridge provided a SUPPLY forecast and the PUC inaccurately allowed that to meet their requirement to give Minnesota a DEMAND forecast for their product. As such, we now see a completed tar sands pipeline while we see no real increase in their use of the mainline system for more throughput than was already possible with the current system. So how many trees did Minnesota lose, how many more wetlands were degraded by the PUC’s illegal allowance of this project?

What we see now on the project corridor is a birthing of all the many concerns noted by the Tribes, Environmental Scientists, and Citizen Advocates like me. We now see Enbridge reducing the lifetime for their mainline system to a 2040 end date, notwithstanding their newest line – the Relocated and Expanded Line 3, which they note will have a 30-year lifetime.

So there might be consideration in the rule changes that eventually arise from this process to include some actions to hold Applicants accountable for their inaccurately or incompletely presented project details. This could give Minnesota more control over Applicants who are found to not have studied the environment in which they are looking to build… to a degree that would protect Minnesotans. In addition, it could include mitigation/amendments that might be considered as we face faster and faster changes to our climate with more and more extreme weather.

The comment by Kevin Pranis of LIUNA noted issues with “getting steel in the ground”. Yet, this is exactly the problem we had on the Line 3 project – where steel was pounded into the ground in violation of their construction permit, breaching an aquifer that continues to spill water into the environment threatening the biodiversity and the fen in Clearbrook.

Favoring the Applicant and their narrative IS NOT PROTECTING OUR ENVIRONMENT. We know from the experience with Enbridge and the PUC that the Applicant was consistently, and to the detriment of the state, given priority consideration with few challenges made to the Applicant regarding the very real concerns put forward by both the Tribes and Environmental Justice Advocates.

We now see in our environment with both the frac-outs into the Mississippi River at BOTH crossings as well as the aquifer breach in Clearbrook. It is clear that the Tribal Representatives, Scientists and Environmental Advocates were right about the risks to our land, air and water, yet we were not heeded by the PUC, as documented in the OLA report of their org and public engagement.

I’d ask for a TRUE assessment of the climate impacts and with a full and early inclusion of the Native Peoples of this land as their voices are critical to protecting our land, air and water. Thank you for your consideration.

After I spoke and comments were getting close to closing, my friend from Fond du Lac was working to be heard. We were grateful that the PUC allowed her comment. However, as she was known to be the last comment, and we’d heard throughout the hearing of the Native voice going unheeded being against the rule of law (Article VI of the Constitution) and Treaty obligations, and we had TWO HOURS REMAINING for the Hearing… still we listened to her be rushed from the stage so the hearing could end early.

Again I ask, does our shame know no bounds?

The new Netlfix movie, Don’t Look Up speaks to the inability of humanity to heed the voice of truth… our inability to face our own demise. Perhaps the PUC is simply a microcosm of what we’re seeing in the larger world. It would be nice to see a turning point here in Minnesota, as we stop the madness inflicted upon us by the corporate and monied interests and instead listen to the planet on which we depend… for all. We’re just about to run out of hopium that the powers that be will make decisions that favor humankind over dollars, the safety of our home over a few pieces of gold.

Please prove me wrong.

Please give hope that we will see a re-do of these rules, incorporating the voices that spoke out during the ALJ Hearing.

Please give reason for us to maintain expectation that our Commissions and Agencies are beginning to comprehend the need to LISTEN to the PEOPLE, incorporate the voices and minds of Minnesotans who care, and find a way forward that works for all, not just Applicants and those hoping to profit financially.

Thank you for your consideration.

Jami Gaither

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1/3/22 Update:

I had written to Kate Kahlert hoping to see where we could view all the public comments, and mostly to assure my comments were visible as a friend recently had her comments kept hidden from the public by an agency… Here’s Kate’s response.

Hi Jami, thank you for you reaching out.
The Commission to decided to withdraw the proposed rule and to not go forward with the proposed rule changes. As a result, there are no open comment periods. If you want to see comments in the record, you can view them in the Commission’s electronic filing system using this link: https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showeDocketsSearch&showEdocket=true
I hope this is helpful, but please let me know if you need anything else.
Thank you,
Kate

1/3/22 Response on seeking to view public comments on this Rule Change Proposal (Link modified)

So, did we win? The PUC doesn’t say WHY they withdrew their proposal… though I’m guessing it’s because…

WE WERE WATCHING AND WE SPOKE UP!!

Miigwech.

Doesn’t say why… but they did pull them. Apparently before I sent my comments, though I got no notice?

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1/4/22 Update: This from a friend:

In a 5-0 decision they voted to withdraw the rule completely and indicated that they do not intend to call for a rulemaking to fix the identified issues that the rulemaking was meant to correct (including the fact that the rules have been inconsistent with state statute since at least 2005) nor address any of the issues the commenters raised. This was in line with what PUC staff recommended in their briefing papers.

News from the Movement

Can We Speak Freely?

Tags

Covid, COVID-19, Ivermectin, Kory, Marik, Michael Capuzzo, Minnesota, SARS-CoV-2

I’m not saying vaccines are 100% ineffective, I’m simply saying they aren’t 100% safe (at least not as we’re administering them here in the US)… and that they are not our only way forward.

I’m really saying, “It Didn’t Have To Be This Way.” [More on this at the bottom.]

While many would agree with me in saying the vaccines are not 100% effective, it seems that few will agree the vaccines are unsafe. But one thing most of them can agree on is this: Ivermectin Doesn’t Work and Is UNSAFE!

The question is… Why? And maybe more importantly, WHY is there so much disagreement about these ideas. And most importantly perhaps, WHY can we not DISCUSS these matters freely and without such vitriol?

I have really been heartbroken by those who have chosen to attack me for speaking my truth as I share what I feel are valid concerns that require some consideration.

Some simply want to label me “Anti-vaxxer”… and thus conveniently put me into a category of “Stupid” or “Trumpster” as they stand in righteous beliefs regarding their vaccines… and my lack of care.

I’ve been especially frightened by the harsh lashing out from those who have called me a friend.

If I cannot even talk openly with friendly relations about these ideas, then how on earth are we to find truth among the masses?

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Nuance is hard for most of us and even harder as truth is becoming more difficult to determine.

All I can say is that I’m working as hard as anyone to understand the world. And I’m listening to what I’m learning and working to put all the pieces together.

Unfortunately, the more I work, the harder it is to find hope that we’re gonna find our way through all this mess.

The harder it is to know what is true, who I can trust, and what I ought do.

I told Dan this past week, if the Abortion Ban and Vaccine Mandates both manage to find a way forward and into our near-term future, then I suspect we’ll be at war by my birthday, just a few months hence. As I discussed with a friend this morning, there are legal ideas… and then there are ethics and logic. It’s seeming more often each day that the legal does not always rest well on logical, scientific, or moral ground.

I’m also concerned that these times are looking quite similar to those that preceded both WWI and WWII. We have economic uncertainty, communication breakdowns, global scapegoating, and system failures that do not bode well for our future being bright. And we wonder why our children are shooting each other in schools and overdosing on opioids? We can look at ourselves for these answers.

Yet, there doesn’t seem much impetus to find that middle ground in logic and ethics. Instead, greed seems the biggest motivator in the Vaccine/Covid Treatment game.

• Greed motivates the vaccine manufacturers to not share their recipes.
• Greed incents a focus on profits rather than outcomes for people.
• Greed motivates Merck to downplay it’s own (VERY CHEAP) drug, Ivermectin, and its ability to bring relief from Covid, and instead we find them hawking another unknown off-the-shelf-for-quick-manufacture concoction as a ‘Covid Pill Cure’. All for only $700 a pop, eh? [Meanwhile, Ivermection costs less than a Big Mac. And actually does something. (I hear the new drug is not being found as effective as first touted on announcement, perhaps why it barely passed EUA approval? Time will tell.]
• Greed assures the privileged are first (and often the only places) on the list for vaccine distribution.
• Greed assures there are no ‘approved’ treatments (hence the ability to continue with EUAs that allow Big Pharma to rack up millions).

Yet the data from India, Japan, and Chiappas show that Ivermectin does work?

Last half 2021 Cases as of 12-5-21. Mexico, India, and Japan appear to be winning!

And the chatter about Ivermectin being a “horse-dewormer” and/or “dangerous” has been shown to be politically driven misinformation for this Nobel Prize Winning drug. [FFS, even the correction opener on this piece is an embarrassing attempt at misguiding the public – though with our poor education system, it has seemingly worked… as I have family members in medicine who poo-poo Ivermectin as HORRIBLY UNSAFE! (I would welcome anyone who has links to articles that DON’T mention Ivermectin… without disparaging it as ‘unhelpful’ for Covid.)]

Perhaps the best written summary can be found in the below quoted article*:

This was not something many people thought possible. But while the world was living the nightmare of the COVID-19 pandemic like a Michael Crichton sci-fi horror production where the planet is facing a plague apocalypse, millions die, and doctors can do nothing as brilliant pharmaceutical scientists race to develop vaccines to save the globe in the final scene, Paul Marik had a different movie in his head. He was startled and appalled that all the national and international public health agencies recommended that the most well-trained, well-equipped doctors in history stand down and wait on big pharma’s lab scientists while the worst pandemic in a century devastated the world. “It’s therapeutic nihilism to say that doctors can do nothing,” Marik said. “Supportive care is no care at all.”

What Marik did was assemble four of his closest friends, who also happen to be four of the top academic critical care doctors in the world. He challenged them to join him in an expert panel to continually review the literature while treating their COVID-19 patients and developing treatment protocols—lowcost generic therapies that countless black and brown and poor people all over the world would need, he saw from the beginning, or face a coming catastrophe without treatments or vaccines. …

ICUs were getting hammered by the new respiratory plague all around the world, but Marik had
assembled a group of intensivists with nearly 2,000 peer-reviewed papers and books and over a century of bedside experience in treating multi-organ failure and severe pneumonia-type diseases. If anyone could arrest the coronavirus in a living patient, they could.

The Drug That Cracked COVID by Michael Capuzzo

And they DID! The MATH+ and I-MASK protocols have saved many. Though the safety of Ivermectin is hard to argue against, we see that many have. And we continue to see no consideration of it by our prescribed Doctor, as he notes the organization’s protocols do not allow Ivermectin prescriptions to be written for Covid treatment, I am left to no other conclusion than this may well be a de-population plan.

We are told here in America that, until you have COVID symptoms that warrant hospitalization, there is no treatment for you. We are not given any guidance for boosting our own immune systems and are even discouraged from taking Vitamin D, or anything… save a jab of vaccine, to help ourselves. Meanwhile, our mortality for 2021 is HIGHER than that of 2020. Even with those highly touted EUA jabs in place? Hmmm.

US Mortality MN Data as of 12-5-21

Sadly, as I read the words of Dr. Pierre Kory, I feel the same of my own doctor, who continues to refuse to consider any medical information I present:

Kory never tires of reminding critics that the modern Hippocratic Oath, the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, makes it abundantly clear that all medical research is secondary to the doctor’s clinical judgement in the moment, whether the patient is dying of COVID-19 or giving birth. The doctor is morally compelled to use their best clinical judgement and the “best available evidence” in that instant, not tomorrow or next year when more data is published. As the WMA puts it: “The health of my patient will be my first consideration.” Clearly the medical establishment is now routinely violating that ancient oath, Kory says, and as a result he “feels estranged from most, but not all, of my colleagues.” …

In the new world of medicine, the COVID world, he says, “Only big randomized controlled trials by big pharma/big academic medical centers are accepted by big journals, while others are rejected,” while only studies in big journals are accepted by big public health agencies for drug recommendations, and only drugs recommended by big public health agencies “escape media/social media censorship.” “This leaves you with a system where the only thing that’s considered to have sufficient evidence or proven efficacy is essentially a big new pharmaceutical drug,” he adds. “If it doesn’t come from the mountaintop, it doesn’t exist,” Kory says. “The people on the ground, we cannot do any more science that’s considered credible. We’re discredited as controversial and as promoting unproven therapies and our Facebook groups are shut down, Twitter accounts are locked, YouTube videos are removed and demonetized. It’s really almost totalitarian what’s happening when we’re just well-meaning scientists trying to do the right thing by our patients.”

The Drug That Cracked COVID by Michael Capuzzo

Perhaps this censorship is the true problem? Again, this goes back to the beginning where I ask:

Can we not OPENLY DISCUSS the facts and come to the TRUTH?

It seems in today’s regulatory-captured capitalism, we may be SOL for that plan.

Good luck to you all in finding your way.

I’d ask that you consider taking a moment after hearing something you find a bit hard to swallow – perhaps especially from those for whom you hold any love – to ask yourself,
“What if they aren’t all wrong?”

Perhaps, if I have not convinced you then a couple last stories from Capuzzo’s piece will inspire?

Dr. Manny Espinoza was dying of COVID-19 in his Texas hospital when his wife, Dr. Erica Espinoza, asked the doctors to try Ivermectin as a last resort, and was refused. Erica hired a life-flight helicopter to take Manny to the Houston hospital of FLCCC co-founder Joseph Varon for the cheap little pill that in four days had her husband sitting up smiling and telling their children about the “miracle” that saved his life. “We see this every day,” Dr. Varon says. “They say it’s a miracle, I say it’s the science, but it’s the truth.” In Atlanta, Georgia, eighty-four-year-old Lou Gossett Jr., the Oscar-winning black star of An Officer and a Gentleman, gravely ill with COVID-19, checked out of a hospital and was three days from his lungs failing, doctors said, when his son connected him with an FLCCC doctor in Florida who gave him Ivermectin. Gossett quickly recovered and made a very short film for the FLCCC doctors that ends: “I’m very grateful to all of you for literally saving my life.”
In Cushing, Oklahoma (pop. 7,826), Dr. Randy Grellner saw Kory’s testimony and started giving his patients Ivermectin, which he’d used safely for years for parasites, for COVID-19 because he was “tired of the heartache…tired of the misery…I’ve seen enough death and despair.” In a few weeks the overwhelmed clinic dropped from twenty-five new COVID-19 cases a day to two. “The first thing that surprised me was how fast was the recovery in seventy-five and eight-five-year-old people,” Dr. Grellner said. “I know there’s controversy. I have no political motivation. I don’t have any desire except to put husbands and wives back together. If you’re getting problems from an organization that you work for that says you can’t use it, I would question that organization. If we’re not doing what is best for the patient, then we need to find another occupation.”

…[And what about Judy, with whom all this began?] She was quite amazed to learn from her children that while she was lying unconscious and near death with COVID-19 she became a front-page story in The Buffalo News and a Joan of Arc figure in a new revolution, the grandmother who won the first legal fight in the battle of Ivermectin. It is an unprecedented civil rights uprising of doctors, nurses, scientists, Nobel-Prize winning biologists, billionaire health philanthropists, civil rights activists, and thousands of ordinary people across Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, Canada, and the United States fighting a global, big-data-driven medical establishment. They’re fighting for the lost little things, the little data—the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship, the survival of the Hippocratic Oath, and the most important of civil rights, the right to life.

The Drug That Cracked COVID by Michael Capuzzo

* Big thanks to the link to the Capuzzo piece, which I found via Battle over whom to believe about ivermectin (also a good read) from Clark County Today News. READ THE WHOLE FUCKING THING!

if you want some info on Omicron, I recommend Dr. John Campbell, who says things are looking good. Still… mask up to protect others? Or is that no longer a thing?

And here’s a long presentation from Heather and Bret on the details, the arguments, and – at about halfway through – information on many of the alternatives.

As I noted above… It didn’t have to be this way. 😞

At 1:22:00, I’m with Heather on her “my doctor” comment. More 😞…

Update later in the day of publish:

this latest from Darkhorse Podcast is truly horrifying. Though timely.

And I found this from earlier this year.

and Brand is on it too… with the latest Pfizer whistle-blowers in the Intercept. The hits just keep on coming!

12/7/21 update… more bad news on vaccines... from Doc Martenson.

A Tale of Two Agencies… Failing Minnesotans.

Tags

401, 404, Aquifer, Aquifer Breach, Breach, Clearbrook, Clearwater County, Enbridge, Health Professionals for Healthy Climate, Honor The Earth, HP4HC, Line 3, Line 93, MN350, MPCA, Pipeline, RISE Coalition, Sierra Club, Tar Sands, Violations

Here’s my latest missive to the MPCA.

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Dear Ms. Kuskie,

I’m wondering if you can answer some of my questions regarding the continued concerns we have along the Enbridge Corridor.

While I’ve been reaching out to the MPCA’s reported Tribal Liaison, I’ve had no response.

As an abutter to the project, who’s been working with my friends, including many Native women leaders, for years now… to stop this project through Indian country, I was hopeful that my that my questions would matter to the MPCA and would get response.

Perhaps you can tell me what, if anything, is being done to address the frac-out conditions that appear to be still rising in the Mississippi Headwaters River Valley here?  The beavers have noted it and are working to mitigate.

11-10-21 Photo of Mizi-Ziibi with Miskwaabiimizh from Amik (Mississippi River with Red Willow from Beaver)

They, Amikwag, seem the only ones doing anything about our environmental concerns along Line 3, or Line 93, as Enbridge had dubbed their new project, as is evidence by the Red Willow (Miskwaabiimizh) being placed in the flow of Misi-ziibi just downstream of the pipeline crossing. 

Let me know if you have any answers regarding the ongoing disturbances to our flora and fauna along this project, which continues to gain attention… especially as Enbridge continues to be ever present in our neighborhoods up here in Clearwater County.

Just yesterday we saw a large Precision Pipeline semi trundling past the house mid-afternoon.

Maybe you can tell me what is happening in the forests and wetlands near my home?

Thanks for your consideration.
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

While prior to construction the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources was given less attention than the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (as the agency responsible for the 401 Clean Water Permit), it seems the DNR and MPCA have now switched places with the DNR getting most of the attention and the MPCA getting little.

Not that paying attention to the DNR construction permits would have made a difference… because Enbridge willfully violated those permits in their actions that burst open the Aquifer at the Clearbrook terminal.

But the lack of oversight was clear from both Agencies.

Both Agencies failed to stop this project when, by all rights, they should have.

Problem is… no Minnesota State Agency appears to have wanted to stop the Project.

The story most telling of their unwillingness to stop the Project goes way back to February 5th of last year, almost 2 years ago now.

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A group of Minnesota scientists – including retirees from both MDNR & MPCA as well as Healthcare Professionals for Healthy Climate (HP4HC) and Science for the People – Twin Cities (SftP), joined Indigenous Leaders from RISE Coalition and Honor the Earth, along with state non-profit groups (Sierra Club & MN350), along with legal and spiritual representation, to FINALLY meet with MPCA staff to discuss how they could work to deny the 401 permit for the tar sands pipeline project – opposed by all these groups. 

Our membership included membership from White Earth Reservation, which continues to oppose the Line 3 project to this day, and is supporting multiple legal challenges from the 404 Permit issued by the US Army Corps of Engineers to the White Earth Tribal Court case where Manoomin is suing the state DNR for the Right to Life.

The arrival at the MPCA that morning was different from other times we’d visited the MPCA for meetings. While many of the representatives had traveled hours from Northern Minnesota, hoping to, as usual, gather in the cafeteria for refreshment and review prior to our meeting,  the desk staff refused us entry. The first members of our group were two young white men, one representing MN350 and one Honor the Earth. Others of us – still on the road – were contacted for help and we reached out to MPCA staff to determine what the problem might be. On arrival of my caravan, which included retired MPCA staff, two citizens who live along the Enbridge route, and a pastor (all white), and following some additional discussion, we were eventually led back to the cafeteria by an MPCA staffer.

To show the level of concern and fear of Minnesota Citizens in our Agencies, then-Commissioner Laura Bishop came personally to the cafeteria to explain, “they thought you might be protesters.”

She apologized and left us to our lunch. It was only in hindsight that we’d realize why they may have been so touchy… as they were readying a weapon that aimed to derail the public… and it was just about to launch.

On arrival to the MPCA conference room, we were welcomed and seated. And then came the moment of truth for me in this campaign, the moment that I realized how FUCKED we were when it came to the MPCA.

Commissioner Bishop came into the room as the meeting began and gleefully announced that, AS WE SPOKE [Oh, boy!], the MPCA had just issued a memo noting…

wait for it….

The MPCA had Issued a Draft APPROVAL for Enbridge’s draft 401 permit!

All I could think, as this bombshell exploded was:
Why. THE. FUCK. Are WE even HERE? 
If the decision had already been made by the Agency?

Just another in the short list of “let’s pretend we’re gonna listen to the Water Protectors” meetings that were never intended to truly hear us. Instead, we were left to work on how to make the public hearings as ROBUST for Public Comment as possible. [Though it would later become clear, that testimony would also be largely ignored by the MPCA.]

Peter Tester, who became Commissioner temporarily when Laura resigned the following summer (on the cusp of being fired by the Senate, and likely to assure she could be placed AGAIN in a position of influence, which dismissal by the Senate would preclude) made a couple big promises that day, neither of which were fulfilled.
1) To review and consider any documentation we could provide to show why the permit should not be granted.
2) To be accountable to us.

Since that meeting, one of the VERY FEW given to Minnesota citizens hoping to Stop the unnecessary Enbridge pipeline project, all that we’ve seen from the MPCA and DNR has been failure.

1) Failure to WATCH Enbridge as they worked on one of the largest infrastructure projects to not benefit Minnesota that has ever crossed the state.

2) Failure to pull permits when Enbridge violations were discovered.

There are many places the states agencies failed us and a few of the most egregious during construction were:

1. Enbridge’s frac-out into the Mississippi River at the second crossing. 6000-9000 gallons of drilling mud frac-out into Misi-ziibi… DURING A PERIOD WHEN DRILLING WAS RESTRICTED FROM HAPPENING! [June 25th – violating the April 1- June 30 restriction period.] This was the first of frac-outs that occurring in Mississippi River. [MPCA FAILURE]
2. July frac-outs into Misi-ziibi Headwaters at the first crossing, where frac-out materials were left in the wetlands and, to this day, continue to show presence in the River Valley. [MPCA FAILURE]
3. Unbeknownst to citizens, until the mid-September notice, Enbridge willfully violated their construction permit, not informing the DNR of an aquifer breach for almost 5 months! Even though the DNR knew of the problems and it’s effects by early July, no notice was given to citizens for TWO MORE MONTHS… as Enbridge construction continued along the remainder of their corridor. [MDNR FAILURE]

I ask AGAIN:
IF THESE PERMITS ARE NOT ALLOWING US TO STOP PROJECTS THAT VIOLATE THEM, WHAT IS THEIR PURPOSE?

And now we see:
1) A lack of work to remedy failures to the 401 permit on the frac-out concerns that remain.

2) Continued and apparently failing work by Enbridge to remedy the KNOWN Aquifer Breach in Clearbrook. TEN (10) full months since it happened now! LONGER THAN IT TOOK TO BUILD 337 MILES of Tar Sands Pipeline across our state… which was apparently the priority to remedying the aquifer breach threatening fragile calcareous fens. [FFS. If this doesn’t awaken people to the State’s priorities, will anything? (see more on that at the end of the blog…)]

3) No public transparency to the other two Breaches reportedly in existence per the DNR.

As we saw with COP26, our Agencies and “Leaders” are failing us. Not just here in Minnesota, but around the world, as they appear bound to helping their fossil fuel friends continue to destroy our planetary home.

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Want to read more on the forest devastation being driven by our fossil fueled world? Check this out.

Want to read more on groups working to hold the Minnesota DNR accountable? Check out this recent blog post from Agate‘s Stephanie Hemphill.

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Update: Received a response from Ms. Kuskie on 11/30/21 (after I re-requested a response):

Hi Jami,

Apologies for the delayed response, I was out of office last week. Though primary construction of the line is generally complete, the MPCA continues to review monitoring information and oversee ongoing work, and the independent environmental monitors are still active. HDD work, where pressurized drilling mud was in use, ended in early August, and the MPCA made available information on the “frac outs” reported to us around that time. I apologize for being unable to provide further detail at this time; Minn Stat 13.39 classifies as non-public data related to active investigations.

Thanks for reaching out last week and for sending me a nudge today.

-melissa

Response – or should I say Non-response… from Ms. Kuskie 11/30/21 13:26

Apparently, the public doesn’t need to know anything.

Trust DNR on Climate Change? I think not.

Tags

DNR, Enbridge, Line 3, MDNR, Minnesota DNR, Sarah Strommen

When we moved to northern Minnesota back in 2016 we were pretty surprised to see so much animosity towards the Minnesota DNR. We’d moved to Minnesota for the abundant water and large trees we found in Clearwater County. We figured the hunting and fishing crowd would be real excited about what the DNR typically does – making trails into forests for ATVs, managing woodlands and wetlands (so we thought) for the citizenry, and generally assuring their Mission:

The mission of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is to work with Minnesotans to conserve and manage the state’s natural resources, to provide outdoor recreation opportunities, and to provide for commercial uses of natural resources in a way that creates a sustainable quality of life.“

MN DNR Mission Statement

We’re getting it now…

After 7 years of work in trying to protect the clean waters within our landscape, we’ve watched the DNR work more towards destruction than anything. They’ve been helped along by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency but we’re focused on the DNR for today’s Emergency Blog.

Perhaps taking a look at the DNR’s explanation of their mission statement will give some clues…

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources works to integrate and sustain the interdependent values of a healthy environment, a sustainable economy, and livable communities. DNR’s integrated resource management strategy shares stewardship responsibility with Minnesotans and partners to manage for multiple interests. DNR protects the state’s natural heritage by conserving the diversity of natural lands, waters, and fish and wildlife that provide the foundation for Minnesota’s recreational and natural resource-based economy (M.S. 84, M.S. 97A). DNR manages natural lands such as forests, wetlands, and native prairies; maintains healthy populations of fish and wildlife; and protects rare plant and animal communities throughout the state. DNR manages the state’s water resources, sustaining healthy waterways and ground water resources. DNR provides access to enrich public outdoor recreational opportunities, such as hunting, fishing, wildlife-watching, camping, skiing, hiking, biking, motorized recreation, and conservation education through a state outdoor recreation system that includes parks, trails, wildlife management areas, scientific and natural areas, water trails, and other facilities (M.S. 86A). DNR supports natural resource-based economies, managing state forest lands for multiple forest values (M.S. 89), ensuring the maximum long-term economic return from school trust lands (M.S. 127A), and providing other economic opportunities in a manner consistent with sound natural resource conservation and management principles.”

MN DNR Mission Statement (my emphasis)

So, it looks from here like MDNR is “managing” our natural resources for their “economic” value with their… “partners“. Yeah.

I once sat at lunch with Commissioner Strommen and asked her why it seemed the statutes for MDNR seemed mainly about overseeing the sales of natural resources and documenting to whom they sold them. She asked if I’d read the whole statute… but couldn’t tell me more about why they aren’t just about that. So I asked for her proudest achievement as Commissioner of the DNR. Now… granted, this was December 3, 2019… so maybe she hadn’t been in the job long enough to find a better one… still, her answer was pretty disappointing. She mentioned being super excited for a DNR public town hall that was REALLY well attended! I was nonplussed.

Today, we found another opportunity for a public gathering with the MN DNR and I’m betting she wasn’t NEARLY as excited about it. Let’s find out what happened!

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The meeting was scheduled for 2 PM – ironically, at the same time many Environmental Groups opposed to Line 3 were ALSO meeting. Hmmm… No coincidence there? Divide and Conquer – that is the way of Empire.

I noted this comment pretty much summed up my opinion:

Gail Nosek, Communications Director for the MN DNR encouraged attendance with her re-tweet of the event:

So… I had to ask – afterwards:

Turns out, THIS was more the result of their “Office Hours” meeting:

What questions DID they hear? It seems the DNR was excited to tweet about that too! Though, as noted by the Minnesota Department of Snark, those didn’t include mine…

So, what was my question? I’m glad you asked!!! …though the MN DNR didn’t quite answer it.

My question is in regards understanding how the Minnesota DNR as land manager will adequately address climate change in Minnesota, especially as Commissioner Strommen mentioned the power of trees, and others spoke of water mgmt, both of which factor into my question.

In addition to other concerns in my past experience with MDNR, my recent reading of the Restoration and Replacement Order issued to Enbridge on their Line 3 project, troubled me as the DNR, following not just one or two but at LEAST SEVEN reports from the Independent Environmental Monitors, did nothing to intervene with expertise.

The February 2, 2021 report noted: “Due to excessive groundwater infiltration the site was backfilled and sheet piling was initiated. Despite backfill, groundwater has flowed to the surface.”

I’d ask WHY at that time NO ONE with MORE EXPERIENCE from the DNR came to review the situation. What did the Monitors think of this unrelenting groundwater flow? Why was this not seen as a situation that might require more expertise than theirs?

On February 20^th, a Saturday, even the Environmental Resources Management group’s Technical Director “agreed that the turbidity was unusual for a well point dewatering”… 

Mid-March (on the 13^th, 15^th, & 16^th) provided several reports in close succession regarding fine clay sediments and included in the final report a notice that “Enbridge issued [itself] an unacceptable report for improper dewatering structure” yet there was STILL NO MENTION from Enbridge OF A DIVERSION FROM THEIR CONSTRUCTION PERMIT, which might have assisted in far earlier resolution than a full three months later, when on June 15^th, the IEMs happened to be asked by DNR staff about the “uncontrolled flow at the Clearbrook Terminal” of which (reportedly) “DNR staff were not previously aware”.

How were the DNR staff unaware when there were at least 7 reports regarding this situation in Q1? This mid-June report also notes: “Though the condition generated an Enbridge-issued “unacceptable” report in March, Enbridge did not bring the issue to DNR’s attention at that point either.” Does Enbridge have to ASK THE DNR to READ THEIR REPORTS? Is ANYONE AT DNR Reading the reports? Or are you all just trusting Enbridge to do what is right and “let you know” when you might need to hold them accountable?

Mr. Doneen took action the next day demanding more information, and, the following day, informed Enbridge to stop construction at this location. Why not STOP CONSTRUCTION for ALL ENBRIDGE WORK finding such an egregious error that had gone WITHOUT RESOLUTION by ENBRIDGE for almost 6 months!?!?

A full month later, flow continued and, though a 7/7/21 email from Merjent, Enbridge’s consultant, noted Enbridge was not monitoring flow or volume since March 18^th, AND the bore pit was found in excess of that allowed in DNR’s constructon permit, AND on July 8^th it was reported that a SECOND emergence of UNCONTROLLED FLOW “likely a direct result of the initial breach of the aquifer confining layer”, NO FULL STOPPAGE OF PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION OCCURRED! HOW can the citizens of Minnesota TRUST that the DNR will do ANYTHING PROACTIVE to assist in Climate Change when this is how poorly they oversee a project which is known to bring an incredible amount of exacerbation to the climate chaos we are already experiencing?

Jami Gaither question during the DNR’s 9/23/21 Office Hour

You decide for yourselves. But they also didn’t answer these other questions, also in the chat…

• I am not feeling you have understood my concern… that DNR is not ON SITE in a major way during construction of such a large project that impacts climate implies a “let corporations do as they will” mentality. How can we trust your stance is NOT for major corporations as the Legislature may not allow you to be more proactive?
• Will Enbridge be allowed to have tar sands flow through their new pipeline BEFORE the aquifer situation is remedied?
• At what point WOULD DNR pull a permit? If the company WILLFULLY VIOLATED their Construction Permit – and it remains able to build their project, that seems to indicate the Permit you issued has NO VALUE.

I wrapped up by noting these things: