A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens

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AG Ellison, Army Corps, Betty McCollum, Damages, DNR, Enbridge, EPA, Keith Ellison, Kessler, Line 3, Minnesota, MNDNR, MPCA, Pipeline, Pipeline Construction, Post-Pipeline-Construction Damage, Sieben, Strommen, USACE, USEPA, Water, Water Quality

The only times the powerful bring change are when it suits their aims…
or when enough of us speak up to force them to bring needed change.

Mary Engelbreit calendar page on Margaret Mead’s encouragement

These last few weeks, Waadookawaad Amikwag has been working hard to speak up and be heard. Here’s a summary of the last couple months of our work:

• Two months ago, we reported on the second Enbridge Breachiversary – the one year point of unrelenting flow from Enbridge’s deep water breach in LaSalle Valley. In case you missed it, here was reporting on the first Enbridge breach of an artesian aquifer at Clearbrook, endangering local nearby calcareous fens. And, still leaking, never reported remedied, is the MP1102.5 aquifer breach 400′ west of the Nagaajiwanaang (Fond du Lac Reservation) boundary. The latest Fond du Lac Band report on the concern noted flow reduced to six gallons a minute. Enbridge calls that flow a “seep” though it equates to over a quarter million gallons of water each month.
• On September 28th, we issued a call for help to the Minnesota Congressional Representatives and Senators, asking they request the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) initiate a federal investigation of these concerns. Waadookawaad Amikwag finds evidence that the Clean Water Act, turning 50 years old this month, is being wantonly violated here in Minnesota as officials and agencies downplay and hide the impacts we’re witnessing.
• September 28th to October 2nd, R.I.S.E. Coalition held a 2nd Annual Firelight Treaty Encampment to help educate the community on Treaty Rights and Responsibilities, support the field workers monitoring the nearby post-construction Enbridge Line 3/93 damages, and holding space in ceremony for nibi miinawaa manoomin (water and wild rice).
• On October 1st, the anniversary of oil flow through Line 3/93, Honor the Earth issued a call to action as well, asking for a federal-level independent investigation of the post-construction situation here in Northern Minnesota’s Indian Country. Healing Minnesota Stories Scott Russell also shared this call and more details about Waadookawaad Amikwag’s field work.
• October 6th, Waadookawaad Amikwag issued a draft Memorandum of Agreement on behalf of our flyover data partners (R.I.S.E. Coalition, Sierra Club, Honor the Earth, MN350, and White Earth Reservation) to AG Ellison along with DNR Commissioner Strommen, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Commissioner Kessler, and Public Utilities Chair Sieben. We asked for a response by October 21st on what agreements we might make around working together, using all the data that Water Protectors have gathered, to determine 1) how we can stop additional harms by Enbridge to the land and water and 2) find the least damaging methods, if they exist, to remediate the harms Enbridge has caused.

While we see new horrors each week in the post-Enbridge-construction landscape, the state continues to withhold this information from the public. It seems, only when we reveal the damages publicly ourselves, that the state will confirm to Minnesotans our findings about Enbridge’s post-construction water impacts.

Sinkhole on Enbridge’s Line 3/93 Tar Sands Pipeline Corridor at Walker Brook; Clearwater County. Hat gives a size reference. Several October water temperature measures have shown deep underground water emerging in an unrelenting flow from the land throughout this valley. (credit: Dan Gaither)

As was witnessed in early August for the LaSalle breach, our evidence forced the hand of the DNR to come clean and admit publicly that, on July 11th, Enbridge had reported ongoing “seeps” in the LaSalle Valley. The November 2021 thermal flyover revealed the unrelenting flow from the land just after Enbridge reported the LaSalle breach “fixed”. One measurement on one of the seeps at LaSalle shows flow of over 800,000 gallons per month. We’ve counted at least 6 “seeps”; Enbridge has marked at least 4.

We’ve issued press releases, yet the mainstream press rarely publishes on our work. We continue to be “our own news” as we like to say… the News for the People.

It seems, only when we reveal the damages publicly ourselves,
that the state will confirm to Minnesotans our findings about Enbridge’s post-construction water impacts.

What will become of Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes, if these deep water bodies are bled dry?

Please do what you can? Share our work, make calls to agencies and officials, watch the videos to comprehend the impacts on our ecosystems and our people.

Miigwech bizindaawiiyeg. Thank you for listening.

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Hard Truths

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Accountability, climate change, Climate Crisis, Line 3, Line 5, Line 93, MN PUC, MNDNR, MPCA, Pipelines

Snowden, Manning, & Assange showed, by our own definitions, that the U.S. is guilty of war crimes. They have been imprisoned for revealing these truths.

Water Protectors and Land Defenders too have been charged and locked up for trying to tell the hard truths.

The unrelenting news of flooding, fires, drought, and ecological devastation shows little pause in the fray towards… “progress”.

At what point do humans come to understand that their own comforts [mostly enjoyed by the elite, mostly white, citizens] are the very destruction of the air on which they are dependent? 

The water is being controlled, disregarded, and poisoned. The air and land are being polluted indiscriminately.

What are we doing to preserve the land, air, and water… on which we depend for the essentials of life?

Are we simply running towards our own deaths… and bringing death for so many more in the process?

We ignore truth to our own peril.

This post-construction anomaly was discovered along the Enbridge Corridor for their new Line 3 pipeline in Clearwater County.

We of Waadookawaad Amikwag continue to work to uncover the truth. Help us spread the word?

• Share our videos and call for accountability.
• Ask our “leaders” to explain what they are doing to hold Enbridge accountable for the post-construction damages throughout Northern Minnesota.

Tim Walz 800-657-3717

AG Ellison 800-657-3787

Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (800) 657-3864 [I usually call Deputy Commissioner Peter Tester at 651-757-2013… though he doesn’t usually answer. Or return calls. Maybe that’s the MPCA way? 🤔]

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources 888-646-6367

Enbridge’s pipeline project created a hole, now releasing ground water in Clearwater County Minnesota. There are holes like this on either side of the waterway crossed here. There are over 200 water bodies crossed along the Enbridge pipeline route and we’ve seen damages like this at far too many of them.

And if you’ve given up on the state, as many of us have found them to be non-responsive… maybe try these folks:

US Army Corps of Engineers 651-290-5882

US Environmental Protection Agency 312-353-2000

Miigwech.

La Palma: Not even enough to Awaken?

Tags

Bushcraft Bear, Enbridge, Line 3, Line 93, MEP, MNDNR, MPCA

Presentation on Enbridge’s Aquifer Breach and other Impacts of Line 93 (New Line 3) Construction

Well, after re-watching the presentation by folks regarding the aquifer breach, and knowing that Enbridge is still being allowed to move forward on their work… it seems nothing will stop the insanity we’re seeing as the State of Minnesota continues to seemingly collude in assuring Enbridge a new Line 93 to smoosh tar sands sludge through Northern Minnesota watersheds… risking everything from the Red River Valley to the Mississippi Headwaters to Lake Superior.

Enbridge’s latest status update, as evidenced by lies and coverups revealed in the video above, reveals a meaningless “Environmental Updates to Note Since the Last Report: The Project work activities continue to be monitored daily by Enbridge Inspection staff, Third-Party State Agency Monitors and Third-Party Tribal Monitors.”

I say meaningless as these are the SAME PEOPLE who have been monitoring FROM THE BEGINNING… and now we have multiple violations of permits without action by Minnesota agencies, frac-outs all along the Enbridge Corridor of Death, and an unremediated aquifer breach.

Latest Quakes in La Palma (VolcanoDiscovery.com)

It seems to me that perhaps even the ongoing concerns in La Palma may not be enough to awaken folks though perhaps we’ll see? Some like to say pipelines are safe… as some insist this island is… though, time always tells.

On Day 22, Bushcraft Bear reports eruptions in La Palma continue to concern. The north side of the cone has collapsed and huge chunks of lava continue to flow. This video shows a cut-off portion of the island and, if the island does fall apart, as some predict… (that red line about 1:45 into that video is where volcanos are currently erupting) there will be about 7-8 hours to evacuate the east coast of the United States for possible tsunami impacts.

Realistically, as all the data to date hasn’t worked to awaken folks… my guess is that NOTHING… perhaps not even a La Palma generated tsunami wiping out the east coast… ever will.

Though there is someone who may change your mind… Friend, David Huckfelt wrote an amazing piece for the Duluth Reader this past week and he makes good points:

With the potential to raise global temperatures .4 degrees Celsius, Line 3 is a glaring example of spiritual bankruptcy and greed, the alcoholic’s equivalent of just one more drink. 

An interview I did with Duluth TV station WDIO generated more than two hundred comments on Facebook, a litany of vitriol and misinformed insults from people who apparently love oil as if they drank it for breakfast.”

In a climate emergency, every pipeline leaks David Huckfelt in the Duluth Reader

I’ve always said, we all need a 12-Step Program.

Good luck, Everybody! Hopefully we all get to keep coming back! 😀