Last Tango at the Red River: Enbridge and pipelines
By Winona LaDuke It’s an amazing competition to be the last Tar Sands Pipeline. Enbridge wants to win. It already did. The last tar sands pipeline was Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper, completed across Leech Lake, Red Lake and Fond du Lac in northern Minnesota in 2015. On January 21, newly elected President Biden cancelled the besieged […]
Landowners challenge Eminent Domain and Line 3 faces new challenges
By Winona LaDuke While the Enbridge Company seeks to push ahead with Line 3 in Minnesota, the future of this pipeline, Enbridge and the Dakota Access and Keystone Pipeline remain twirled in their fate with oil markets and the COVID 19 Pandemic. The world is rapidly changing In late May, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison […]
WPLC Fights for Water Protectors
By Camille Erickson The fight to protect Water Protectors who face state and federal charges from the Indigenous-led Dakota Access Pipeline resistance at Standing Rock is far from over. At the Water Protector Legal Collective (WPLC), “we don’t leave people behind,” declared Andrea Carter, managing attorney. “Many of the people who were arrested [at Standing […]
NEWS BRIEFS: Oct 2017
LEECH LAKE RECEIVES $3.3M FOR TRIBAL VETERANS CEMETERY CASS LAKE, MN – The Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration announced in September that it has awarded the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe a $3.3M grant for construction of the Leech Lake Veterans Cemetery in Cass Lake, Minnesota. The grant will fund the construction of […]
Courts, Pipelines and Liabilities: Minnesota may want to take note
By Winona LaDuke “We applaud the courts for protecting our laws and regulations from undue political influence, and will ask the Court to shut down pipeline operations immediately.” – Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II For the past two weeks, Minnesotans and tribal members have packed Department of Commerce meetings on the Draft Environmental […]
LOCAL BRIEFS (June 2017)
LEECH LAKE APPROVES NEW PALACE CASINO PROJECT CASS LAKE, MN – Leech Lake Ojibwe members took to the polls in May to decide whether the tribe should move forward with a new casino construction project to replace the existing Palace Casino & Hotel in Cass Lake. Approximately 78% of the votes cast were in favor […]
The Wiindigo and the Water Protectors
Some things never change, no matter the cannibal. The standards are dropping quickly; that is, if there ever were standards. As Donald Trump shamelessly grabs more for corporate interests and fat cats, standards of law, human decency, and rules of engagement in civil society are brushed aside. While actively dismantling all social programs and environmental […]
LOCAL BRIEFS: April 2017
N.D. OIL SPILL CONSIDERED AMONG WORST IN N.D. HISTORY BELFIELD, ND – The Belle Fourche Pipeline spilled about 530,000 gallons of crude oil into Ash Coulee Creek, a tributary of the Missouri River, according to a March 23 update to a state incident report – far larger than the original estimate of about 176,400 gallons. […]
LOCAL BRIEFS March 2017
DAKOTA ACCESS TRYING TO KEEP OIL SPILL DOCUMENTS FROM TRIBES CANNON BALL, ND – With oil set to flow through the Dakota Access Pipeline within a matter of weeks, the project’s wealthy backers are still trying to keep key documents away from tribes and the public. According to the firm, “terrorists” or people with “malicious […]
LOCAL BRIEFS (Jan 2017)
NOT JUST STANDING ROCK: WATER SOURCES ALONG PIPELINE AT RISK DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – A Native American tribe’s fight over its water source has grown into an international cause, with all attention focused on the Dakota Access pipeline’s route in southern North Dakota. But contractors on the project, which passes through three other states, […]