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Pipelines

Protests Over Enbridge’s Pipeline Are Expected To Intensify

It could be a long, hot summer for the $3 billion pipeline Enbridge is building across northern Minnesota. As workers start the final push to complete the pipeline, a replacement for the company's deteriorating Line 3 and one of the largest construction projects in the state in recent years, protests are expected to intensify starting Monday. Meanwhile, a key court decision due this month could halt construction of the new Line 3 if the ruling goes against Enbridge, jeopardizing the Canadian company's plans to have oil running through the pipeline in the fourth quarter. "We're about 60% complete overall," Enbridge CEO Al Monaco told analysts on a recent earnings call. "So I think it's late summer, early September when all the pipe will be in the ground."

Treaties Offer New Aid In Environmental Fights

Native treaty rights are becoming powerful tools for protecting the environment against government mismanagement and destructive private industries, as worldwide efforts intensify to halt climate change and protect the environment . With the right to hunt, fish and gather on lands ceded to the federal government, treaties also offer growing leverage on state and federal governments to ensure the health of the habitats upon which those rights were granted. “Tribes exercising treaty rights is not a one-sided thing,” said Paul DeMain, citizen of the Oneida and Ojibwe tribes and a board member of Honor the Earth, an Indigenous environmental advocacy organization. “Non-Native citizens also benefit from natural resources being protected and preserved for tribal subsistence hunting, gathering and fishing.” Treaty rights are already surfacing in the fight against

To Dismantle A Gas Pipeline And Sell It As Scrap Metal

Loma de Bácum, Sonora: A gigantic metal pipe can be seen at the bottom of a hole in the earth. The family of Carmen García look into the hole which was dug by the people of Loma de Bácum to remove the gas pipeline. The people used an excavator they seized from the company IEnova, affiliate of the United States transnational, Sempra Energy. The company was building the gas pipeline without the approval of those who live there. A consultation was never carried out. So, after an assembly, the entire community went to where the pipeline was being laid. There, they excavated and cut out with a blowtorch nearly ten kilometers of pipeline, which they then took to Ciudad Obregón to sell as scrap metal. “The company complained, made a fuss, and sued. If you continue building the pipeline, we told them, we are going to continue selling it as scrap metal,” says Guadalupe Maldonado Flores, a Yaqui who has accompanied territorial defense efforts of the traditional guard of Loma de Bácum.

Global Protests Target Banks Funding Line 3 Pipeline

San Francisco - Today across 8 countries, 4 continents, and 50 U.S. cities, hundreds of climate and Indigenous rights activists are protesting 20 banks that have backed loans for Enbridge, the company constructing the Line 3 tar sands pipeline through Anishinaabe territory in Minnesota. The protests feature elaborate and artful displays such as a body mural in Seattle spelling “Defund Line 3,” a fake oil spill in New York, a large floating banner display in Chicago, a fake oil spill and giant dance party in D.C., and a street mural in San Francisco. Activists also effectively shut down branches of the 20 target banks in San Francisco, Seattle, London and others protested outside of branches in Japan, Switzerland, Sierra Leone, Costa Rica, the Holland, France and Canada.

Women Run 415 Miles To Protest The Mountain Valley Pipeline

Bent Mountain, VA - The Mountain Valley Pipeline protest community came together Sunday at the Bent Mountain Center to thank and commend three women who are running and cycling alongside the MVP construction path. MVP protesters held a feast to celebrate the women who are running and cycling 415 miles from West Virginia to Virginia, paralleling the pipeline. “We’re all runners, so to be able to take something that we enjoy to be able to raise awareness to the issues that are happening, it’s important to us,” MVP protest runner Katie Thompson said. Sarah Hodder, Merecedes Walters and Thompson started their 10-day relay-style running and cycling journey April 24 and as of Sunday, May 2, have two days left.

Pipeline Protesters Charged With ‘Felony Kidnapping,’ Held Without Bond

Maybrook, VA — On Friday 4/30/21 at 10:30 AM, Mountain Valley Pipeline protester Thomas Adams blocked a pipe truck just before it crossed a bridge over Sinking Creek in Giles County, and locked himself to the underside of the truck. The bridge is less than two miles away from the site where the pipeline is slated to cross the creek (although MVP currently lacks the permits to do so). A rally of over a dozen people gathered to support Thomas at the scene. Signs and banners on site read, “Save the Planet, Stop the MVP,” “MVP Just Give Up,” “Not Here, Not Anywhere,” and “Doom to the Pipeline.” At 1 PM, after 2.5 hours blockading the pipe truck, Thomas was extracted and arrested. Another person on site, Molly, who had been at the support rally, was also arrested.

Water Protector Steve Martinez Released From Grand Jury Detention

Bismarck, ND – On March 3, Steve Martinez was jailed at the Burleigh County Detention Center after refusing to testify before a secret federal grand jury investigating 2016 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Martinez is now finally free as of April 12, according to a statement posed to social media by the ‘Support Steve Martinez’ campaign. Martinez has served over 60 in days in federal detention. He was previously been jailed for most of February 2021 for refusing to testify, but was briefly released after a judge found the magistrate who ordered him detained did not have the authority to do so. In March 2017, a similar summons to for a grand jury in the same investigation was served to Martinez but eventually withdrawn by the court after he made it clear he would face jail rather than testify.

Biden Administration Allows Oil To Continue Flowing Through Dakota Access Pipeline

Washington, DC - Speaking before a federal judge today, representatives from the Biden administration’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicated that the agency will not shutter the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), despite the ongoing threats it poses to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the fact that it is operating without a federal permit. Although President Joe Biden recently announced intentions to improve Tribal consultation and initiate long-term action to tackle climate change, his administration took a stance today that was identical to that of former President Trump. Earlier this year, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe leadership and others sent letters to Biden asking him to shut down DAPL while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers performs an environmental and safety review to determine whether the controversial pipeline is safe to operate.

Indigenous Youth Rally To Demand Biden Stop Pipelines

On Thursday, the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Sacred Stone Camp on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation to resist the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), frontline Indigenous youth and organizers held several actions in Washington, D.C. The activists called on President Joe Biden to end DAPL and the Line 3 pipeline and to “Build Back Fossil Free.” “It was our youth that led today,” explained Waniya Locke (Diné, Lakota, Nakota and Anishinaabe). The youth-led actions included a rally at the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) headquarters, where organizers delivered petitions with 400,000 signatures demanding ACE withdraw its permit approving Line 3.

Front Lines To DC: Day Of Action Against Pipelines

Five years ago on April 1st, the Sacred Stone Camp was founded and history was made as thousands of people descended to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Frontline Dakota Access and Line 3 pipeline youth and organizers are heading to D.C. Our demand is clear. Joe Biden, it's time to #BuildBackFossilFree-- shutdown DAPL and Stop Line 3. For too long, Indigenous communities have been forced to bear the burden of society's addiction to fossil fuels and the devastating impacts on our land, sky, and water. It's time to honor our treaties that have been ignored and shut down DAPL and stop Line 3.

Water Protectors Lock To Gate And Ascend Equipment To Stop Line 3

Floodwood, MN - Early Thursday morning, several Water Protectors under Indigenous leadership took action to shut down two Enbridge construction sites on the Line 3 pipeline route. While two people locked themselves to a gate, blocking access to a worksite building a pump station, four more individuals (Sonja Birthisel, Julie Macuga, Cody Pajic, and Leif Taranta) ascended and chained themselves to the top of large machines attempting to lay pipe at an adjacent construction site in St. Louis County.  Since construction began in December of 2020, the movement to stop the Line 3 pipeline has been steadily growing.

Caravan Disrupts Line 3 Construction Routes

Carlton County, MN – On Friday, February 19, a family-friendly caravan disrupted traffic at several Line 3 construction routes. During the event, authorities announced a baseless bomb threat via FEMA’s Wireless Emergency Alerts system. The Carlton County Sheriff’s Office also made unsubstantiated connections between the water protectors and the “potential explosive hazard.” Around noon, before the caravan started, a dozen people protested near the pipeline construction just feet away from Camp Migizi on the Fond Du Lac Reservation. The caravan first drove to a choke-point of roads used for construction access, and then to the new Line 3 corridor, where the pipeline has yet to be laid.

Enbridge’s Greenwashing Will Not Stand

There are now more than 130 Water Protectors facing criminal charges for protecting the land from the Line 3 tar sands pipeline. At the same time, the climate criminals are free to keep bulldozing through my peoples’ sacred lands. It is physically painful to witness the land being ripped apart, to see our sacred manoomin being irrevocably harmed by a corporation that cares for nothing but profit. It is also deeply powerful to stand with those putting their bodies on the line to defend the land. For months now, we’ve been taking steady, constant direct actions to delay the construction of Line 3. In the freezing cold of a Minnesota winter, people have crawled into pipes, stood in front of excavators, engaged in tree-sits, climbed 40ft bi-pods, delayed construction with prayers, and locked to pianos to block bulldozers.

Lockdown To Keep It In The Ground: Line 3 Resistance

Northern MN – Construction on the tar sands pipeline expansion project for Line 3 continues in Anishinaabe territory in below zero temperatures. Enbridge’s contracted companies, like Precision Pipeline, carve out the line’s pathway, fell any trees in the way, and lay the pipe in the ground. However because of the persistent resistance movement, work stoppages, or at least work interruptions, are common. On February 10, 2021, two people, including Dylan Bremner, locked down to a digger on a work site. Bremner told us that the digger they were on was successfully halted for three hours, however after thirty minutes into the lockdown, the foreman told the other workers they could continue.

One Year Anniversary Of Wet’suwet’en Protests, Blockades

The protests were a result of the BC NDP’s decision to press ahead with the Coastal GasLink pipeline through the Wet’suwet’en territory using militarized RCMP to enforce their decision. I had just returned from a visit to the territory. I was invited by the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to witness firsthand their beautiful lands and the violence delivered by the BC NDP government. As the protestors pulsed with anger, solidarity blockades popped up on rail lines and other infrastructure across the country. Just a few short weeks after passing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in November 2019, it looked like 2020 was going to be a difficult year for Crown-Indigenous relations in British Columbia.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.