#No Enbridge

[mmonetsims]

the count would like to see you.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

“This is the last turn and the end of the fourth hill of life, when Bad River, as a spirit, transforms into something other, something extraordinary,” Mike Wiggins said as he rounded a final bend in one of the largest and most pristine wetlands on the shores of Lake Superior, one of the biggest freshwater lakes in the world.

It’s “similar to our spiritual journey off this planet into something other and extraordinary.”

From the driver’s seat of his small fishing boat, Wiggins, the former chairman of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, contemplated his surroundings with awe as a bald eagle soared overhead.

Beds of wild rice, a key food source and cultural pillar of the Bad River tribe, danced in his wake, glinting under the afternoon sun and nearly ready for harvest. 

“This is a power place,” he said as he blasted Unbound, a recently released album by musicians including fellow Bad River tribal member Dylan Jennings. “It’s just no place for an oil pipeline.”

It has one, though. Seventy-one years ago, Lakehead Pipeline, a predecessor to Canadian pipeline company Enbridge, commissioned the construction of Line 5, a 30-inch diameter crude oil pipeline that transports up to 540,000 barrels of hydrocarbons per day from Superior, Wisconsin, to Sarnia, Ontario. The 645-mile line is part of a network that originates more than a thousand miles to the northwest in the oil fields of Alberta and, in the case of Line 5, ends back in Canada. It includes a 12-mile stretch that bisects the Bad River reservation, which is heavily forested with river crossings and large swaths of wetlands.

Any spill from the pipeline would drain into the Bad River and Kakagon Sloughs, where Wiggins fished. Known as the “Everglades of the North,” the area is protected under an international environmental agreement as well as multiple treaties between the U.S. and the Chippewa people, also known as the Ojibwe.

The path through the reservation was originally approved by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. However, more than a dozen easements granted to the pipeline, which was completed in 1953, have since expired.

In 2017, the Bad River tribal council voted unanimously not to renew them. Two years later, the tribe sued to have the pipeline removed from the reservation. The ongoing “David vs. Goliath” legal battle was chronicled in Bad River, a recent documentary.

In 2023, Judge William Conley of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ruled in favor of the tribe and gave Enbridge three years to stop pumping oil through the reservation. The pipeline company has appealed the ruling.  

[s3znl-gr3znl]

[rabbitcruiser]

Edmonton, AB (No. 3)

Established as the first permanent settlement in the area of what is now Edmonton, the Hudson's Bay Company trading post of Fort Edmonton (also known as Edmonton House) was named after Edmonton, Middlesex, England. The fort's name was chosen by William Tomison, who was in charge of its construction, taking the fort's namesake from the hometown of the Lake family – at least five of whom were influential members of the Hudson's Bay Company between 1696 and 1807. In turn, the name of Edmonton derives from Adelmetone, meaning 'farmstead/estate of Ēadhelm' (from Ēadhelm, an Old English personal name, and tūn); this earlier form of the name appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. Fort Edmonton was also called Fort-des-Prairies by French-Canadians, trappers, and coureurs des bois.

Indigenous languages refer to the Edmonton area by multiple names which reference the presence of fur trading posts. In Cree, the area is known as ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ amiskwacîwâskahikan, which translates to "Beaver Hills House" and references the location's proximity to the Beaver Hills east of Edmonton. In Blackfoot, the area is known as Omahkoyis; in Nakota Sioux, the area is known as Titâga; in Tsuutʼina, the area is known as Nââsʔágháàchú (anglicised as Nasagachoo). The Blackfoot name translates to 'big lodge', while the Nakota Sioux and Tsuutʼina names translate to 'big house'. In Denesuline, the area is known as Kuę́ Nedhé, a metonymic toponym which also generally means 'city'.

Source: Wikipedia

[kazho]

oh yeah today i was wearing a shirt that says "stop the black snake" and some dude asked me if it was slytherin reference 🙃

[bisexualalienss]

why do oil companies make commercials about how they are investing in clean energy. look in the mirror

[terezbian]

i'm extremely stoked that people are like actually being willing to commit to a boycott of mcdonald's and sbux obviously but by god i wish we could extend this energy to home depot and bank of america. not zionist affiliation but enbridge affiliation. and in the case of home depot atlanta police + george w bush ass kissing. like i'm not an organizer obv & idk how people do that but it'd be nice. if that was public consciousness as well. i am just yammering don't cite me as a source i'm like shy and sensitive

[thoughtportal]

Line 3 oil spill

[injuredcyclist]

Dana Nessel is trying again, bless her.  Line 5 is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

[wausaupilot]

Your letters: Say no to Line 5

A reader speaks out against Line 5, in his letter to the editor:

Editor’s note: Wausau Pilot & Review gladly publishes commentary from readers, residents and candidates for local offices. The views of readers and columnists are independent of this newspaper and do not necessarily reflect the views of Wausau Pilot & Review. To submit, email editor@wausaupilotandreview.com or mail to 500 N. Third St., Suite 208-8, Wausau, Wis. 54403. Dear Editor: I am deeply…

[jacobwren]

Indigenous groups leading the movement against Line 3 include the Giniw Collective, founded by Tara Houska; Winona LaDuke’s Honor the Earth; the Rise Coalition and environmental organization MN350, both founded by Nancy Beaulieu; and Camp Migizi. To “deal with” the protesters, Enbridge opened an escrow account to reimburse Minnesota state and local agencies for the cost of policing their private interests. After Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, which issued the permits for Line 3, law enforcement agencies received the largest payout from the escrow fund. Conflicts between protesters and the specially formed Northern Lights Task Force escalated to the police using LRADs (long range acoustic devices, also known as sound cannons), helicopters, rubber bullets, tear gas, and techniques they referred to as “pain compliance.” All this was paid for by Enbridge, and planned for in collaboration with Minnesota law enforcement based on case studies from Standing Rock. Out of approximately nine hundred Line 3–related arrests since 2020, at least ninety-one protesters were charged with felonies. As of March 2022, sixty-six felony charges remained open. These numbers do not include the charges against Indigenous activists transferred to tribal courts. Felony charges, which vary from state to state but typically apply to violent crime and carry heavy penalties, are largely unprecedented for ecological protest. Direct actions along Line 3 were uniformly passive, involving no violence or property damage. Under most circumstances, such actions would result in the relatively minor misdemeanor charge of trespassing. But prosecutors wanted to create deterrents, and found creative ways to charge protesters with more serious crimes. Water protectors were charged with “assisted suicide” for climbing into and occupying sections of unused pipe, and “felony theft” for costing Enbridge money in the form of work stoppages by locking themselves to equipment or fences. Both carry penalties of up to ten years in prison. Meanwhile, a number of Line 3 activists subjected to “pain compliance” have sustained permanent facial paralysis in the form of Bell’s palsy. As of January 2022, Enbridge had paid out $4.8 million to fund anti-protest policing. Imagine if all these resources — the state’s, the corporation’s, law enforcement’s, the lawyers’ — went toward averting the mass extinction coming for us all, instead.

Bela Shayevich, Migizi Will Fly

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Chicago Tribune story:

Where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron connect, powerful water currents rush in opposite directions over an antiquated pipeline known as Line 5. Along the pipeline’s route from Wisconsin to Ontario, via the Straits of Mackinac, more than 1 million gallons of oil have reportedly spilled in the past 50 years.

Experts say Line 5 is vulnerable to future leaks and poses a risk to the livelihood of Indigenous communities, the region’s thriving wildlife and the drinking water of millions of Great Lakes residents.

Decades-old battles to remove the Canadian-owned pipeline from the Bad River Band reservation by Lake Superior and the lakebed of the Straits of Mackinac have played out mostly in Wisconsin and Michigan, respectively. Activists seeking the shutdown of Line 5 recently brought the fight to Chicago to consolidate a larger grassroots effort ahead of a presidential election that policy experts say will be critical to the pipeline’s future. 

“Essentially, what we are asking for and urging that the current and the next administration do, is come up with a regional plan that continues this clean energy transition we’re already on,” said Bentley Johnson, director of federal government affairs at the Michigan League of Conservation Voters. “Let’s start by decommissioning the most dangerous infrastructure that we have — and we really feel like the facts show that Line 5 is America’s most dangerous pipeline.

“In Bad River, we’re one storm away, one bad flood away from eroding the river bank and exposing this pipeline,” he said. “In the straits, we’re one anchor strike away, we’re one crack away from a devastating oil spill that jeopardizes the drinking water for tens of millions.”

Clean water remains the top environmental concern for most Americans, according to a Gallup poll conducted earlier this year. And protecting the Great Lakes, one of the world’s largest surface freshwater ecosystems, has become urgent as population growth and human-made climate change cause water shortages in parts of the United States. According to research by Colorado State University, nearly half of the country’s 204 freshwater basins might not be able to meet monthly water demands by 2071.

[civ5crab]

The pipeline near my house is fine don’t worry about it.

We’re going to engage in a mild amount of tomfoolery

[skpoem]

Sorry. Enbridge decided nope.