Line 3: The Fight to "Protect the Sacred"

Indigenous water protectors and environmentalists continue to protest for three months over the construction of Enbridge Line 3 in Minnesota. Tara Houska, an indigenous lawyer and activist, says it’s “an extension of the fight that’s happening all over Mother Earth, protecting the last beautiful places, protecting the sacred.”

Line 3 is an oil pipeline owned by Enbridge, a company known for the US’ largest inland oil spill. According to the Honor the Earth organization, the tar sands pipeline also runs right through watersheds in lands that are protected by treaties which is a direct violation: “The US government has a responsibility under federal law to honor the rights guaranteed to tribal members in their treaties. The proposed Line 3 corridor would violate the treaty rights of the Anishinaabeg by endangering primary areas of hunting, fishing, wild rice, and cultural resources in the 1855 treaty territory.”

In an article by Democracy Now!, water protectors within the reservation began to protest by locking “themselves to construction vehicles at two worksites, and to the pipeline itself.” As protests began to grow and catch the attention of the general public, so did the amount of police and treatment of protesters. Back in June, 179 activists were arrested while 20 were arrested this past week. State and local law enforcement has begun to arrive and shoot protesters with rubber bullets and spray them with tear gas as a way to suppress the movement. Big Wind, a 28-year-old Arapaho protester, had mentioned in an interview with The Intercept that there was a helicopter flying over the heads of the protesters. Big Wind stated, “You could tell it was intentional and it was to intimidate us and to surveil us.”

Today, the protest continues in Minnesota and over social media, as young activists create videos with information and dozens of ways to help and contribute outside of Minnesota.