“Tribal nations, community and environmental groups in Minnesota have fought for six years to stop Canadian oil giant Enbridge Energy from building the massive Line 3 pipeline in Northern Minnesota, to take oil from Canada’s tar sands region to Superior, Wis.

“The pipeline violates several treaties with the Ojibwe people that establish their right to hunt, fish, and gather along the proposed route. The pipeline would cross 200 bodies of water, including the Mississippi River twice.

“If built, Line 3 would carry hundreds of thousands of barrels a day of tar sands crude oil — some of the dirtiest oil in the world — and would contribute the equivalent of 50 coal plants worth of carbon pollution to the atmosphere. Its carbon footprint would exceed the entire state of Minnesota’s and, like Keystone XL, would extend the economic viability of the ultra-polluting crude oil source in a way that one expert famously called ‘game over for the climate.’”

This is how Kevin Whelan accurately describes what is at stake with the proposed Line 3 expansion in Minnesota.

CELDF staff stands with the Water Protectors, tribes and advocates calling for the pipeline to be stopped. Critical ecosystems are threatened by this pipeline, which violates treaties and law passed by the White Earth Nation to recognize and protect the rights of Manoomin (wild rice). Government must respect the treaties and the rights of the wild rice.

Construction must stop.

Learn how to support Water Protectors on the ground by visiting stopline3.org.

Photo: Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune/AP

Additional Resources