Stop the Black Snake

Alex Melvin

Canada Company Enbridge has been ordered to pay $3 million for groundwater leakage and violating state environmental law by piercing an artisan aquifer. This pipeline is as of right now being built illegally on Indigenous treaty land, more specifically the Anishinaabeg tribe, meaning “the original people”. The numbers of protestors and water protectors are growing, the issues are gaining coverage. There have been over 1,000 arrests at peaceful protests filled with water protectors from all over the country. Its bigger than Enbridge just saying screw you to the governments promise to Native American’s right of land. This stretches across the 1855, 1854, and 1842 lands of treaty areas. 

The pipeline extends from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin. It is supposed to be able to carry up to 915,000 barrels of oil and tar sands. It’s also meant to be a “replacement” for the one that broke in 1991 that has yet to be fully cleaned up. This pipeline is meant to contribute to overlooking indigenous rights, climate change (don’t forget about the temp. Change from here to Minnesota), construction impacts on land/wildlife including additional spills, abandonment of equipment, and an outright unfair process. There’s no economic need for tar sands, they’re dying out fast because they were switching to renewable energy. It scares companies like Enbridge when the public starts to work smarter not harder. 

This company has already had 3 workers and 3 men from out of state caught for attempting to human traffic. Just the construction impacts will affect the wild rice beds others use for sustenance, historic, and sacred sites that are already scarce to find them being buried underneath the earth. And even so maybe things in relation to historic importance should stay hidden and/or buried due to cultural importance. The company is finally facing the consequences after years of silencing anyone who spoke up. But finally, as since it covered a large majority of the media, those people viewing, liking, commenting, following, etc. Actively pushed the indigenous community’s call to help. As important as it is that results are finally being made the drive to see change shouldn’t stop just there.