Category: Clean Water

Our Resistance is Growing

I was grateful to participate in the recent Army Corps of Engineers’ hearing on the proposed re-route to Line 5. The opportunity to be with people who hold the land and water sacred is an honor and reaffirms all that is good in us. The Bad River and Red Cliff Tribal members, their allies and community came with great words of defiance and resilience as they try to stop Enbridge’s Line 5. I am proud to stand with them. NEW IN: THE HEARING HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO AUGUST 4. READ DETAILS BELOW.

Here is a portion of my testimony: There comes a time when clear thinking people must admit that the course of exploitation and usury is no longer viable. And when those people come to that conclusion, it’s vital they ensure a change of course that is just, equitable and sound. 

Both the current Line 5 and the proposed Line 5 expansion pose potential threats to drinking water and ecosystems. Both violate tribal rights. Line 5 is operating nearly 20 years past its lifespan. And we know, the Great Lakes hold 95 percent of the surface freshwater in the United States.  A pipeline breach will be catastrophic. 

These facts alone should be enough to end the existence of Line 5 and it’s re-route. But too many of us still believe the propaganda of the oil industry and are frightened about a change of course. 

The Army Corp has an enormous responsibility to provide stop gap measures and allow clear thinking to prevail. By ordering a Federal Environmental Impact Statement you can expose the true risks of the pipeline.

By reviewing Enbridge’s record of misrepresentation, violating permits, spilling oil, and covering up environmental damage you can end past injustices.

In shutting down Line 5 we can justly transition to safer, more sustainable energy. 

Our resistance is growing and will continue to grow. 

Learn more on Line 5: Communities United by Water. or 350 Wisconsin.org and be sure to see the Bad River Film

*****!!!!!! Due to an overwhelming amount of requests, the U.S. Army Corps has extended the public comment period on Enbridge’s proposed Line 5 reroute project for an additional 30 days 📆

💥 The new deadline is August 4th 💥 Feeling stuck? Check out this toolkit ➡https://tinyurl.com/LINE5GUIDE⬅ to help you during the process

Thanks to 350Wisconsin.org

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End War Save the Planet

When we think of war it’s often through the heroic lens of a movie screen. Good guys versus bad guys and we’re always the good ones. This archaic notion is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves. Putin’s destruction of Ukraine and the reckless takeover of a nuclear power plant reveals the ignorance power carries. Now a case of ecocide is pending against Russia for breaching the Nova Kakahova Dam. 

Ecocide. The term is relatively new and characterizes mass damage and destruction of ecosystems. Widespread harm to nature is getting its day in court as countries create laws to govern and punish ecocide.

As we begin to understand the finite nature of earth’s resources, we can also begin to reckon with the diabolical aspect of war. War’s environmental disruptions have grown exponentially as chemicals and nuclear scorched earth policies are used.

Today the most glaring destruction of earth, water and air are found in the retaliatory war that Israel is using to remove the people of Gaza from their homeland. Numerous international health agencies report high levels of airborne toxins from debris, ash and dust. Carbon dioxide emissions are expected to add to climate vulnerability world-wide. But the most sinister and inhuman damage is the contamination of water.

It’s speculated that 97% of water in Gaza is contaminated. Even before this latest war, it was the leading cause of death in children. The Israeli blockade that has imprisoned Palestinians since 2007 added to the crumbling infrastructure. The water restrictions imposed on the people of Gaza created immense hardship.  Forced removals, continued bombing and total community destruction by Israel are war crimes with ecocide being among them.

The United States funds the war against Palestinian people and their environment.

We will be held accountable.

A Conversation with Rachel Ida Buff on anti-Semitism vs. anti-Zionism

Caring is an Art

I’ve begun to believe that caring is an art. At its best it’s born out of love. When we care for something, it’s not a selfless act. That’s a misconception we’ve been led to believe. When we care for something, we are extending our gratitude for its existence. 

I’m guessing in days gone by as we survived by what we grew in our gardens or harvested from the wilds, there was a lot more respect and caring for the land. I remember my Dine teacher saying before the Europeans came, no one would have ever thought to pee in the waterways. Let alone destroy the precious and life-giving water for personal gain.

For decades uranium mining on the Navajo reservation contaminated large portions of the water sources and led to kidney diseases and cancers. Today we’re faced with numerous attacks on our fresh water systems. The proposed natural gas plant, the Nemadji Trail Energy Center will be located in Superior, WI. Pipelines will run adjacent to or through waterways and spills are a given, not an exception.

Sign the petition to STOP NTEC. For non-superior residents, as well.

Today I spent time in our old heirloom orchard, cutting back grape vines choking the trees and nipping the early shoots of multi-floral rose. Multi-floral rose sounds like such a nice plant, doesn’t it? But I can tell you the thorns are ruthless as they cling to your clothing and gouge your skin. And nothing eats this plant, not sheep, not deer, no one wants it near-by. So, in an act of preservation of the land, I take to cutting it. 

Spring is coming early this year. Budding trees confirm this. Caring for the land is taking on a whole new urgency as the gratitude for all of it continues to grow.

Entrapment

A friend calls it psyhological entrapment. What amounts to a total disregard of process and environmental concerns, Minnesota Power recently signed a labor agreement with the Northern Wisconsin Building and Construction Trades Council to build a $700 million gas-fired power plant in Superior next spring.

The Nemadji Trail Energy Center was proposed in 2017 and has failed to secure the permits necessary to begin construction. Environmental groups have issued warnings and legal challenges, but apparently lobbyists for fossil fuels operate in a vacuum.

The generating cooperative, Dairyland Power, boasts that this plant will help us towards a “clean energy future”. They’re certain most people will accept the words “clean energy” and call it a day. They’re hoping ratepayers will ignore the price tag as well as the increased amount of energy required to run the plant. They’re hoping the calls for protecting the water; the people and their ancestral homeland by the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will fall on deaf ears. They have not yet understood environmental justice or human rights.

The fossil fuel industry distorts facts regarding renewables and battery storage as insufficient. They dismiss the science that tells us there’s no more time to waste as we continue to extract resources from the earth. They ignore the health risks associated with methane emissions and burst pipelines. And they’re tying our children’s children to unsustainable systems. 

What could possibly go wrong building a natural gas plant along a wetland corridor of the Nemadji River?

Had enough of entrapment? Contact your local cooperative (Vernon Electric Cooperative) or utility or contact Dairyland directly at 608-788-4000. Let them know where you stand on this ill-fated energy center.

The following is a fact sheet from Sierra Club

Lest We Forget

Ever heard of Enbridge? Unless you’re someone who has thought about preserving clean water for future generations, or keep stocks in oil, probably not. 

Enbridge is a multinational pipeline and energy company with headquarters in Canada. It owns and operates pipelines in Canada and the United States, transporting crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids.

It was Enbridge’s broken pipeline that caused the largest inland oil spill in our history. On July 25, 2010 at least 1 million gallons of bitumen, thick crude oil, leaked into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River. 

Closer to home, Enbridge’s system includes Line 5, which travels 645 miles and passes under the Strait of Mackinac. With a history of unleashing environmental damage in its 50 years; the pipeline has spilled 33 times, leaking 1.1 million gallons of oil.  And in Minnesota, the collusion between Enbridge and law enforcement over Line 3’s damaging construction is reminiscent of Standing Rock. Arrests and discrimination mount on Water Protectors while polluters escape justice. 

I know the numbers of spills are dizzying and seemingly endless, as are the promises to never let it happen again. Also spectacular are the millions in fines assigned to the company – which brings no solace to environments destroyed by Enbridge’s negligence. 

All of this is readily available to those who care to dig a bit. The links I have shared here are but a few. Don’t expect mainstream media to cough up too much truth and the Biden administration has already outpaced Trump in the numbers of offshore drilling permits granted. Most of the work to track Enbridges’ trail of destruction are led by Indigenous organizations like Honor the Earth. Or grassroots organizations: Environmental Defense, Stop Line 3, and Oil and Water Don’t Mix, to name a few.

So it comes down to this, my friends, we can go on living as though this finite earth can and will sustain our assaults, or we can pull up our big pants and tackle the hard truths in front of us. Reduce consumption. Transition to renewables. Support the people on the ground fighting the corporate elites. It’s time.

Photo: Tania Aubid of the Milles Band of Ojibwe holds a bullet-riddled sign opposing the Enbridge Line 3 project in February 2021. The sign had been in front of her home. (Photo by Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today)

More Thinking, Less Bureaucracy

With the influx of city dwellers fleeing the urban jungle, and farm acreage being cut into bite sized pieces to accommodate, sewage and wastewater are in the spotlight. Whether a holding tank or a septic field, there’s often a lot more going down then simply number one or number two. Household cleaners, toxic chemicals and now PFAS – known as “forever chemicals” are turning up in our sludge. 

OK you say, but the truck sucks it up and takes it away. Ah, but there’s the rub. Where is it taken?  The EPA will tell you more than half of all sewage sludge is spread on farmlands. And studies are showing farmers and farm workers are paying the price, not to mention the animals and humans who are eating from those fields or drinking from contaminated wells.

Organic standards do not allow the use of sewage sludge to be used as fertilizer. That’s one remedy. We have become very good at mitigating problems at there end point, but we have a long way to go to stop the very egregious actions that are creating the mess in the first place. 

The state is becoming hyper vigilant in demanding every household be responsible to contain waste, while big polluters are given a pass. Simple composting and greywater systems which could offset waste are not permitted or are enforced in such a way that they still end up in the toxic stew scattered over farmlands. We’re not thinking this through.

Stop the production of PFAS, reduce the amount of chemicals being created and used, and allow common sense to return. We’re still living as though we have not heard that the earth is warming at an alarming rate, or that we could play a part in protecting it. 

Biosolid Map: The spreading of wastewater sludge (biosolids) on agricultural land, a common practice dating to the 1980s, is concentrated in the eastern U.S. where groundwater depth is relatively shallow, raising concerns about widespread PFAS contamination affecting drinking water. Source: EPA webinar, “PFAS in Biosolids,” Sept. 23, 2020.

Loving Makes It Easy

The days keep growing longer. The birds, crickets and frogs break the silence with sweet sounds. The fireflies are back and their magic still enchants. Walking through the forest, the scents are a tonic, each plant offering its own special gift. The soil in the garden is a balm for feet and hands. Senses are heightened and gratitude comes easily. 

And I wonder why we ever took ourselves out of the garden.

If you look at your family history you’ll find it’s not been that long that our ancestors coexisted with the earth. It hasn’t been that long since they “made a way out of no way”. There is something so very basic in our relationship to the earth, so very integral. It’s in our blood. We are made of this earth and we return to this earth. It’s natural to appreciate it. It’s natural to learn from it and to celebrate it. What is unnatural is to do it harm. And this we have been doing for some time now.

From industry to industrial ag, from chemical herbicides to chemical fertilizers, this need to make our lives easier has made it a living hell. 

I’m always happy to hear of people trying to end the harm. Most recently a Canadian company, McCain Foods, asked their Wisconsin potato growers to adopt regenerative practices by 2030.  There are a growing number of voices both consumers and producers ready for change. 

And how hard will that change be to make? Loving makes the need for change come more easily. When we fall in love with the earth and all its wonders, when we appreciate the delicacies it offers and delight in our ability to co-create, we will change. Our health and the health of the planet depend on it. 

“We Should All Be Water Protectors”*

Writing from a hotel after visiting the StopLine3.org Welcoming Center in Palisade, Minnesota.

In the wake of destruction, the pandemic opened a door for us to walk into a new day.  Our consumption of fossil fuels is at an all time low. The need for extreme extraction is over. Good by KXL. The pipeline that would have sliced through the Ogallala aquifer is history. And DAPL will be next. The courts are getting ready to end the permits that should have never been granted and for the arrogance of a company that has ignored court orders and kept on pumping. 

This is the last gap of oil. 

And yet Enbridge continues with Line 3 – leaving the older corroded pipeline for us to clean up.  Investors are jumping ship facing the reality that renewables are a far safer alternative. And many of us are coming to the realization that less is more as we leave an abusive relationship with over – consumption behind.  

We have all noticed the pristine skies and the fresher air. And now it is time for the reckoning of corroded pipelines that pierce the land and waterways.  Now is time for everyone to be a water protector as Winona LaDuke reminds us.

So as a water protector what can you do? You can reduce consumption and divest from fossil fuels. You can write letters to Governor Walz, to congress and the new administration. You can support the needs of those on the front lines, as they stand in nonviolent resistance, to end something that should have never gone this far. 

And if you are able as we were to bear witness you can make the trip to 5 or 6 camps that dot the 300-mile pathway of destruction and bring your love, support and the supplies they need to carry on.

Let’s make this just transition for everyone.

*”We should all be water protectors.” – Winona LaDuke

A Fart in Church

Someone called and invited me to contribute to a political party. I explained that I couldn’t support either party, as they are “wings of the same bird” and that unless and until one or the other stopped putting profit before people and the earth, I wouldn’t be offering my support. The caller became a bit exasperated. And I thought of my mother who would have said my comments were a “fart in church”. 

People don’t enjoy being challenged to think. It’s easier to cling to belief than to take the leap of faith into knowing. It’s easier to pick winners and losers and to gamble whom the winner will be, then to take into account our mutual interconnectedness and the consequences of our action or inaction. 

We have yet to accept we are one people, one planet.  And what befalls one of us is destined to harm us all. 

Take the covid nightmare that morphed into the mask versus freedom nightmare and now is the vaccine versus the enemies of the people nightmare. It would have been much easier to stand united from the start in the best interest of all, but that would have been a fart in someone’s church. Instead our march of death continues and history will remember us as fools.

Two billion people are suffering shortages of water, with two thirds of the world’s population expected to face water crisis over the next four years. Our solution? We have begun trading water as a commodity on Wall Street. There is not a hint of compassion in this capitalist response. 

It’s the religion of greed and the gospel of prosperity, which we need to put to rest. Solutions will come more readily when kindness regains the helm. Until then don’t be afraid to cause a stink.  

Stop Line 3

This week the last of the permits required for Enbridge’s Line 3 were granted. Construction can officially begin, although it’s been going on illegally for some time.

The granting of the permits was of no surprise. The governing agencies grew out of the diminishing era of fossil fuels and are reluctant to rock the boat. Even though we know fossil fuels are being replaced by clean energy, even knowing the threat to water from ruptured pipes.

Enbridge was granted the right to totally abandon the original corroded line and build a larger, higher volume corridor.  It will transport the dirtiest of tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin even with our knowledge of diminished need.

Disregarding tribal sovereignty and indigenous ways of life, Line 3 will traverse Minnesota passing through tribal lands, wetlands, lakes and wild rice beds. 

Minnesota’s Department of Health now show that covid infection rates are higher along this new corridor than any other parts of the state and Native Americans are among the highest at risk for covid hospitalizations. Increasing the number of construction workers at this time, when we are asked to stay in place, is unreasonable and dangerous. 

Since 2013, many have opposed this pipeline, but more of us are needed to stand up for indigenous sovereignty and to protect the land and water. Now more than ever, as covid is ravaging our people and overwhelming our health care workers, we need this irresponsible act to stop.

The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, the White Earth Band of Ojibwa, Honor the Earth, Youth Climate Interveners, the Sierra Club and Minnesota’s own Department of Commerce have filed a court appeal for a stay on the construction.

For more on efforts to stop line 3, visit the website: stopline3.org.

Or call or write.

Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan 
130 State Capitol 
75 Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. 
St. Paul, MN 55155

Staffed office hours are: Monday – Friday, 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM

Telephone Numbers 
Telephone:  651-201-3400 
Toll Free:  800-657-3717 
Minnesota Relay:  800-627-3529