Query Letter
For six years environmental groups, indigenous and local communities have been fighting for their water. Many signs reading Water is Sacred were held up at a local protest outside of Enbridge offices as cars and trucks slowed down to drive by and honk. The pipeline violates several treaties with the Ojibwe and Anishinaabe people. These treaties establish the rights to hunt, gather, and fish along the proposed route, all that would be jeopardized. “After all the indigenous people have been taken from, the selfishness continues” local protestor Joey from the Objbwe tribe states.
Enbridge Energy is a multinational pipeline company stationed in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It’s primary focus is the transportation of crude oil and gas across North America. Built in the 1960s, Line 3 is a 1,097 mile 34 inch crude oil pipeline extending from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin. Enbridge is looking to replace this pipeline with a 36-inch pipeline along a new route for 13 miles in North Dakota, 337 miles in Minnesota, and 14 miles in Wisconsin and transport tar sands crude oil. This is Enbridge’s biggest project yet and will carry up to 915,000 barrels per day. In Minnesota alone, the new line 3 will cross more than 200 water ecosystems, tunnel under 20 rivers, including the Mississippi twice. The new line 3 would threaten many lakes, rivers, and streams including passing within 10 miles of 3,400 acres of wild rice lakes. Wild rice is a foundation of indigenous communities and would not only threaten the land but the traditional way of life and spiritual practices of the Objbwe people. However, the line 3 may have even more damaging effects than disrupting the peace.
Tar sands crude oil is one of the most dirtiest kinds of oil. Tar sands contain a tar-like substance called bitumen mixed with dirt, sand, and rock. Tar sands is one of the most destructive, carbon-intensive and toxic fuels on the plant. Producing it released three times as much greenhouse gas pollution as conventional crude oil does. It comes from a solid mass that must be extracted via energy intensive stream injection or strip mining, both of these processes requires an enormous amounts of expensive energy and equipment, much more than traditional oil production. To put things on scale, a gallon of gasoline made from tar sands produces 21% more carbon dioxide emissions than one made using conventional crude oil. Not only is air pollution at risk but more tar sands means deepening the climate crisis by putting water and wildlife ecosystems at the deadly oil spills.
There have been many stories done on this topic. Mine however will be different as I will go into more depth on way tar sands are detrimental to the environment. I will use peer-reviewed scientific articles for this portion of the paper. I have multiple protesters interviews and will be reaching out to professors to have interviews from a more scientific side of things. Many government, alliance, and Enbridge’s website itself have been helpful.
