ST PAUL, Minn. — The relative calm of the spring thaw in northern Minnesota will soon give way to the sounds of heavy machinery putting huge segments of pipe into the ground.
Enbridge Energy will resume major construction activity next week on its $4 billion Line 3 pipeline. The project, when completed, will carry Canadian oil across the top of the state to a terminal in Superior, Wisconsin.
It's replacing the original Line 3 which was built in 1968.
"We're replacing it with a pipe where the pipe wall is almost twice the thickness, and the actual alloy is actually stronger, so it would be stronger even if it were the same thickness as before," Mike Fernandez, a senior vice president at Enbridge, told KARE.
"And the stations that have been set up operationally are more sophisticated from a technologically standpoint."
The planning and permitting process began in 2014, after the Canadian company determined the original pipeline was aging in too many places.
"We were doing more and more integrity digs and we were finding pipes that were rusting," Fernandez explained. "And so, we came to the conclusion, along with the Obama Administration, that we needed to look at replacement rather than continuing to do more and more integrity digs."
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved the Line 3 project in 2018, and again the following year after their original decision was nullified by a court ruling. By then work was well underway on the segments in Wisconsin and Canada.
Work on the Minnesota portion began in December of 2020 after all the state and federal permits had been approved. Worked paused for the spring thaw and now labor contracts are in place to shift back into high gear, with a combined work force of more than 5,000.
Many environmental organizations and some Native American Minnesota communities remain opposed. Three lawsuits aimed at stopping the project and blocking it from being used after it is built are still being debated in federal and state court. Others are planning to stop or delay construction through acts of civil disobedience.
Honor the Earth, a group led by former Green Park vice presidential candidate Winona LaDuke, has an outpost near Palisade, 140 miles north of the Twin Cities. That's near the point where the pipeline will cross under the Mississippi River, with the use of directional drilling.
The new pipeline will cross the Fond du Lac Community west of Duluth, with that tribe's consent, but it will bypass the other major Native American tribal lands. But activists cite treaties the US Government made with tribal governments in the 1800s that guaranteed Indigenous people would still have rights to hunt, fish and gather wild rice in their traditional territories.
Enbridge has asserted a new and improved pipeline would actually reduce the odds of a leak or spill. The company also agreed to remove the section of the old pipeline that currently crosses the Leech Lake Community lands between Bemidji and Grand Rapids.
"We have more than 500 Indigenous workers who are from multiple tribes," Fernandez said.
"The pipe itself only goes through or abuts only two indigenous communities. Both of those indigenous communities are highly supportive of the project."
But most of the resistance to the new pipeline is from those who believe Canadian tar sands oil should be left in the ground, rather than being processed and burned as fuel or turned into other petroleum-based products.
"We’re all extremely concerned about the impacts of climate change," Carol Rothman, who traveled from California this week to take part in a "1,000 Grandmothers for Future Generations" protest outside the Governor's Residence in St. Paul.
"As grandmothers and mothers, we are very concerned about the world we’re leaving for future generations if we don’t stop getting fossil fuels out of the ground."
Another protester, Madonna Thunder Hawk of South Dakota, said Indigenous persons have a special connection the earth and a duty to save it from environmental calamities.
"As Indigenous people it’s our responsibility to stand up and protect Mother Earth," Thunder Hawk, a longtime civil rights activist from South Dakota, explained.
"And as elders it’s our responsibility to support the young people and what they’re doing."
Opponents contend there's no longer a demand for the Canadian oil that is being sent down the existing Line 3, let alone the new one that's replacing it. But Enbridge executives say they foresee the need for fossil fuels and other petroleum-derived consumer products will persist for decades.