Recently, there has been misinformation surrounding tribal interests regarding the Enbridge Energy Line 3/Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) process, and "Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe" and "tribal interests" are being spoken about to fit different agendas. I am writing to set the record straight with our Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe's position on the pipeline replacement proposals currently under consideration by the PUC.
Leech Lake Reservation is our homeland, and the waters and the food it provides are the reason our people are here and how we have sustained ourselves as a people spiritually, culturally and economically. We are a canoe people, and water ties us together. We cannot move or replace our reservation if there were an oil-spill disaster.
Our people have lived with these pipelines running through our lakes and reservation since the 1950s. Multiple generations have seen how the pipeline companies and governments ignore our interests and continue to pump oil through our lands. It has come to a point where pipes can no longer be safely put in this corridor.
We respect the Minnesota government and hope it shares the sentiment and respects our tribal sovereignty when we say loud and clear the position of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe: We want pipelines to end, and we will not allow another oil pipeline to be laid in our 42 miles of reservation.
I am a government official, a father and an Anishinaabe man. As a government official, I am chosen to speak for my fellow Leech Lakers and deal with the ramifications if they don't agree with me. As a parent, I am allowed to speak for my family, make decisions and deal with those consequences. But as an Anishinaabe man, I do not speak for all Anishinaabe or talk about "tribal interests" and group all natives together. This has been missing from this discussion since it began and is missing from most political discussions altogether.
The Leech Lake Band speaks for itself. Beware of special-interest groups who are quick to tell you what the Anishinaabe want.
There are three proposed options under consideration by the PUC regarding Line 3.
The first, the "in-trench replacement" option, is very risky and not fully vetted in the environmental-impact statement. In particular, it burdens Leech Lake with two vast construction projects: one to remove the old line and a second to replace it in the trench. This heavy-machinery work must be in the same 200-foot-wide corridor as five other pipelines that would be still pumping light and heavy crude oil at roughly 2,275,000 barrels (95.5 million gallons) per day. Portions of this corridor have pipelines intertwined and crossing over one another, adding to the pollution risk.
