Line 3 Pipeline Construction Damaged a Sensitive Wetland, State Says

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources mentioned Thursday that it was ordering Enbridge Energy to pay $3.3 million for damaging a delicate aquifer in the course of the building of the controversial Line 3 pipeline. It seems the water protectors’ opposing the pipeline might have been onto one thing.

In a release, the DNR mentioned it’s Enbridge needed to pay up for “failure to follow environmental laws” at a website close to its Clearbrook Terminal in Clearwater County, Minnesota. The DNR mentioned it additionally decided that Enbridge violated a statute that makes it against the law to change or acceptable state waters with no correct allow and has referred the case to the Clearwater County Attorney for doable prosecution.

“DNR is committed to its role as a regulator on this project and is taking seriously our responsibility to protect and manage natural resources within existing state law,” DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen mentioned in an announcement. “Enbridge’s actions are clear violations of state law and also of public trust. This never should have happened, and we are holding the company fully accountable.”

According to the DNR, Enbridge violated its official building plans and dug a trench some 8 toes (2.4 meters) deeper than what it had informed the state it could do. This, in flip, brought on an aquifer to breach and groundwater to circulation into the ditch. The space wherein Enbridge was working is a very delicate wetland area often known as calcareous fens, which a DNR factsheet describes as “rare and distinctive” space that’s reliant on “a constant supply of upwelling groundwater.” The breach, the DNR reported, has resulted in 24.2 million gallons of groundwater flowing out of the aquifer.

The groundwater leak occurred again in January. Enbridge didn’t notify DNR of the leak, although, however unbiased displays employed by the state seen “unusual amounts of water in the trench” on the Clearwater website. Because these displays didn’t have entry to Enbridge’s building plans, nonetheless, they weren’t conscious that this water was the results of the alleged violation. It was solely in June, throughout discussions with the displays, that DNR recognized the issue and launched an investigation.

The Line 3 challenge is definitely a alternative for an getting old pipeline, however takes a brand new route by way of Minnesota, reducing by way of the Fond du Lac Reservation and several other treaty lands of Ojibwe bands. This portion of the pipeline has been hotly contested as Indigenous teams declare that their rights are being violated and that the pipeline threatens their land and water. Indigenous protesters have organized underneath the rallying cry of “water is life,” and one of many main sites the place organizers have laid out their opposition word that they’re working to “protect the water and our future generations.” 

While resistance to the pipeline has been brewing for years, it actually picked up this 12 months as Enbridge nears completion on the challenge. Hundreds of individuals have been arrested throughout demonstrations in opposition to Line 3 for the reason that begin of the summer time alone, whereas native authorities have at instances labored hand-in-hand with Enbridge to suppress opposition. Earlier this month, Minnesota state troopers arrested 70 protesters at an illustration outdoors the governor’s mansion, because the state is contemplating criminalizing pipeline protests.

Environmental advocates have additionally questioned whether or not or not the state and federal governments have completed due diligence in approving the challenge, which, when accomplished, would carry 760,000 barrels of heavy crude oil per day from tar sands fields in Canada into the U.S., and lock in fossil gasoline use for many years to return.

When Joe Biden took workplace, advocates noticed an opportunity for him to cease the challenge or at the very least mandate additional environmental evaluation. But in June, the Biden administration made the stunning transfer of asking a court docket to throw out Indigenous complaints in opposition to Line 3 and permitting the challenge to proceed, successfully placing the burden of the federal authorities behind the pipeline. The sort of accident that occurred in January, advocates say, is exactly why the Biden administration must intervene.

“Enbridge is a rogue corporation that caused the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history and has now damaged Minnesota’s most precious waters during construction of the Line 3 tar sands pipeline,” Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth and some of the seen figures within the Line 3 resistance motion, mentioned in an announcement. “The Biden Administration would only be doing its basic due diligence by finally requiring a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) before any oil goes in this hurriedly-constructed new pipeline. Minnesota’s statewide leaders like Governor Walz and Senators Smith and Klobuchar should mitigate the damage already done to our water—and protect our shared climate—by asking the U.S. Army Corps for a full EIS before more tar sands crude oil flows.”