Part Two: Welcome to the Ecological Resistance

we'll see what today has in store. Fifteen cars were told the first day of the cop blockade, and the tow trucks messed up the road so much that the county had to send in a huge machine to regrade the dirt road. Cops still weren't letting cars through, but for day two people didn't put up a physical, cold resistance to the sheriff's driveway blockade. There were other things to figure out and strategize. It is early afternoon on June nine. I'm still at the Stop Line three camp

in Minnesota. The all the all the protesters and water defenders who got arrested yesterday just got back to the camp, so they were released after one night in jail. UM and they were they had there was a there was a pretty pretty cheery greeting for them here at the here at the Line three camp. Um. A few a few of the people were a little little more somber because of course their friends were in jail. But everyone most people were pretty excited to see each other again. UM,

and most people seemed pretty optimistic. UM. So that's kind of steady. Think that's kind of the state of things right now. Uh to two Sheriff's trucks are still preventing cars from going onto the driveway um at the stop Line three camp, but so far there's been no passive or active resistance to that today unlike yesterday. UM, So we'll see if that changes in the next few hours. I'm probably gonna head back to their first camp to pick up some supplies and I'll decide what I do

from there. But I mean, the the atmosphere the Stop Playing three camp is super unique. Um. It's a few hundred probably people here now, pretty massive space. Uh. They actually you know, own this property where they're basing the camp out of them. They can move onto the like for actions. They can move onto the like Line three site,

which is just like just across the way. Um, but the fact that it's their property does give them some distinct advantages in terms of how the law can crack down on them without you know, having horrible objects on the state's part. Um. But yeah, they have a really they have a really good set up. They got farmed. You know, they're growing food. They have really nice like kitchen. You know, they like buildings and stuff. Um. Decent at

mant of tents. Um water is a little bit low, but people are trying to figure that out, so we're trying trying to go easy on the water at least at the moment. It took longer than I thought, but eventually I made my way back to the Earth First camp. Just got back to earth First Camp. It is a little bit past midnight, so technically it's now June. But still still not slept since uh the night of, So I'm excited to finally be back in my tent. People.

When when I arrived, people were having a small fire and singing songs, so that was nice. Um, fox the spider in my tent, I'll have to deal with that later. Um. But anyway, there's still a decent amount of Earth First people staying at the at the Line three camp. Um, I assume some more we'll head over tomorrow. It's not fully made up my mind what I'm gonna do yet, but on lean lean towards probably staying at this camp, trying to talk to some more people, and then the

last day I'll join wherever other people are doing. If they're doing action, I'll I will be there in whatever reporting capacity makes the most sense. UM. So yeah, I mean everyone, there's there's more, more and more people are coming back to Earth First camp right now. Um, tomorrow might actually have some you know, it may be more more of a full day. I'll try to swim in the lake because it'd be a shame if I did

not do that for this trip. Um. But yeah, I mean it's it's been an interesting almost forty eight hours without sleep. Um and uh in dealing with all of these issues surrounding how the sheriffs are trying to crack down on the on the Line three protesters. Um oh, I guess the one thing is like the Sheriff's actually left and like the late afternoon um on the on on the on the twenty nine, So we don't really

know what their plan is. UM. I heard some people from like the Line three side, like I have initiated some like um legal proceedings to help get like like more clear legal access to the driveway to their own property. UM. So that could be the reason why we left, But we don't totally know why they like left so early, like they did not they didn't stay super late to di continue blocking off access to the driveway. So that

part is still up in the air. I'm sure. I'm sure I'll find out more tomorrow and find out we did. It's the night of June Wednesday. UM, let's have to get up at like five thirty tomorrow. UM. There is

uh people are planning in action for tomorrow. UM. I don't have any details for what's going on in order to my understanding as many other people, because just today we found out that like the reason why the cops were blocking the driveway to the Line three protest camp is because during that time, en Bridge, the company it's a pipeline, completed drilling on one of the two spots planned under the Mississippi River and they wanted to make sure there wasn't any people there to prevent that. So

that's why the cops are blocking off access. To the road UM from the protest camp. UM So because now that that drilling spot is complete, I think that kind of through wrenching people's protest plans for for tomorrow. UM. So things are kind of up in the air. All all I know is that I have to be up early and we will be driving somewhere. UM. I think people are probably gonna be locking down, like with like lock boxes and probably soft blockades. UM So expecting you know,

arrests to happen. UM. Yeah, but the mood, the mood is pretty tense right now. Everyone's pretty anxious. UM. We're just kind of doing doing doing doing a weight in game at the moment. UM, I'm gonna try my form my best to not get arrested, but that's not really up to me, UM, because I mean, I just don't know what the location is going to be. Like, I don't know, there's just so little information, and I have no idea what the what the cops reaction is going

to be to any of any of this. UM. The sheer number of people committed to doing the land offense and water defense and UM committed to like you know, showing up in person to UM advocate for the treaties to be actually followed. I mean, of course there this treaties, most of them were you know, there's there's there's reasons to talk about how how people were coerced into signing

certain treaties. But in fact is the ones that we have right the ones that people have right now, aren't even being voled um in terms of you know, stuff for this Line three pipeline and crossing over indigenous land um and sacred areas. So so yeah, there's just so many people dedicated to doing this that I'm not sure if the cops will be prepared for how many people it looks like are going to be caravanning down um and depending what their plans are, causing a scene. Um.

But I'm I'm about to go to bed. I have to I have to sleep, have a have a long day ahead of me, um, long day of trying to not get arrested and then missing my right back to my home UM on the other side of the country. Before I recap what happened on the July first stop Line three direct action, I want to give some background for the whole Line three thing. Now, you probably heard

of the stop Plan three movement this year. A few public actions have grabbed national attention, like the protest side Chase Bank, and perhaps a few actions near the pipeline, but you might be surprised to hear that the fight

has been going on for over seven years. Back en Bridge, a Canadian oil giant, started the process of applying to replace their existing Line three pipeline with a new, bigger pipeline, large portions of which are along a completely new route, including areas that would violate the treaty rights of the indigenous Oshawanabe by passing through tribal territory, fresh water sources, ecosystems, and public lands, while endangering primary areas of hunting, fishing,

wild rice, and cultural resources in the eighteen fifty five treaty territory. For most of the past seven years, the plans for the pipeline going through Minnesota have been caught up in litigation and regulatory hearings. There have been on the ground direct actions and protests, but all in hopes

of preventing the construction from starting. That changed November of twenty when the Minnesota Pollution and Control Agency issued water crossing permits in mid November, and then the Army Corps of Engineers issued the other necessary permits mere days later. Embridge had been positioning pipes and equipment for years doing so called pre construction, so as soon as they got the go ahead they could rush to dig, drill and

start placing pipes in the ground. The first pipe was laid out to wait all the way back in November, three years before Mbridge got the permission to actually begin construction. The current Line three, which carries crude oil from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin, was originally built in the sixties. Pipe corrosion caused numerous spills from the seventies to the

early two thousands. To circumvent this, Mbridge reduced the operating pressure and instituted yearly high resolution inspections using modern technology to track ongoing corrosion. As a result of the existing Line three pipe ships four hundred and thirty thousand barrels per day. When finished, the new Line three would ship nine hundred and fifteen thousand barrels of Tar San's crude oil a day, one of the dirtiest fuels on Earth, and that's more than double the current Line three pipeline.

The new Line three will carry enough oil to produce about one hundred and seventy billion kilograms of carbon dioxide per year. That's equivalent to about fifty coal power plants or thirty eight million vehicles on our roads. Total project costs have risen to nine point three billion, with the Minnesota segment of the pipeline costing four billion. A big part of the argument four Line three in Minnesota is

supposed job creation. The problem is that the majority of these jobs are short term, part time higher workers from out of state. M Bridges fourth quarter Jobs reports that only thirty three percent of the almost five thousand workers in the project were from Minnesota, and they worked only

twenty percent of the total hours. M Bridge has a job promise that the Line three replacement project would create about eight thousand and six hundred jobs, the majority of which are local in Minnesota over a two year period, including forty hundred union construction jobs, half of which are expected to be filled locally. However, instead of seventy of jobs being local, the opposite is true, with nearly scent

of hours being worked by out of state workers. In Minnesota alone, the new Line three pipe would cross more than two hundred water ecosystems and tunnel under twenty rivers, including the Mississippi River twice, the source of drinking water for millions of people. The new Line three would threaten many pristine lakes, rivers, and streams, including where wild rice grows, a foundation of the Oshanabes people's traditional way of life

and spiritual practices. Since the announcement that construction could begin last November, and Bridge has been literally working non stop to finish this pipeline as soon as possible. Resistance against Line three has also been wrapped baly increasing the past year, all leading up to this past summer, with many calls

going out for national support. People are continuing to try to stop construction through litigation or pressuring public officials, while others are taking direct action in hopes of slowing down the construction itself. As protests have continued, the state response

has grown more harsh. The most recent Line three protesters who have gotten arrested for locking down on equipment are being charged with felony theft for quote temporarily taking control of the construction equipment unquote by locking themselves to it. These new harsh protest related charges like felony, resisting and obstructing are usually first tested on bipop folks, and then anarchists,

and then eventually everyone. If you thought sheriffs shutting down vehicle access to the main stop Line three camp right as Mbridge was completing drilling under the Mississippi River a little sus well, wait until you hear that Embridge is also directly giving cops millions of dollars. This is from

Vice News quote. A Canadian oil company has given Minnesota law enforcement two million dollars to fund the policing and protests against the construction of its new pipeline ambridges that have fund called the Public Safety Escrow Trust in May as a part of its permitting process for the Line

three pipeline route. The funds in this account have been used to reimburse costs associated with maintaining the piece around the pipeline, including for officer wages, lodging, and boom trucks, according to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and Line three permits. Since its creation, three d twenty seven thousand dollars of the Mbridge fund has gone to the Cass County Sheriff's Office, located one eighty miles north of Minneapolis, for security patrols

of their private property. This amounted to around seven percent of the department's salary and overtime budget for the year. Between November and February nineteen one, over forty employees dedicated more than seven thousand hours to safety patrols. Another one hundred and seventy one dollars went to the Belatrimi County's Sheriff's Department for officer training going back as earliest seventeen in preparation for the responses to the Line three protests.

All of this was paid for by Enbridge. In its permitting documentation, the Public Utilities Commission cited increased law enforcement expenses around pipelines in other parts of the country as

reasoning for establishing the fund. The funds lived in an astro count managed by a state appointed official, to whom agencies send requests for reimbursement from en Bridge of costs related to quote coordination of public safety and emergency responders, public safety related costs for maintaining the peace in and around the construction site, review, an oversight of any private

security services, and other similar costs unquote. The account is technically not meant to be used for equipment unless it's quote personal protective equipment and extremely broad term that is defined nowhere. New Ryan gear, for instance, has been paid for by the escrow account. State appointed account manager has rejected law enforcement requests for reimbursement for cutting tools for lock boxes and such, but there are ways around that.

In Hubbard County, for example, Mbridge just donated cutting tools separate from the escorow account entirely. Upon waking up at five thirty am July one, I trudged myself to the coffee station in the little forest kitchen, packed up my recording equipment and batteries, wrote down a few lawyers phone numbers on my stomach in case the day go south, and hopped in the media car with other folks from the Earth First Journal and began the second caravan of

my trip in Minnesota. It is July one, about nine am. Care A many people just arrived at a pipeline construction site UM, the Line three pipeline construction site in northern Minnesota. I am on the ground here reporting with about I don't know, a couple of dozen, a couple of dozen protesters, water defenders, line defenders. It's spent a lot of coordination between the activists to get here. UM and finding like

specific sites that are still active and drilling. Since n Bridge just finished one of their drilling projects under the Mississippi like three days ago. So currently people are walking to the site that they are gonna be stationed at. I'm a little bit behind. Yeah, I will be reporting here as long as I as long as I can be um. If I need to get out, then I can evacuate, but goals to be here as long as

I can. Pretty pretty big caravan, A lot of a lot of people here, going right up to the drilling site. By the time I got to the construction site, there were already about a dozen people locked down onto the construction equipment. Got more people attached to the pipeline for SHARE's vehicle at the site, got another SHARE's vehicle at the site, got another about like three or four three

or four law enforcement vehicles have arrived. These abot of people messed up, locked up, Camo block, black block, got a few people attached the actual pipeline, fists raised up. Overall the mood here's actually a lot less tent than it was on the way. Most people are actually hooked up. Now everyone's kind of falling falling into their place kind of knows what they want to do, what impact they

want to have. WHOA, wow, everyone's pretty uh, a lot of a lot of like opening cam lotterie gotten pipeline workers kind of leaving. Um, looks like they're all gonna clear to the site and then I'm guessing more cops are gonna roll in arrest and arrest of many people as they can. That is what I'm looking at right now. Um, there are currently people hooked up to the Line three pipeline that has just been a drilling under the Mississippi River.

People hooked up to the equipment. UM, on both sides of the road here, there's people on that side and there's people here on this side. We have law enforcement on the scene now. Um, we have lots of people holding up banners, people hooked up onto the equipment. We have. Yeah, there's a it's on. It's less tense than the the then the build up to the actual action. UM, we have people's you know, anyone's have the road willing signs,

We've got it. We've got a lot a lot of banners and I don't know about like I'm guessing fifteen to twenty people locked down with lock boxes onto the drilling equipment, onto the taking equipment, and onto the pipeline itself. People channing stop line three. Fact the police. There were a lot of a lot of line workers here when UH people arrived, and they've all since left. Um, no one seems super eager to chat. Uh. There is Hubbard County Sheriff's here. I believe the I believe the main sheriff,

his name is Corey, is here. It's like Corey sheriff man is talking to the people standing on the side of the road. UM. I'm not sure what used to saying. People on that side are not I'm not breaking any loss there. They are just standing on public property holding up signs that is not not a crime. There is. Yeah, I'm guessing around twenty people have gone to various types of equipment and pipelines. UM. People here in black blocks, people here in cameo block. UM, and so people just

hearing like write regular clothes. UM. I've talked to a few of these people in the last few hours. Why they're doing this, why they think it's important. Um, it's about topping line three, about protecting the wild rice farms in this area, but protecting the Great Lakes um, defending people's access to water and honoring the treaties that were signed. You know until years ago that the construction of the pipelines breaks. Those are those are the things people are

talking about right now. UM. I believe the police are gonna wait for all of the pipeline people to leave, um before they start coming in and trying to like to detach people and get folks arrested. Um. Yeah, more shares off, more shares, vehicle showing up, It's gonna I think, I think things are going to happen. Um, this will be a long day. There was a brief instant where a pipeline worker got into an argument with the protester

and the worker assaulted the protester. And then when the last pipeline workers tried to leave in a pickup truck, they almost ran over like a dozen people. As that was happening, protesters tried to stop the vehicle to prevent it from hitting more people. The truck got away and

people survived with limited injuries. I then made my way over to the other side of the road where a collection of moms and other protesters were in the ditch holding up Stop Line three signs Sheriff Corey A. Yukes was also there, and I had the pleasure of finally getting to see him after I've heard so much talk about him. As I arrived, he was arguing with protesters about the pipeline and inevitable climate change caused water shortages. Drinker,

your family have cancer? You know what they make about. Sheriff Corey of Hubberd County just said when the water dries up, their kids can drink pop as in like soda, soda pop. So I guess that is his plan for when there's water shortages, Everyone's just gonna drink soda, according to the elected sheriff of Hubberd County. Evidently Sheriff corne Yukes was piste after that conversation, because a minute later he sent over officers to arrest the two people he

was talking with. Wow, I don't know, Dylan, what's everything? You're under arrest? You're under the two folks that Sheriff's tried to arrest ran into the forest evading capture. After that, Corey turned his attention to me. All right, s Garrison David's Pigheart Radio. You can't be within the right away

like this. I wish I stand I would try to find some private property, all right, that they give you permission to be on, then you're good like that kind out the side of the public though, right, no, it's within the right away. You can't do it, You've been told according to Minnesota pedestrian law, standing on the side of intersection on public property is completely acceptable, but as has been shown before, it's impossible to argue with cops in the street. So at this point I needed evac

due to Sheriff Corey threatening me specifically with arrest. Just got back to Earth First Camp um from Park Rapids. See the last time I chat, which is like a second hour hour, I should go our half an hour and a half ago. I was like, I think at least over over seven arrests at that time, probably close to run ten now. But there was like fourteen people still locked to uh the digging equipment at the at

the line three site. So the sheriffs and I think now state police have been called in are having one heck of a time on doing this lock boxes. So all of work at that section of the site was totally shut down for like basically basically the entire day. Um So in terms of successfulness of the action. There was less people arrested than what was gonna be initially predicted. Um, it looks like mostly arrested are people who just fully

locked down. Other people were either able to get away hiding the forest, or I think some people set up like a designated like site that that the cops didn't funk with eventually. Um, but yeah, so let's let's let's arrest anticipated um work stop page went on for a really long time. UMS, A lot of press attention there, um coverage and yeah, and people have you know, there's a lot of people locked down. Getting to Minneapolis tomorrow, then I'll be back into Portland. So this is basically

the end the end of this trip. In all, fourteen people locked down to various construction equipment, including vehicles and the pipeline itself. Twenty eight people were arrested at the July first action. Everyone arrested was released a day later. Bales were set high at ten thou dollars without conditions and five thousand with conditions. No cash bail at temper cent was offered, and many of the activists were charged with felony theft again for quote temporarily taking control of

the equipment they locked themselves to. Since the July first action, there's been about one action per week that has stopped work on the pipeline, including lockdowns, tree sets, and human body suspensions over equipment and roads using massive bipods or tripods. Most actions have been done around the horizontal drill used to drill under the waterways. It's a very specialized machine that serves as a choke point for a clear line of attack. Especially since this fight is mostly about water,

this makes it a sensible target. Also, since July first, we've been seeing more felony charges against lockdown protesters. It's kind of become the norm the past two months for this type of protest felony theft, stacked with misdemeanors and gross misdemeanors. Currently, they are about sixty people facing felony charges just in the past two months. Since June eight, the line three sites had at least twenty eight spills

of fracking fluid were called frackouts. One of them happened at the head of the Mississippi after the camp up there was cleared out by the cops. After this, in mid July, some of the Mbridge water permits were temporarily revoked while the state was in a drought, but that did not really impact construction in some better news, Remember when the Hubbard County sheriffs were blocking off the driveway to the Noma Wad Camp and we all thought that

was probably illegal. Well after I left, Sheriff's stopped physically blocking the driveway, but did always have a deputy station nearby to watch insight everyone who goes on the driveway. As of July twenty, Minnesota ninth District Judge Jenna Asted granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Hubbard County Sheriff's office from blocking vehicular access to the Noma Wad Camp.

In the order, Judge Asted ordered the Sheriff's office to stop quote barricading, obstructing, and otherwise interfering with access to the property unquote, and prohibited deputies from stopping vehicles, issuing citations, or arresting or threatening to arrest individuals for driving on the driveway. Again, quoting investigative journalist Karen Savage quote. Assistant Hubbard County Attorney Anna Emerling argued that the actions by the sheriff's office were part of a large effort to

monitor Line three opposition. The judge, however, was not persuaded, ruling the driveway blockade and subsequent issuing of citations by the Sheriff's office substantially violated the plaintiff's right to use and enjoy the property. Quote this action is about an easement, and there's no showing the laws being broken on the

disputed easement unquote, Ostad wrote in the order. It was announced in June that TransCanada, another Alberta based whale company, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline after Biden removed permits when he first took office. High visibility and performative protests have trying to get Biden and other officials to do this same for the Line three, but at this point success seems unlikely. According to Enbridge, Line three is over eight complete and may be finished as soon as September one.

There's this concept called the meat grinder. You jump into the grinder in hopes of either clogging the gears or hoping that somebody with power to stop the grinder sees you inside and will take action, But more often than not, nothing will happen, and you'll just get ground up and spit out stuff like the protest lockdowns can kind of feel like that, especially when you're getting as and I in charges like felony theft and there's over sixty people

with felony charges. On the other hand, just standing outside the grinder holding anti meat grinders signs feels like it's not nearly doing enough, and trying to covertly destroy the grinder from the outside can be scary and potentially get you into a lot of trouble. This is an issue with activism in a broad sense. We saw a little bit of this in Portland last year, with people showing up at police stations the night after night, not really knowing what to do, and then just getting attacked by

cops and getting tons of charges. One point members of the Canoe Collective, the Indigenous Women and two Spirit led group run out of now Mawag kept bringing up is that no matter the result of line three, the fight doesn't just end with this pipeline. There will be other pipelines, other deforestation projects, and more industrialization that threatens indigenous territory. All the mistakes and successes firebombs and lockdowns, marches and rallies can be learned from to make whatever the next

mobilization effort is stronger, and time and time again. One of the most useful, if not the most useful things, is just to have more people willing to do the thing. Minor and infrequent, isolated acts, whether they be ecological sabotage, monkey wrenching, or lock tents and marches, have been shown to be inadequate against the international oil giants when happening

only every once in a while. Markers can be ignored, damaged pipelines can be repaired, but if the system gets overwhelmed all at the same time, then that might be a different story. Congruent mass mobilization has to shock the cogs in the machine enough to make instituting major change the only possible outcome. That may seem far fetched or fanciful, but if you look at his story and even modern history in places outside the States, you can see echoes

inspects of this very thing. And if you look to indigenous women and to spirit both in history and now on the modern day, you can learn some really insightful ways to resist the fascist behemoth and capitalist slash colonial leviathan. Because they've been forced to resist these systems and structures

for a very long time. Listen to them, hear what they have to say, and that wraps up my episodes based on my trip to Minnesota, staying at the Earth First and Stop Line three camp, I love to cover and signal boost more stuff in this vein in the near future. One other aspect about getting involved with movements like this is that you could experience a little mini anarchy.

Whether in the Earth First camp or the Maywogue, you get to see how the world could be outside of capitalism, cops in the state, and once you get to live like that, you start to wonder why do we have any other way. It's almost intoxicating to be able to experience the world as it could be. If you want to donate directly to the New Collective, you can go to bit dot l y slash stop Pipeline three. When donated to the legal Fund, you can go to Protest Law dot org slash line three, and the bail fund

is at Stop Line three Bail Funds dot org. You can learn more about the Stop Line three movement from the New Collective on social media that's g I n I W Collective, or check out Stop Line three dot org.