When will the old Enbridge Line 3 pipeline get shut down? It’s up to the EPA

But what does ‘as expeditiously as practical’ mean?

A major reason the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted to approve the new and larger Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline is because commissioners were deathly afraid that original (and aging) Line 3 would rupture and spill somewhere along its northern Minnesota route.

Recall that then-PUC Commissioner Dan Lipschultz famously said that he felt like he had “a gun to the head,” meaning he either approved the new Line 3 or risked a major spill on the old Line 3.

Enbridge filed notice with the PUC Sept. 29 that Line 3 “is expected to be placed into service, with line fill activities reaching Minnesota, as early as October 3, 2021.”

That should put the gears in motion to shut down the old Line 3. That was the deal.

I’m guessing Enbridge would like to double dip as long as it can, running both pipelines and getting more profits. So who’s going to force Enbridge to stop running the old Line 3?

It’s the federal government’s responsibility, but exactly when that will happen isn’t clear.

Enbridge’s cozy relationship with law enforcement went unchecked by state leaders or critiqued by local media

Minnesota’s handling of the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline has knocked another block from our crumbling wall of democracy.

Government leaders and institution have ignored their promises, rules, logic, and even their own experts to make decisions around Line 3 that benefit powerful elites rather than consider the long-term needs of the bulk of its citizens.

Minnesota’s shrinking newsrooms have fallen flat on their collective faces, too.

As one example, there’s been no substantial critique of the precedent set of having a foreign multi-national corporation using local police as private security. There’s been no analysis of the double standard where water protectors are treated as criminals while Enbridge’s environmental damage gets a tiny financial slap on the wrist.

Unchallenged by a counter narrative, people might accept the Line 3 story as business as usual.

What follows is a collection of alternative media articles that take readers where Minnesota media failed to go. It’s an effort to weave these stories together to show the extent of the systemic bias and disparate treatment in Line 3 policing.

This is laying down a marker as a reminder for the next pipeline struggle.

Another Enbridge promise bites the dust, to Minnesota regulators’ indifference

Enbridge promised the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) that the Line 3 Decommissioning Trust Fund would be in place before it started Line 3 operations.

It turns out to be an empty promise, because it’s not enforceable. Enbridge will start Line 3 operations in the coming weeks, and the PUC has yet to open proceedings on the Decommissioning Trust Fund.

It’s one more act in the Kabuki theater that’s Minnesota’s regulatory oversight of Enbridge Line 3: All image, no substance.

State agencies hold their Line 3 information close to the vest, who are they protecting?

Minnesotans like to think we are a good government state, with sunshine laws and the ability to file State Data Practices Act requests to obtain public documents.

These laws are well and good, but they don’t replace state agencies’ responsibilities to proactively publish information they know to be of broad public interest.

The Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline provides a number of examples where state agencies have failed at information sharing.

Tar sands industry, Enbridge, face collapsing insurance market for spill cleanups

Take heart, water protectors, public pressure is having success in stopping the tar sands oil industry.

Ironically, pressure seems to be more successful on the private sector than government itself, which is supposed to protect the public interest.

This month, Chubb Insurance announced it was dropping coverage on any tar sands oil projects, the result of public pressure, according to the Insurance Business Magazine. (Chubb describes itself as “the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company.”)

In June 2020, the Swiss-based Zurich insurance company announced it was dropping its coverage of Canada’s Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline. Zurich had been the pipeline’s lead insurer.

Some 16 insurance companies have dropped Trans Mountain’s coverage.

“Insurers are being pressured by environmental activist groups to exit their coverage of fossil fuel infrastructure because, without insurance, these projects can be stopped in their tracks,” according to an article in the Insurance Journal.

The insurance crunch will have an impact on Enbridge, and raise challenging questions for Minnesota state regulators.

Line 3’s almost done, but the promised Decommissioning Trust Fund still isn’t in place

In 2018, Enbridge proposed, and the PUC accepted, the creation of a Line 3 Decommissioning Trust Fund to pay for the removal and clean up of the new Line when its taken out of service.

It’s been three years, and that agreement’s still in limbo. The Minnesota Department of Commerce has contested Enbridge’s language and it’s yet to be resolved.

State of Intimidation Part II: Police overkill on Capitol Hill

South lawn of the Minnesota State Capitol. Photo: Maggie Schuppert

Minnesota law enforcement launched an over-the-top, fear-and-intimidation response to water protectors camped out in front the Capitol Friday.

The ‘Treaties Not Tar Sands’ rally had run Monday-Thursday on the Minnesota State Capitol Mall, calling on elected officials to shut down the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline. It was a peaceful scene; roughly 20 tipis had been erected on the mall.

By late Thursday, a single large tipi remained. Native leaders were holding ceremony. Others were sleeping on the mall, according to one participant.

On Friday morning, law enforcement officers approached from multiple directions and swarmed the lone tipi. [Update: A media release from ResistLine3.org estimated 200 officers responded.] It as if they were trying to prevent a hostage situation or a bank robbery.

They demanded the tipi come down.

Indigenous leaders had to negotiate to be allowed to take the tipi down so that it could be saved rather than have law enforcement tear it down, one source said.

[Update: Six people had been arrested Friday.] The charges were not immediately known.

This situation raises significant questions about law enforcement’s bias against Indigenous water protectors and its ability to respond in proportion to the situation.

Enbridge has to clean up water it polluted decades ago in order to use it for Line 3 dewatering

Enbridge’s controversial plans to increase dewatering during Line 3 construction got an added complication: Workers need to dewater in areas where the company had past crude oil spills, leaving 8,400 gallons in ground for decades.

That means Enbridge has to treat the dewatered polluted water before returning it to the environment.

Enbridge Line 3 might be nearing completion, but state officials still have a lot to answer for

Enbridge Line 3 construction might be nearly done, but efforts to stop it from operating are far from over. Lawsuits are still pending.

Yet as we continue the important work of Line 3 resistance, we also need to have a keen focus on the broken regulatory system that approved Line 3, and is backing harmful projects such as the PolyMet Mine.

Line 3 provides an important window into that broken regulatory system. The term now in vogue is “regulatory capture.”

Regulatory capture is an economic theory that says regulatory agencies may come to be dominated by the industries or interests they are charged with regulating. The result is that an agency, charged with acting in the public interest, instead acts in ways that benefit … the industry it is supposed to be regulating.

Investopedia

State officials have dodged tough questions and accountability for their flawed decisions and complicity in the harm Line 3 will bring. Local media has let us down with its thin coverage.

What follows is a set of 14 questions that our state leaders and regulators still need to answer. In broad terms, they are: How do you understand the “public interest?” How does citizen participation affect decisions or is it just for show? How are you holding polluters accountable?

We need to keep pressing for answers.

Cuba isn’t the only country that fears its own people, just check out northern Minnesota

Last, week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken criticized the Cuban government for suppressing peaceful protests by its citizens seeking a better life. Cuba’s actions lay bare “the regime’s fear of its own people and unwillingness to meet their basic needs and aspirations,” Blinken said.

Note to Blinken: Come visit northern Minnesota where 600 people have been arrested for resisting the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline. Indigenous communities are trying to protect their way of life, their wild rice, and their treaties. Others have joined to support them to protect the planet and a livable climate.

The Line 3-related arrests and police actions show that our “regime” fears its own people, too.