Struggle over Roof Depot redevelopment enters new phase, civil disobedience likely

Roughly 70 people gathered outside in the cold Sunday afternoon to hold a Healing Circle in Minneapolis’ East Phillips neighborhood. During an open-mic, they expressed sadness, anger and frustration over the city’s plans to expand its Public Works facility near 26th Street onto the Roof Depot site.

The Roof Depot site is vacant, but for an unused warehouse. The city plans to tear down the warehouse to accommodate more Public Works staff and equipment. It would bring more diesel fumes to an already over-polluted community. Neighbors say they can’t take — and shouldn’t have to take — any more air pollution, and the illnesses and death that comes with it.

The resistance entered a new phase Sunday, with talk of direct action to block the warehouse’s demolition. The East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI) dreams to convert the warehouse into a community-owned asset, with an urban farm, affordable housing, and an income-generating solar array, hangs in the balance.

Red Lake Nation Votes to Evict Enbridge Pipelines; Native Youth to Visit Pope, Ask Him to Repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery

The Red Lake Tribal Council voted last week to evict Enbridge crude oil pipelines from sovereign tribal lands. Enbridge, a major Canadian crude oil pipeline company, has four lines that cross 8 acres of Red Lake land; they were built decades ago, apparently without proper land title search.

According to the March 16 story:

The land in question was originally ceded by the Red Lake band to the federal government in 1889. But it was never sold, so in 1945, the U.S. Department of the Interior restored the land to the tribe.

In the 1980s, the BIA discovered that Enbridge’s pipelines appeared to be in trespass on Red Lake land.

The federal government never resolved the problem. Red Lake started pushing the issue back in 2007. Red Lake and Enbridge had negotiated a land swap and $18.5 million cash deal, but Red Lake pulled out of that deal earlier this year and now is taking the next step to tell Enbridge to remove its pipelines.

Pipeline opposition is sweeping through Indian Country. Red Lake and other Native nations opposed construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near Standing Rock in 2016. Red Lake strongly opposes the construction of a new Enbridge Line 3 across northern Minnesota.

Rerouting the four existing pipelines off of Red Lake land would cost Enbridge $10 million, the story said. (That’s less than the $18.5 million Enbridge had on the table, but that amount included back pay for the decades of trespass on Red Lake lands. That issue remains unresolved.)

Red Lake member Marty Cobenais pushed for the measure to force Enbridge to remove all of its existing pipelines from Red Lake lands.