Tar Sands Pipeline Extends To Minnesota Native American Communities

We have been actively working to stop Enbridge Energy’s Alberta Clipper pipeline, which would bring crude oil mined from the tar sands across the Leech Lake and Fond du Lac reservations in northern Minnesota. We have met with the Leech Lake business council to encourage them to reject Enbridge proposals, we have worked with tribal members resisting the pipeline, and we had op-eds printed in regional papers to expose the impacts on our Native communities as well as garnered national action to pressure the Secretary of State to deny the pipeline permits.

While these efforts have raised significant awareness, on August 20, the State Department issued the final permit for the project under the guise of improving America’s energy “security” by decreasing dependence on other foreign oil. But this so-called secure oil is destroying Indigenous lands and communities. The pipeline will bring 450,000 barrels of toxic crude oil through our homelands daily. This is not energy “security.”