

Winona LaDuke, center, flanked by Kevin Whelan, executive director of MN350, and Loren Blackford. Photo by Heather Wilson.

On August 29, I stood with 25 others, including Indigenous, faith, environmental, and youth partners and several Sierra Club colleagues, in the town of Bemidji, Minnesota, participating in an act of civil disobedience and risking arrest. In coordination with activists livestreaming our action at the State House, we were trying to persuade Governor Mark Dayton to ban the construction of a new, enlarged and re-routed Line 3 tar sands pipeline that would lock in fossil fuel infrastructure for an additional 50 years and pose a danger to Ojibwe tribal lands and the headwaters of the Mississippi.



Left to right: Reverend LeAnne Watkins; Nellis Kennedy-Howard, director of the Sierra Club's Equity, Inclusion, and Justice program; Reverend Buff Grace; Brian PaStarr; and Margaret Levin, senior director of the Sierra Club's North Star Chapter. Photo courtesy of Jaida Grey Eagle and Hannah Smith of Honor the Earth.

This action was a big deal for the Sierra Club—and for me personally. I was always the kid who would never break the rules. To this day, disobedience goes against the grain of who I perceive myself to be. Similarly, the Sierra Club has explicitly prohibited civil disobedience until this policy was changed by the Board of Directors in February 2017. Only twice before in our history has the board voted to allow an act of civil disobedience: once in opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, and again a few years later to help protect voting rights.



Loren Blackford being detained. Photo by Heather Wilson.

This summer, after the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission voted to approve Enbridge, Inc.’s proposed enlargement of the Line 3 pipeline, which would more than double the volume of dirty tar sands crude flowing through Line 3 and endanger some of the state’s most vital water resources, we decided to once again take part in an act of civil disobedience.

In Minnesota, a reporter asked me why, given the Sierra Club’s history of eschewing civil disobedience, we chose to participate in the Line 3 action, and why was it being held at Bemidji? “Urgency,” I answered. “We have a limited amount of time to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.”



Left to right, Lorna Hanes of Honor the Earth; Nellis Kennedy-Howard; Winona LaDuke; and North Star Chapter executive committee member Kamau Wilkins. Photo courtesy of Nellis Kennedy-Howard.

That is certainly a big part of the reason. The Line 3 pipeline would carry filthy tar sands crude oil from Canada over the U.S. border. Tar sands are the dirtiest fuel source on the planet. Tar sands mining operations are decimating forests in Canada, and climate experts have warned that expansion of tar sands operations would dramatically accelerate catastrophic climate change.

The movement across North America to stop or at least delay pipelines like Keystone XL, which would run from Alberta to refineries in Illinois and Texas and then for export overseas, and Trans Mountain, proposed to run from Alberta to the British Columbia coast, is already having a real impact, and the lack of pipeline capacity is currently the biggest obstacle to further development of tar sands. In order to avoid climate disaster, we have to keep tar sands in the ground. We can do that by preventing Line 3 from being rebuilt.

But concern for our climate isn’t the only reason to oppose this pipeline. We chose to join the action in Bemidji because of the serious threat Line 3 would pose to Indigenous people in Minnesota. The pipeline route would cut through treaty-protected Native American lands where tribes have harvested wild rice for generations. A tar sands crude oil spill in this sensitive area would threaten permanent damage to the Ojibwe people’s rights, health, and way of life.



Nellis Kennedy-Howard with Loren Blackford. Photo courtesy of Nellis Kennedy-Howard.

For years we have worked with Indigenous, youth, and other partners to navigate the regulatory process to stop the Line 3 re-route and enlargement by legal means. Together, we followed the rules, presented the evidence, and made a compelling, fact-based case for why this enlarged pipeline should never be built. But the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission sided with Enbridge and voted to allow the Line 3 enlargement to move forward, regardless of the cost to water, communities, and climate.

The Commission’s action made it abundantly clear that the only way to halt the project is to persuade Governor Dayton to take action. We wanted to send a strong message to the governor that these Indigenous frontline communities are not alone in the fight to stop the Line 3 enlargement. The full weight of our organization and our 3+ million members and supporters is behind them.



Photo by Heather Wilson.

I will never be a person who takes civil disobedience lightly. Likewise, the Sierra Club will continue to be an organization that engages in these actions very rarely, and only after a thoughtful and deliberative decision-making process. But standing up to the fossil fuel industry will take every tool in our toolkit; from litigation to lobbying in Washington, D.C., to mass mobilization—and, occasionally, risking arrest in order to support the communities most threatened by dirty fuels and climate change.



At left, Dwight Wagenius, Community Minister of the Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ and chair of the Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light board of directors. Photo by Heather Wilson.

The day before the action, I watched a pair of bald eagles fly over an American flag waving above Lake Bemidji. It felt like a powerful sign that, despite my fears and misgivings, it was my responsibility to stand with our Indigenous, youth, faith, and other partners to protect our waters, communities, country, and planet. It was the right thing to do.

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Take action: Sign our petition telling Governor Dayton not to permit the new, enlarged Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

Thanks go out to the Sierra Club's North Star Chapter, national staff, field staff, volunteers, and all our partners.