CLEAR­BROOK, MINN. — On Octo­ber 14, Indige­nous Peo­ples’ Day, more than 200 Indige­nous lead­ers and allies marched down a high­way to Enbridge Inc.’s U.S. pipeline ter­mi­nal in North­ern Min­neso­ta, to protest the pro­posed Line 3 oil pipeline replace­ment project.

Costing $7.5 billion, Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline would be one of the largest crude oil pipelines in the world.

Brav­ing cold tem­per­a­tures and a foul stench in the air from the oil ter­mi­nal, sup­port­ers from across the state and region held up signs with mes­sages such as ​“Water is Life,” ​“Pro­tect the Sacred” and ​“Hon­or the Treaties,” and chant­ed ​“Stop Line 3!” As they marched toward the ter­mi­nal, a large, loud trac­tor with a ​“Min­neso­ta for Line 3” sign drove ahead of the group, try­ing — unsuc­cess­ful­ly — to drown out the chants.

Pro­test­ers arranged them­selves in a cir­cle out­side of the ter­mi­nal entry gates as Anishi­naabeg speak­ers demand­ed treaty rights be respect­ed, water sources pro­tect­ed and cli­mate dis­as­ter avert­ed. Behind them, large white cylin­ders, hold­ing tanks con­tain­ing tar sands oil jut­ted from the cornfields.

The pro­posed Line 3 pipeline’s route would car­ry 760,000 bar­rels of oil per day from the Alber­ta tar sands to the west­ern edge of Lake Supe­ri­or, cross­ing sev­er­al sen­si­tive ecosys­tems, 15 water­sheds affect­ing 215 lakes, and sev­er­al crit­i­cal cul­tur­al resources, and vio­lat­ing 1854 and 1855 Ojib­we treaty rights along the way. These treaties enti­tle Ojib­we trib­al mem­bers to ​“make a mod­est liv­ing from the land,” even on ced­ed ter­ri­to­ry (off-reser­va­tion). These rights to hunt, fish, gath­er med­i­c­i­nal plants, har­vest and cul­ti­vate wild rice, and pre­serve sacred or cul­tur­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant sites, would all be threat­ened by the pipeline. White Earth, Fond du Lac, Red Lake, Leech Lake and Mille Lacs tribes have all engaged in legal process­es in an attempt to stop the pipeline.

“Some­thing like Line 3 has the poten­tial to wipe out the cul­ture of my peo­ple, the Anishi­naabeg peo­ple,” says Tara Hous­ka, founder of Ginew Col­lec­tive, one of the main groups involved in orga­niz­ing the march on Enbridge.

Hous­ka also notes the poten­tial for an oil spill that could dev­as­tate the area. Enbridge has built sev­er­al oil pipelines in the Great Lakes region, near­ly all of which have leaked. South­east Michi­gan is still recov­er­ing from a one-mil­lion-gal­lon oil spill into the Kala­ma­zoo riv­er in 2010, and the aging Line 5 pipeline, feared to leak into the sen­si­tive Straits of Mack­inac between Lake Huron and Lake Michi­gan, has faced mount­ing oppo­si­tion as its infra­struc­ture con­tin­ues to deteriorate.

“A poten­tial spill … could impact mil­lions of peo­ple,” Hous­ka says. ​“It’s also the over­all glob­al cli­mate that’s at stake.”

Cost­ing $7.5 bil­lion, Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline would be one of the largest crude oil pipelines on the con­ti­nent. Tar sands oil is the dirt­i­est form of fuel, 20% more car­bon inten­sive than con­ven­tion­al crude oil. The project’s 2017 Envi­ron­men­tal Impact State­ment (EIS), writ­ten by the Min­neso­ta Depart­ment of Com­merce, esti­mat­ed that the emis­sions asso­ci­at­ed with a new Line 3 pipeline would have a ​“social cost” amount­ing to $287 bil­lion over the first 30 years of the pipeline’s life.

Pipeline con­struc­tion also pos­es dan­ger­ous risks to Indige­nous women and chil­dren. Research has doc­u­ment­ed an increase in drug and sex traf­fick­ing and vio­lent crime cor­re­spond­ing to the influx of tem­po­rary hous­ing facil­i­ties built to accom­mo­date the pre­dom­i­nant­ly male con­struc­tion work­ers, known as ​“man camps.” These camps, which often exac­er­bate sub­stance abuse prob­lems in stress­ful work­ing con­di­tions, are one of the many caus­es con­tribut­ing to the epi­dem­ic of miss­ing and mur­dered Indige­nous women. One 2008 report by researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Delaware and the Uni­ver­si­ty of North Car­oli­na, Wilm­ing­ton found that rates of mur­der against Amer­i­can Indi­an and Alas­ka Native women on trib­al lands can be up to 10 times high­er than the nation­al average.

With so much at stake, Indige­nous groups and allies are fight­ing the project on mul­ti­ple fronts. Enbridge had orig­i­nal­ly planned to start oper­a­tion by the end of this year, but the project faces mul­ti­ple law­suits, and will need to secure sev­er­al key per­mits from both state and fed­er­al agen­cies. Although the Min­neso­ta Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to approve the project in 2018, the Min­neso­ta Court of Appeals over­turned the project’s envi­ron­men­tal review (EIS) this year in response to a law­suit by project oppo­nents, say­ing it did not address the risks of a spill in the Lake Supe­ri­or watershed.

The Min­neso­ta Pol­lu­tion Con­trol Agency recent­ly denied a key water per­mit on Sep­tem­ber 27, not­ing the invalid EIS. Enbridge will need to pro­vide more infor­ma­tion about how neg­a­tive effects can be mit­i­gat­ed before it can reap­ply again.

Enbridge began ​“pre-con­struc­tion” activ­i­ties, includ­ing sur­vey­ing, land acqui­si­tion, engi­neer­ing and design in 2014, and the com­pa­ny intends to see the pipeline in full oper­a­tion in the sec­ond half of 2020. Even if Enbridge moves ahead with con­struc­tion activ­i­ties that vio­late their cur­rent per­mits, it may only receive a fine, Hous­ka says.

Still, sup­port­ers are con­fi­dent the resis­tance will grow.

“The future depends on us win­ning,” says Mysti Babineau, an Anishi­naabe woman with the cli­mate group MN350, who helped orga­nize the march in Clear­brook. ​“And we will, together.”