The protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota set the nation ablaze — but it's not the only controversial pipeline activists are trying to block. Line 3, a pipeline in Minnesota built by the oil company Enbridge, has been in the ground for nearly 60 years — but now Enbridge wants to build a replacement to carry tar sands oil from Canada. While the new Line 3 pipeline would carry up to twice as much oil as before, it also would run through indigenous land and crucial water sources. According to the Star Tribune, Enbridge considers the replacement a necessary safety upgrade, but on September 11, the Minnesota Department of Commerce released a report saying it's not needed. And a group of young people is joining the charge against it.

Rose Whipple, a 16-year-old rising junior at Harding Senior High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, started organizing in the Twin Cities area after hearing about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. She is also part of the Santee Dakota and Ho-Chunk tribes, which motivated her to become more involved in this cause. Now Rose, along with a team of 12 other young people (all under 25 and many inspired by the Dakota Access Pipeline protests), is working to stop Line 3.

Line 3 is projected to pump 760,000 barrels of oil a day, but it also impacts the land and wild rice of indigenous people, as well as greenhouse gas emissions and drinking water. In 1991, Line 3 was the site of one of the largest inland oil spills in history, when it spilled 1.7 million gallons of crude oil near Grand Rapids, Minnesota. “Once oil touches the ground and seeps into the soil, you can’t undo that,” Rose tells Teen Vogue. “A lot of our drinking water, we can’t even drink it. In Flint, Michigan, their water is poisoned. As an indigenous person, water is very sacred to us...It hurts me when I see that happening.”

Before the Line 3 replacement can be built, Enbridge must obtain a permit from the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. Organizers and individuals have the right to try to intervene, and Rose and her team — the Youth Climate Intervenors — are doing just that.

The group first filed a petition to legally intervene on May 12. In it, they wrote, “The resources meant to be held in public trust for future generations have been squandered away by the governments that are meant to protect us, and so we feel that it is both reasonable and necessary that we are granted a seat at the table to argue for their protection ourselves.”

Six days after the Youth Climate Intervenors filed their petition, Enbridge filed an objection, arguing that the Youth Climate Intervenors, along with several other who petitioned to intervene, weren't personally impacted by the pipeline, but Minnesota judge Ann O’Reilly ultimately sided with the youths. Now, the Youth Climate Intervenors will be able to take an active role in legally fighting the pipeline, such as by participating in hearings and submitting evidence on the pipeline's impacts. “We addressed the judge saying we had a legal standing to intervene because as youth, we are disproportionately affected by this pipeline and disproportionately ignored in this process,” Margaret Breen, a 19-year-old sophomore at Macalester College, tells Teen Vogue.

Their win marks the first time a group of young people have formally intervened in the process for reviewing a pipeline, according to ThinkProgress. “There’s never been other young people like us [who] have intervened and been granted [status] on a pipeline,” Akilah Sanders-Reed, a 23-year-old intervenor and an organizer with the Power Shift Network, tells Teen Vogue. “It was really exciting. Young people have the rights to argue for their future about things like the oil pipeline and oil infrastructure.”