A few weeks ago the State Department held it’s only Open House on the pending Presidential Permit to expand Enbridge Line 67 in Bemidji, MN. Bemidji is close to the pipeline, the three surrounding First Nations reservations belonging to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe bands of Red Lake, Leech Lake and White Earth, and is home to the Indigenous Environmental Network and well known activists like Dallas Goldtooth (link to Dallas Goldtooth’s youtube). Nevertheless, the Leech Lake Band felt an off-reservation meeting site was a breach of trust with the State Department, and the Leech Lake Tribal Council has received a call from its land management professionals to remove itself as a named partner in the Draft SEIS document.
Here is a link to a Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) fact sheet on Line 67.
Here is a link to the Sierra Club’s page on line 67.
With today’s action by the Trump Administration to approve the Keystone XL Presidential Permit, it’s clear that the State Department is going to dismiss the concerns related to tar sands carbon emissions contributing to climate change.
I would encourage people with time, energy and knowledge to submit more and better comments about the Line 67 expansion’s hazard to human health (e.g. tons more VOCs to emitted in towns with pump stations and terminals), hazards to agriculture (Enbridge does a poor job of controlling noxious weeds and invasive exotics in the pipeline right-of-way, especially spotted knapweed, and that degrades grazing and hay-making here in Beltrami County), and hazards to fishing, recreational use of area waters, and an anticipated 45 mile visible oil sheen on the Mississippi River should a leak occur near the many points the Line 67 pipeline intersects with that river.
Thank you for your timely attention to the closing public comment period!
UPDATE: Here is the direct link to submit comments on the Line 67 Presidential Permit Draft SEIS