Thread by @grist

For the Anishinaabe people, the annual wild rice harvest across the Great Lakes is tradition, sustenance, and cultural lifeway.

But, the wild rice is at risk, threatened by climate change, mining, water pollution, and now the #Line3 pipeline. grist.org/food/line-3-pi…

Frank Bibeau remembers canoeing on the waters of northern Minnesota with his father on a late summer day in 1996. Bibeau learned to harvest the grain from his father, who learned from his father before him, and so on — “since time immemorial,” he told @HerrCaitlin.

“Wild rice is our life. Where there’s Anishinaabe there’s rice. Where there’s rice there’s Anishinaabe. It’s our most sacred food,” said Anishinaabe activist @WinonaLaduke, who has spent much of her career defending the grain. grist.org/food/line-3-pi…

The #Line3 pipeline is slated to carry 760,000 barrels of crude oil a day across more than 200 bodies of water, including lakes, streams, wetlands, the headwaters of the Mississippi River — and through the heart of Minnesota, over 3,400 acres of wild rice lakes.

The possibility of oil spills from Line 3 looms over the wild rice waters it crosses. Wild rice is an indicator species — it reflects the health of an ecosystem — and it requires clean water in order to grow, making it especially vulnerable to oil spills. grist.org/food/line-3-pi…

On Monday, more than 100 people were arrested protesting along the Line 3 route in Minnesota and U.S. Customs and Border Protection dispatched a helicopter that hovered 20 to 25 feet over protesters, kicking up massive clouds of dust and debris.

https://twitter.com/efrostee/status/1401952522319843329?s=21

In order to approve the #Line3 pipeline, the Public Utilities Commission asked Enbridge to create a Public Safety Escrow Trust Account to reimburse pipeline-related policing along the route.

As of April 24, the escrow account has distributed $750,000 to law enforcement overall.

Since its proposal, the pipeline has faced an embattled decade, including several rounds of legal challenges from Indigenous communities, environmental groups, and the Minnesota Department of Commerce. grist.org/food/line-3-pi…

LaDuke has been fighting the pipeline in court and at regulatory hearings since the beginning.

“I’ve testified at so many hearings. Then they kept asking us to testify again. How many times do you ask your people to come out and cry for a judge?” grist.org/food/line-3-pi…

Bibeau, who is a lawyer for @HonorTheEarth, has been fighting Line 3 in the courts for years, and he sees a unique opportunity in the legal battle. He says the case may be an opportunity to force the state to recognize Indigenous treaty rights. grist.org/food/line-3-pi…

In present-day Minnesota, the Anishinaabe — specifically, the Ojibwe —people’s first large land concession was an 1837 treaty, where negotiators made certain that the Anishinaabe retained use rights to the land ceded by the treaty for hunting, fishing, and gathering of wild rice.

Bibeau sees the appearance of the words “wild rice” in the 1837 treaty as a crucial part of the fight against Line 3. Honor the Earth and the White Earth Band of Ojibwe have filed multiple rounds of legal challenges to Line 3 based on these treaty rights. grist.org/food/line-3-pi…

"If we have water rights, which I believe we do, then you need our consent to even cross the waters or use the waters for another purpose that we think is harmful. When we get to that consent place, it’s going to change the dynamics across the nation.” grist.org/food/line-3-pi…