More Than 800 Line 3 Water Protectors Arrested Since Pipeline's Approval

By Ella Fassler, Truthout

This summer, the ocean burned, an ashy haze covered much of North America, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report confirming what we already know: Capitalism-induced climate crisis is here. Yet approvals for oil and gas drilling permits on U.S. public lands are on pace this year to reach their highest level since George W. Bush was president. The Biden administration declined to withdraw federal permits for oil company Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline, a proposed expansion to a 1960s-era line that would bring nearly 1 million barrels of tar sands oil per day from Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wisconsin.

In the midst of corporate and governmental facilitated environmental destruction, Water Protectors — a term used to describe those who defend the Earth’s water from pollutants — have been forced to take matters into their own hands, and are facing harsh state repression as a result. Trumped-up charges, police violence, excessively high bail and intensive aerial surveillance are becoming the new normal in Minnesota, where Enbridge employees are working 24 hours a day to complete construction of the pipeline…