A banner with “Love Water Not Oil” boldly painted on it was unfurled for national broadcast television from baseball’s all-star game at Target Field in Minneapolis. The large banner hung next to an image of Derek Jeeter for a good ten minutes before being removed.
“Love Water Not Oil” is a slogan about keeping all waters clean, but the immediate focus is on the proposed Alberta Canada based Enbridge pipeline. It is intended to carry oil from the Baaken fracking fields in North Dakota to Superior, Wisconsin, a Great Lake port with access to the world market. It would travel across sensitive and historic northern wet lands including near the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca.
Enbridge has a less than stellar accident record. They already have six pipelines running through Minnesota that are less in the public eye than Keystone XL, but with plans to expand capacity, they become a kind of backdoor for the thick and dirty Alberta tar sand crude. For comparison, the proposed Keystone XL pipeline could carry 830,000 barrels per day. Enbridge’s expansion plans would increase capacity in Line 3 from 400,000 barrels of oil a day to 760,000 and the Alberta Clipper line would carry 800,000.
The slogan “Love Water Not Oil” was the theme of a benefit concert put on by “Honor the Earth” an organization spearheaded by indigenous people, Winona LaDuke and the Indigo Girls. It was established to defend waters, land and communities from pipelines and practices of dangerous resource extraction. Obviously, the slogan is catching on since spokespeople for “Honor the Earth” said they weren’t behind the banner.
They - we - united against pipelines, have allies. A Cowboy and Indian Alliance rode into Washington D.C. in April to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Other tribes have taken actions along pipeline routes and even legal actions demanding treaties that give them final say over their lands are honored. The indigenous in the USA aren’t alone. About 500 members of an Amazon tribe in Peru occupied an oil field there. Up north in British Columbia Canada, One Nation tribal members from clans within the Wet’suwet’en Nation united against pipelines and the Unist’ot’en clan camped in front of another proposed pipe - or river - for tar sands oil, the Northern Gateway Pipeline.
Incidentally, Henry Schoolcraft named the source of the Mississippi River Itasca after an indigenous Anishinaabe guide, Ozawindib, showed it to him in 1832. (Itasca Combines the latin veritas and caput - truth and head) The area became a state park in 1891 and is the second oldest state park in the US. The colorful history includes an early example of environmental activism and perhaps feminism as the 24-year-old park commissioner, Mary Gibbs, was willing to risk her life to successfully defend the park from gun wielding loggers.
http://www.parkrapidsenterprise.com/content/enbridge-protest-makes-national-game
http://www.honorearth.org/love_water_not_oil