Line 3 - The Narrow and The Broad

Photo: MN Commerce Dept.

First, a bit of a preface. Most of Moments in the Park focuses on noticing, appreciating, and highlighting nature's beauty. In an ever-expanding spiral, paying attention to the intricacies of the extra-human world has nurtured a love for all of its many faceted parts, and that love prompts an ever deepening awareness. Through the moments, I hope to spark an interest and open others' eyes and ears to notice, enjoy, and love nature wherever they are.

But, as Kathleen Dean Moore eloquently explains in the afterword of Holdfast, in this day and age, love for the natural world must be a fierce love, a love that fights to protect what it holds dear. My love for the butterflies and birds in my back yard and their kin in cities and wilderness around the world compels me to act to protect the full planetary community that supports and sustains my neighborhood park.

It was this need to protect, to, like the Lorax, give voice to the quiet trees, that drove me to attend the September 28 public hearings on the certificate of need for Line 3.

---

The current Line 3 pipeline has run through Minnesota for over 60 years and is nearing the end of its functional life. The company that controls it, Enbridge, has proposed replacing and expanding its capacity to carry ever larger amounts of oil from the Canadian tar sands to processing facilities. One of the legal hurdles that must be cleared before the new pipeline can be built is a certificate of need, affirming that the infrastructure is necessary to meet our energy needs and that its benefits outweigh its costs to society. Having completed an environmental impact statement, the state of Minnesota has moved on to the final stage of considering whether to grant the certificate of need.

Having never participated in a public hearing of this type before, I was uncertain what to expect when I arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown St. Paul. One thing I did not expect, and which took me aback, was a sea of people in lime green T-shirts emblazoned with, "I support safe energy transportation." Apparently, the same highly educated, urban, middle class, progressive bubble that was so thoroughly burst by election day last year had sucked me in again. I have been bombarded by emails and social media messaging from MN350.org, the Sierra Club, and other organizations with calls to act in opposition to the various stages of this process. In such messages, the fight is typically portrayed as a popular opposition to greedy fossil fuel company executives. Ordinary citizens coming out in support of the proposed pipeline are incongruous in this story line. Yet there they were.

My defenses went up, wondering if this was going to get more contentious than I had counted on. When I arrived, I was intending mostly to observe, to bear witness, and to support the opposition to the pipeline through my presence. Assuming that most of those present would be like-minded opponents of the pipeline, I thought I wouldn't necessarily have to speak to show which side I was on.

And, at first, I did simply observe. I listened to the testimony of the men and women in the green shirts, who turned out mostly to be the everyday employees of Enbridge and affiliated industries. I also listened to the testimony of the others who were there, as I was, fighting to protect what they love. Perhaps because this is Minnesota, everything was very orderly and polite. Those speaking in favor of the pipeline tended to focus their arguments on the need for the jobs and other economic benefits building the pipeline would provide, the need for the energy to be produced the oil moved through the pipeline, or more technical arguments on the relative safety of transporting oil via pipeline rather than rail. Several also touched on the relatively good environmental record, at least with regard to spills, Enbridge has had in operating the existing Line 3. On the side opposing the pipeline, arguments were split between concern about potential spills and their threats to water quality, and concern about climate change associated with the continued burning of fossil fuels.

Headlines the next day portrayed the hearings as "Jobs versus the Environment." While that is the standard story line in cases like this, it doesn't truly reflect what I heard. I would describe the hearing as a narrow view as opposed to a broad view. The narrow view was presented by those in the lime green shirts. In this view, the oil must be transported. The pipeline project's benefits loom large - thousands of jobs, millions of dollars of tax revenue, millions of megawatts of inexpensive, reliable energy. In some aspects, even the environmental impact statement adopted this narrow view. The structure of the EIS involves an analysis of alternatives to the proposed project, but all of the alternatives examined revolved around different ways of transporting the oil.

Photo: MN350.org

Those speaking in opposition to the pipeline represented a broader view. At first, I was dismayed by the apparent organization of those in the lime green shirts, while those of us on the other side had little coherent presence. But that lack of an visible united front was actually emblematic of the diversity of the coalition. Native Americans spoke about hazards to water quality and wild rice and violations of treaty rights. Scientists spoke about groundwater transport of contaminants and climate change. Representatives of many faith communities - Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Unitarian - spoke about the moral responsibility to protect our shared environment, including references to Pope Francis' landmark Laudato Si' encyclical. Having been raised Lutheran and experienced the long-standing animosity between Lutherans and Catholics, one of my favorite moments was when the Lutheran remarked that this was one issue on which Lutherans agree with Catholics. Suburban moms spoke about the kind of world they wanted their children to grow up in. One of the most passionate pleas came from an Air Force service member who spoke of the senseless deaths of comrades in wars fought over oil.

Ultimately, I did decide to speak. While many people were speaking to the potential harm caused by the pipeline, no one had yet explicitly called out and questioned the underlying assumption that the only way to obtain the benefits touted for the project was to extract, transport, and consume the oil. As a geographer/systems engineer, trained to look at the big picture, my role seemed to be to call out the broader view.

It is possible to supply our energy needs with solar and wind energy, and building out renewable energy infrastructure would have many of the same economic benefits as building more fossil fuel infrastructure. Pipelines and oil are not the only way to generate jobs, taxes, or energy. Fossil fuels, however, are unique in their devastating effects on climate. Renewable energy is nearing economic parity with fossil fuel energy already. If we have the political will to tip the regulatory, incentive, and tax scales from favoring fossil fuel interests to favoring renewable energy, we will unleash an energy revolution. Denying this certificate of need would be a major step in that direction.

But, ultimately, we need to broaden our view still further. Halting the production and consumption of fossil fuel energy is only half the battle. We must also take on the work of building renewable energy infrastructure. And to do that, we need to join forces with those who were at the hearing to support the pipeline. Many of the men and women in the lime green shirts were engineers. One spoke of having worked in sectors from pulp and paper to mining. Clearly these are transferable skills. And they are skills just as relevant and necessary for building an energy system based on windmills and solar panels as they are to building pipelines. So, to those of you in the lime green shirts, please, join us. We need you.

---

The public comment period on the need for the Line 3 project is open until 4:30 p.m. (Central Time), November 22, 2017. Comments may be submitted via email to publicadvisor.puc@state.mn.us, or online. See the Notice of Public and Evidentiary Hearings for more information, including dates and times of hearing events around Minnesota.