Minnesota, where a nonviolent water protector is facing up to five years in prison for taking part in an action against the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands oil pipeline. Two years ago, in August of 2021, Mylene Vialard attached herself to a 25-foot bamboo tower erected to block a Line 3 pumping station in Aitkin County. Vialard, who lives in Colorado, had come to Minnesota to take part in a wave of Indigenous-led acts of civil disobedience to stop the pipeline. She was filmed during the action.
Two years ago, I heard the call from Indigenous women and two-spirit people to come to Minnesota to fight Line 3 and was really moved by their plight. It’s been a long fight for them. And so, my daughter decided to come here first, and then I followed her later to also participate in nonviolent protection.
On that day, on that particular day, August 26, there was a bamboo and wire tower that was erected, which I climbed to the top of and locked into with another water protector. And we were trying to stop the construction of this, with Tara, pumping station, which, by the way, just had an aquifer breach happening just exactly a month ago. So, we were trying to avoid just that. Enbridge has a really bad track record for oil spills, going back to the ’90s or ’80s, and so we were outraged that the permit had
— source democracynow.org | Sep 01, 2023