a project of

The Line 3 pipeline replacement carves through vast stretches of wetlands and tribal lands before reaching its endpoint in the US.^[10] It crosses 200 rivers and streams in northern Minnesota that are part of the Mississippi river headwaters.^[11] One single spill would threaten the drinking water of 18 million people.^[12] The Line 3 replacement traverses treaty land and snakes its way between the White Earth, Leech Lake and Red Lake reservations.^[13][14] The Anishinaabe people fish and hunt in those lands and farm traditional wild rice. They have done so for thousands of years. A pipeline spill would poison the water, kill the wildlife, and force the Indigenous people to leave their homes.^[15]

A spill is almost certain. In the US, there were 3,398 pipeline spills between 2010 and 2020.^[16] From 2002 to August 2018, Enbridge and its subsidiaries caused more than 300 spills from their pipelines.¹⁴⁴⁶⁷ Enbridge was itself responsible for the largest inland oil spill in US history. In 1991, the Line 3 pipeline spilt more than 6.4 million liters (1.7 million gallons) of tar sands oil on a frozen river near the Grand Rapids in northern Minnesota. The owner of the pipeline was Lakehead Pipe Line Company, a subsidiary of the company which later became Enbridge.¹⁴⁴⁶⁹ Had the river not been frozen, the tar sands oil would have poisoned the drinking water of 18 million people.^[18] During construction works for the Line 3 expansion, Enbridge caused numerous groundwater leakages and contamination incidents. When the company drilled into the soil to lay the pipes, it ruptured 3 groundwater reservoirs.¹⁴⁴⁷⁵ As a result, close to 300 million gallons (1.1 billion liters) of water gushed out of the ground.¹⁴⁴⁷⁷ Enbridge did not notify the state of the breaches for more than 6 months.¹⁵⁴³⁹ Regulatory authorities ordered the company to pay USD 11 million in penalties for the breaches.^1448115441 Enbridge also spilled drilling fluids at least 28 times during the construction of Line 3.¹⁴⁴⁷⁹ There is a clear pattern when it comes to Enbridge’s spill management. The warning is clear: It is only a matter of time until Enbridge’s expanded Line 3 spills.

Indigenous people led the fight against Line 3. They worked tirelessly to highlight the risks involved with Line 3. In May 2021, more than 300 national and local groups signed a joint letter to President Biden asking him to immediately halt its construction.^[20] In June 2021, protestors engaged in days of action against the pipeline. Thousands of people took part.^[21] Police arrested hundreds and shot at protesters with rubber bullets.^[22] Disturbingly, Enbridge reportedly paid the police over USD 8.6 million to guard its construction site against demonstrators.^1448514487 In a deal with the state, Enbridge reimbursed the meals, overtime hours, and gear for police officers that protected the pipeline construction site from protestors.¹⁴⁴⁸⁵ Investigations revealed that these reimbursements included handcuffs used on protestors, a Pipeline Punch-named energy drink and trainings on using teargas.¹⁵⁴⁴³ These payments practically turned the police into a private security firm for the fossil fuel company rather than it acting like an an independent state body.¹⁴⁴⁸⁹ The trend ran deep: In late 2025, a Line 3 protestor had her conviction overturned by an Appeals Court, which noted the “pervasive misconduct” by prosecutors targeting peaceful protests against the pipeline.²³³¹¹ Enbridge has also been accused of tracking and spying on community meetings and protestors it considers a threat to the project.¹⁴⁴⁹¹ Enbridge’s aggressive tactics are a desperate response to over a decade of people marching, petitioning, speaking up in local government meetings and engaging politicians to keep the Line 3 replacement at bay. Even after Enbridge announced the completion of initial expansion works and the first oil fill in October 2021, Indigenous and environmental activists vowed to keep up the protest.^[24]23320 And that’s what they have done.

^{Line 5: same problems, different story}

Since 2020, Enbridge has been working on another climate-killing project. The company wants to breathe new life into its Line 5 pipeline, which starts at the point where Line 3 ends.^1544523312 Although Line 5 was originally built with a 50-year lifespan in mind, it has already been pumping oil for 70 years. It has spilled dozens of times since its inception, and the danger of another spill looms large.^1544715449 In Wisconsin, the riverbanks of the Bad River are washing away the land less than 5 meters from the pipeline and threaten its collapse.^1545115453 This is happening exactly where parts of Line 5 have been trespassing on land belonging to the Bad River Band since 2013, after a land use agreement between Enbridge and the Band expired.¹⁵⁴⁵⁵ The Bad River Band, who are also members of the Ashinabee people and live in the Great Lakes region, want the pipeline off their land.^1545715459 The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has repeatedly called for the decommissioning of Line 5, citing the “real and credible threat to the human rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and the United States”.²³³¹³ In June 2023, a judge ordered Enbridge to shut down the section running on the Bad River Band’s land within 3 years and pay them over USD 5 million in compensation.¹⁵⁴⁶¹ Enbridge has appealed the ruling and continues to operate the pipeline. Rather than dismantle the nature-killing pipeline, Enbridge wants to reroute and replace it.

As well as trespassing on Indigenous land, Line 5 runs through the Straits of Mackinack. The Straits are a stretch of water connecting two of the five lakes in Michigan’s Great Lakes region.^1546315465 These are among the biggest lakes in the world. The Great Lakes are home to 21% of the world's fresh surface water and supply drinking water for 48 million people.¹⁵⁴⁶⁷ In its current form, Line 5 runs on the lake bed, and has been struck multiple times by ship anchors.¹⁹⁴⁵⁷ If Line 5 were to collapse into the Bad River, it would be a catastrophe.If it were to burst underwater in the Straits, the extent of the disaster would be almost impossible to grasp. The oil could reach over 450 lakes and thousands of kilometers of shoreline.^1546915471 Enbridge’s solution for its pipeline being on the verge of collapse is to double down on passing through the strait. Enbridge is now proposing to build a tunnel to house the pipeline.Scientists have accused the company of downplaying the technical risks associated with such a project.¹⁵⁴⁷³ Enbridge’s consultants claim the company’s leak detection mechanisms can cut off any potential spill from Line 5 after 13 minutes.¹⁵⁴⁷⁵ In reality, its detection mechanisms failed to detect all but one of the 29 recorded oil spills from Line 5 since its inception.¹⁵⁴⁷⁷ In November 11, 2024, Enbridge reported a 2 gallon oil spill form its Line 6 pipeline, which originates from the same point as Line 5. 3 days later, it revised the estimated spill quantity from 2 gallons to 136. Almost a month later, the final figure stood at almost 70,000 gallons.²³³¹⁴ This is exactly the situation opponents to Line 3 and 5 have tried so hard to expose. Considering Enbridge’s track record, an oil spill seems almost inevitable, and the consequences are far too catastrophic to dismiss lightly. Michigan State’s Attorney General is fighting hard to shut down the pipeline due to these risks. It has not been an easy task.¹⁹⁴⁵⁸

In an attempt to protect the Great Lakes, Michigan State Governor Gretchen Whitmer has repeatedly attempted to revoke Enbridge's license to operate Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. In his second term in office, US President Donald Trump has gutted the regulatory framework designed to ensure the safety of such large-scale projects. The Trump administration directly weighed in on the dispute, claiming the Governor of Michigan had no authority over the matter.²³³¹⁵ Trump has also expedited the impact assessment process, leading to the omission of climate impacts, the truncation of public consultation periods and the exclusion of tribal authorities from the process.²³³¹⁶ The US Army Corps, in charge of assessing the environmental impacts of Line 5, has claimed it does not have the mandate to assess impacts of a potential spill in the Lakes for example. A group of Tribal Nations which had been part of the Corps’ consultation process has stepped back from the process, denouncing their presence as a mere legitimizing factor for a flawed process. In the words of the Tribal Nations, the Corps “summarily dismisses evidence and viewpoints provided by Tribal Nations as being 'outside the scope', and readily and uncritically accepts the representations provided by Enbridge.²³³¹⁷
Despite the clear threats posed by the Line 5 pipeline and the multiple lawsuits filed against the project, Enbridge looks likely to receive approval to build Line 5. The US Supreme Court has intervened in the State of Michigan’s lawsuit against Enbridge over its passage through the Straits of Mackinack.²³³¹⁸ Last year, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approved Enbridge’s plan to reroute Line 5 around the Bad River Band’s territory, despite the route still threatening the watershed they rely on. Wild rice crops, around 200 waterways and 101 acres of wetlands risk being affected.²³³¹⁹ However bleak the picture may be, the fight is far from over. Tribal Nations and other opponents of the Line 5 continue to fight the project and demand its decommissioning: the only logical solution.