Crow Wing River, March 15, 2021
Category Archives: Community Rights
HELP DEFUND LINE 3: Enbridge Loan Due for Renewal March 31, 2021
A MESSAGE FROM TARA HOUSKA
On March 31st, 18 banks have a $2.2 billion loan to Enbridge that is due for renewal. Between now and then, we’re going to do everything in our power to make it loud and clear to the executives of those banks: They must walk away from Line 3 ― or there will be consequences.
Every week, we’re going to ask you to take an action that helps put pressure on those 18 banks funding Line 3. We’ll ask you to send direct emails to CEOs, call board members, take part in Covid-safe street protests, participate in projection actions, join online rallies and much more.
If enough of us take these actions together, we can make the companies funding Line 3 feel enough pressure that they will walk away from Enbridge.
For the last seven years, I have been fighting Line 3 with everything I have. If built, Line 3, a massive toxic tar sands pipeline, would destroy the sacred wild rice beds my people depend on for our food, our culture and our way of life. It would contribute as much to the climate crisis as 50 new coal-fired power plants. It would endanger 800 wetlands and 200 waterways.
Despite ongoing legal challenges from the Red Lake Nation, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, and Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Minnesota’s own Department of Commerce, environmental organizations, and 13 brave youth intervenors, construction of Line 3 continues ― bringing thousands of out-of-state workers to northern MN in the middle of a deadly pandemic, threatening already vulnerable rural, Indigenous communities with the virus even more.
As an Anishinaabe woman it is my duty to protect the water, the land, and my people. I am moved to act because I love the people, the four-legged, the winged, the finned, the land, the water.
It is my duty as an Anishinaabe woman that compels me to support people in taking direct action to stop the construction of Line 3. Direct action, like when Water Protectors recently locked themselves inside a section of pipe, blockaded the entrances to construction sites, and locked themselves to trucks being used to carry Line 3 pipeline materials.
It is from this sense of duty that I am asking you to join us in this campaign. Together, I know that we can do this. Throughout history people-powered movements have changed the world. And they sure as hell can stop Line 3.
Since the antiracist uprisings began last year, I have been proud to stand in solidarity with the demand of Black-led movements to defund the police. Indigenous people understand White Supremacist police brutality. Like Black folks of this country, we’ve faced it for centuries.
Now, just as racist police forces have brutalized Black and Indigenous bodies, Enbridge is brutalizing sacred Anishinaabe land ― and is being protected by a militarized police force paid for by a Candian oil company as it does so.
Together, we are powerful.
Miigwech
~ Tara Houska for Stop the Money Pipeline
DONATE TO THE FRONT LINES
https://chuffed.org/project/supplies-to-stop-line-3
Tara Houska (Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe) is a tribal attorney, founder of Giniw Collective, and a former advisor on Native American affairs to Bernie Sanders. She spent six months on the frontlines fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline, and is currently engaged in the movement to defund fossil fuels and a years-long struggle against Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline. She is a co-founder of Not Your Mascots, a group committed to positive representation of Native peoples.
She is a TED speaker, the 2017 Harvard “Public Interested” keynote, received an “Awesome Women Award” from Melinda Gates and a 2019 Rachel’s Network Catalyst Award, is featured in “Women: A Century of Change” by National Geographic, and was named an “Icon” on the cover of Outside Magazine’s 40th Anniversary edition. Tara has contributed to the women-led climate anthology “All We Can Save”, the New York Times, the Guardian, Vogue, Indian Country Today and been featured on CNN, MSNBC, CBS, Democracy Now, and BBC. She lives in a pipeline resistance camp in Northern Minnesota.
DOWNLOAD FULL PRESENTATION HERE
UDW Endorses Joe Rose for District 12 Ashland County Board
GREETINGS FROM JOE M. ROSE – CANDIDATE FOR ASHLAND COUNTY BOARD, DISTRICT 12
I have represented the citizens of District 12 for the past 6 years, and respectfully request your vote in the April 7, 2020 election.
I sincerely hope that all of you are safe and healthy as we each do our own part to help protect our families, friends, and communities from the coronavirus pandemic. Although it is difficult to think about other things at a time like this, we have many serious issues to consider as we look to the future.
The Ashland County Board consists of many different subcommittees, and as a board member I have served on several of them including: the Planning Committee, Large Scale Assembly Committee, Mining Impact Committee, and the Land and Water Conservation Committee. In addition, I currently serve as the Chairman of the Zoning Committee.
When the entire Bad River Watershed was threatened by proposed mountaintop mining in the Penokee Hills, the Zoning Committee conducted public hearings, developed taconite mining ordinances, and submitted them to the County Board who in turn voted to pass them. After several years of strong local resistance, the proposed project was finally scrapped. Shortly afterwards, the Wisconsin Mining Moratorium Law, which had been in effect for many years, was voted out of existence by the Wisconsin State Legislature. In response to local concerns regarding this loss of protection, the Zoning Committee conducted more public hearings, amended the County’s existing taconite mining ordinances to address the threat of potential sulfide mining as well, and submitted them to the County Board where they were approved.
Many local citizens will recall the proposed Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) in the Fish Creek Watershed of Bayfield County, which empties into Chequamegon Bay and Apostle Islands area of Lake Superior. With the increased frequency and intensity of flood events that have occurred in our area, many local citizens and communities were highly concerned about the potential risks involved with this proposed facility. In response, the Land and Water Conservation Committee of the Ashland County Board followed a similar path as Bayfield County by conducting public hearings, establishment of a study committee to gather information, and the development of CAFO-related ordinances that were ultimately approved by the Ashland County Board.
As you know, our area has experienced three major floods in the past six years. The Zoning Committee has initiated a process to develop Wetland Conservation ordinances to protect, restore, and enhance local wetland habitats, and help reduce flooding. In addition, the Land and Water Conservation Committee is currently exploring state and federal funding opportunities that would be used to initiate a pilot project to help address these wetland conservation needs. Hearings are being planned to provide information and obtain public input before these ordinances are presented to the County Board for approval.
However, the statewide travel restrictions that have been enacted to slow the spread of coronavirus may require these hearings to be postponed. I am deeply concerned about the potential risks associated with the presence of Enbridge Line 5 in our area, and with the increasing amount of influence that this foreign corporation appears to have on our local communities.
As a member of the Ashland County Board, I have worked with many local citizens and elected officials to help protect the health of our local lands and waters for area citizens and the generations yet to come. If re-elected, I will continue these efforts to the best of my ability. I request your support to continue these efforts for the next 2 years. As always, let your voice count and be sure to cast your vote in the April 7, 2020 election.
Realizing the number of coronavirus infections continues to increase throughout the state, many Wisconsin citizens may not feel comfortable about voting in person on April 7. Voters can request an absentee ballot online by going to http://www.myvote.wi.gov, click on Vote Absentee and then follow the required steps. You will need to enter your name and date of birth to confirm that you are a registered voter. If you do not have a photo ID on file with your local municipal clerk, you will need to upload a copy of your (acceptable) photo ID card in order to submit your absentee ballot request.
Please note that absentee ballot requests must be made no later than 5:00 p.m. on the Thursday before the election (April 2) in order for an absentee ballot to be sent to you. Voters can also contact their local clerk to request an absentee ballot via email or fax, by mail, or in person.
A directory of clerks can be found by going to http://www.myvote.wi.gov, click on Find My Polling Place at the top of the page, then click on Find My Clerk on the left hand side. After filling in your address, click on the Search button, and the contact information for your local clerk will be provided.
Authorized and paid for by Joe M. Rose
ACTION ALERT: Ashland County Zoning meeting seeks public to testify on sulfide mining
On Friday, March 8, 2019 at 9 AM the Ashland County Zoning committee will be meeting to move a new set of sulfide mining ordinances out of committee and on to the full board. Zoning Committee Chair Joe Rose Sr. is asking for the public to step up and testify in favor of the new ordinances. The meeting is being held in the Ashland County Board Room.
Tyler Forks, Penokee Hills, Wisconsin
Background: After Gogebic Taconite (GTac) was driven out of the state in 2015, the Wisconsin legislature, dominated by Republicans, overturned the decades-old “prove it first” Wisconsin sulfide mining law. The old law prevented companies that had a proven record of pollution from doing business in Wisconsin. After that law was overturned, the entire state became vulnerable to possible devastating environmental damages that would be caused by such a mine.
Sulfide mining focuses on copper, gold, silver and other precious metals. According to Save the Boundary Waters:
The sulfide-ore copper mining industry has a disastrous track record. A peer-reviewed report prepared by Earthworks studied fourteen sulfide-ore copper mines representing 89% of current U.S. copper production. Of those fourteen mines, all had experienced some sort of pipeline spill or other accidental release. Thirteen of the fourteen (92%) had experienced water collection and treatment failures that resulted in significant impacts to water quality. The tailings dam failure at the Mount Polley Mine in British Columbia in August 2014 shows the catastrophic potential for such failures (Earthworks 2012).
Read about the possible devastation of sulfide mining here.
Please come to the Ashland County Board Room and speak up in defense of the water.
Yellow mine waste water from the Gold King Mine is seen in San Juan County, Colorado
ACTION ALERT: Ashland County Public Hearing June 12 on new CAFO ordinances
The Ashland County Land and Conservation Committee will be holding a public hearing from 5 PM – 7 PM Tuesday, June 12 at the Land and Water Conservation Department office at 315 Sanborn Ave, # 100, Ashland, WI 54806.
The purpose of the public hearing is to distribute information and to hear comments regarding the two agricultural ordinances proposed for Ashland County. The ordinances have been developed by the Land Conservation Committee with the assistance of the Ashland County Agricultural Ordinance Advisory Group.
Once they pass out of committee they will be sent to the full Board to vote on.
Please come and speak up in support of these new ordinances. Show Ashland County we are standing united in defense of the water.
For more information, County District 12 Ashland County Supervisor Joe Rose, Sr. at 715.292.7225
United In Defense of The Water 