Water Protector Interview: Ember Phoenix & Ben Joselyn on Building Community, Healing & Resistance, Ep. 36

We Rise

This episode offers our full conversation with Ember Phoenix & Ben Joselyn, water protectors on Anishnaabe land, building community & protecting the sacred.
For more on the movement to Stop Line 3, you can listen to We Rise episode 32 (called Have you heard of Line 3?), 35 - The People are a River, and 37, our full interview with water protector Jaike Spotted Wolf.
ABOUT LINE 3:
Line 3 is a pipeline expansion project that will process tar sands from Alberta, Canada and carry the refined oil across Anishnaabe treaty land in Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Enbridge Corporation, the Canadian pipeline construction company, is responsible for the largest oil spill in the U.S. in 1991, Grand Rapids, MN. They’ve been permitted by the state of Minnesota to remove 5 billion gallons of water from the Mississippi headwaters to complete this project, which has already wreaked havoc on the land, water, and water protectors: the Mississippi headwaters have dropped 10 feet since April 2021, there have already been 28 drilling spills in the wetlands, and over 700 water protectors have been arrested by local sheriff departments, which are being paid off by Enbridge. The situation is dire, worse by some accounts than the Dakota Access Pipeline, as this pipeline will cross over 227 waterways, including the Mississippi twice. The project’s destruction and violence perpetuates climate catastrophe, and the brutalization of indigenous people, the vital wild rice, the animals, and land.
As we continue to experience climate emergency after emergency, we have so much to learn from the struggle against Line 3. Despite the ongoing violence and destruction to people, land, and water, mainstream media is not picking up this narrative. While the Biden administration canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, they continue to support the Line 3 pipeline.
JOIN THE MOVEMENT: stopline3.org