"When you pray with this pipe, you pray for and with everything." - Black Elk
As a little girl, I remember traveling to Pipestone, Minnesota from my childhood home in the Twin Cities, a three-and-a-half hour drive each way. The landscape en route completely escapes my memory, as does my parents’ soulful playlist that usually anchored family drives. All are overridden by powerful ceremony and reverence for the sacred that day. The reverence has stayed with me since.
When the Oklahoma-based Magellan Pipeline wanted to gain approval for a 13.1-mile pipeline route in Pipestone, Minnesota, it was immediately opposed by Native communities and nations. Native resistance to this desecration has been consistent for decades. As with Enbridge's Lines 3 and 93, the core issues for the proposed pipeline through Pipestone are treaty rights, tribal sovereignty, and sites that are of cultural significance. When tensions between industry and culture emerge, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) requires a survey to better determine a pathway forward or to decline the permit for a particular utility.
My personal response to anything that could possibly desecrate Pipestone or other sacred areas often is clear opposition. Anyone who came to the United States through a settler path should consider how we may treat the troubling nature of our history with humility and care. I had feared that the need to extract resources without accountability would bypass the consent and consideration of indigenous leadership. It is a powerful win that the PUC has called for cultural assessments that could be applied to honor treaty rights, and to model how energy projects can plan for full cycles of accountability and less harm in Minnesota.
Join our next Beyond Oil Team meeting January 27th to learn more about this.
-Whitney Terrill