Construction to resume on Enbridge Line 3 replacement pipeline

After a brief pause, construction will resume this week on the Enbridge Line 3 replacement oil pipeline in northern Minnesota despite continued legal challenges and protests.

"We have all the permits, we have all the regulatory thumbs-ups to move ahead," Enbridge senior vice president Mike Fernandez told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS recently while visiting St. Paul from the company’s Calgary, Alberta headquarters. "Through it all, I think what we have is not only the most studied project in the history of Minnesota. We’ve got a very good product that’s going to both be safe and it’s going to be environmentally sound."

Fernandez says 1,000 workers are on the job now, but when construction resumes this week, that number will eventually grow to more than 4,000 workers. The 1,100-mile pipeline runs from Edmonton, Alberta to Superior, Wisconsin, with 337 miles of new pipeline being constructed in Minnesota.

Opponents of the project include environmentalists and Native American tribes as portions of the pipeline run through or near tribal lands. One opposition group delivered a legal brief to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in support of a federal lawsuit against the project.

A tribal attorney and environmentalist, Tara Houska, says opponents have asked the Biden administration to block the project even though it’s 60% done and likely to be finished this year.

"We should be thinking about rather than replacing it and putting a new tar sands pipeline to leak in a new territory, a new place, decommission the old line, cleaning up the mess and moving on to a green economy," Houska told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS.

Fernandez says it wouldn’t make sense to stop the project now.

"It would be difficult because do you keep operating with an old pipeline because they don’t want to give you the right to operate the new one that’s safer, that’s more environmentally sound?" he said.

Protesters are expected to demonstrate along the pipeline later this week. Fernandez says the company is prepared.

"We want to create a safe environment for our workers," he said. "We want to create a safe environment even for the protesters. They have a right to protest. The issue is, are they going to do it peacefully?"