The Duluth City Council will decide Monday night whether to take a stand in support of demonstrators protesting against a pipeline project on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota.
Councilors Em Westerlund and Gary Anderson have introduced a resolution voicing support for the rights of protesters and their efforts to protect water resources that they say could be threatened by the petroleum products the proposed Dakota Access pipeline would carry.
Both said they were inspired by members of the Duluth Indigenous Commission who read their own resolution of support for demonstrators at Standing Rock to the City Council on Nov. 18.
“It felt like our Indigenous Commission resolution sparked something,” said Babette Sandman, the commission’s chairwoman.
Anderson points to the commission members’ statement as a turning point for him.
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“I took that as an invitation and a request for us, as the elected council to take action as well,” he said. “This is a powerful thing for the local indigenous communities to be represented and to know that their voices are heard.”
Westerlund said the commission members moved her to action, as well.
“They educated us about the peaceful protests that have been happening there, as well as some of the tactics that law enforcement has been using to try to control the protesters, and it caused us some concern. We were made aware that there are many indigenous people in the community here who have connections to Standing Rock and see real parallels between their struggle and the struggles of indigenous people here,” she said.
“The idea that peaceful protest might be met with that sort of response - with the rubber bullets, the water cannons being used in sub-freezing temperatures - seems extreme and sort of irresponsible on behalf of the authorities,” Westerlund said.
Sandman said the welfare of protesters is much more than an abstraction, as she and others have traveled to take part in the demonstrations.
“This is a very active issue. We have a lot of people from the Duluth area who are heading to Standing Rock and are willing to put their lives on the line,” she said.
Shawn Carr, a Duluth veteran and member of Idle No More/Northwoods Wolf Alliance, planned to make his fifth trip to Standing Rock this weekend.
“I’m really appalled and concerned that at a time when tensions between people of color and law enforcement are really high, that wholesale war is being waged on a certain ethnic population,” he said.
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Unlike the proclamation by Duluth’s Indigenous Commission, the city council resolution does not attempt to tie events in Standing Rock to concerns raised in regard to proposed pipeline and mining projects in Northeastern Minnesota. That’s a disappointment to Sandman, although she said she understands the desire not to reignite debate about copper-nickel mine plans that are now in development.
“I know we’re divided in the city of Duluth, but many of us are concerned about the future of Lake Superior with sulfide mining. Just like people are concerned in Standing Rock,” she said.
Westerlund said she understands that sentiment but said she and Anderson chose to maintain a tighter focus than the commission did.
“I think for us, thinking about what’s happening right now and the need to be very focused in what type of statement we’d be making as a city, it seemed to make sense to lift up their resolution and to recognize it as a part of what moved us to action but also to keep our message very focused and on point to the matter at hand,” she said. “... We recently had a resolution regarding PolyMet, and I feel that councilors were heard on where they stand in regards to that particular project. So we didn’t really want to cover old ground. We wanted to move forward.”
