On Dec. 2, the first paragraph of a News Tribune story, “North Dakota pipeline protest targets downtown banks,” caught my attention.
“A protest over the construction of an oil pipeline through tribal land in North Dakota radiated into Duluth on Thursday when local activists marched into downtown banks and encouraged customers to close their accounts,” the story started.
Hold on. Wait a minute. The pipeline does not go “through” tribal land. This pipeline protest has been going on for many months now, and anybody with a perfunctory knowledge of the pipeline knows it is near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation; but the closest it comes is still a mile away.
The story later mentioned “the pipeline’s encroachment onto tribal land.” Still wrong.
Toward the end of the story, a protester was quoted comparing bank employees who remain silent to Nazis and the “atrocities” directed toward Jews. Ouch.
A couple pages later, in the same newspaper, was a story about veterans protesting the pipeline. This story was by Reuters News Agency, which got it right by writing: “near an American Indian reservation.” It quoted both sides of the pipeline dispute fairly.
Does the News Tribune care about truth anymore? What about details? Two stories almost side by side. One seemingly meant to inflame, the other to inform.
Last Monday night, the Duluth City Council passed a unanimous resolution supporting the pipeline demonstrators. The inflamed rhetoric was not lost on the council. Do any of the councilors even know where Standing Rock is, let alone the complex issues involved? Do they drive cars? Fly in airplanes to somewhere warm in winter? Sleep in a warm bed, in a house heated by fuel oil or natural gas? It takes seven gallons of crude oil to make one car tire. Should we get our oil from the Middle East again? You have to have a pretty short memory not to remember Iraq is not our friend.
Law enforcement has worked to protect everyone. They have been patient and professional. They are on record saying no concussion grenades were used. More than 500 protesters were arrested for breaking the law and over 90 percent of them were from out of state. Many if not most were not Native American. They were environmental activists from other parts of the country.
In essence, the Duluth City Council turned its collective backs not only on bank employees and law enforcement but also on Enbridge Energy. Almost 20 percent of the crude oil imported to the U.S. comes through Enbridge’s Superior terminal. Enbridge has 400 workers and contract workers in Wisconsin. Many live in Duluth. There are scores of other smaller pipeline companies and contractors from Minnesota invested in and working in the oil fields of western North Dakota.
Pipelines are the safest and most efficient means to transport oil. We have an opportunity to gain energy independence. To date, the Army Corps of Engineers held 389 meetings, conferred with more than 55 tribes, and conducted a 1,261-page environmental assessment before finding the Dakota Access infrastructure project has no significant environmental impact. The pipeline has been challenged twice and twice upheld in federal court.
It’s time to complete the pipeline. Jan. 20 can’t come soon enough.
Marty Mulder moved from Duluth to Watford City, N.D., in 1981 to work in the oil fields of western North Dakota. He and his wife Crystal maintain a home on Pike Lake.
