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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Documents show how a pipeline company paid Minnesota millions to police protests</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Alleen Brown, John McCracken - February 9, 2023<br></div>
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<img src="cid:ii_ldyoltl40" alt="image.png" width="392" height="221"><br><p><em>This story was published in partnership with the <a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Center for Media and Democracy</a>.</em></p>
<p>The morning of June 7, 2021, Sheriff’s Deputy Chuck Nelson of
Beltrami County, Minnesota, bought water and refreshments, packed his
gear, and prepared for what would be, in his own words, “a long
day.” For over six months, Indigenous-led opponents of the Line 3
project had been participating in acts of civil disobedience to disrupt
construction of the tar sands oil pipeline, arguing that it would
pollute water, exacerbate the climate crisis, and <a href="https://grist.org/food/line-3-pipeline-protests-enbridge-wild-rice-treaty-rights/">violate treaties</a>
with the Anishinaabe people. Officers like Nelson were stuck in the
middle of a conflict, sworn to protect the rights of both the pipeline
company Enbridge and its opponents.</p>
<p>Nelson drove 30 minutes to Hubbard County, where he and officers from
14 different police and sheriff’s departments confronted around 500
protesters, known as water protectors, occupying a pipeline pump
station. The deputy spent his day detaching people who had locked
themselves to equipment as fire departments and ambulances stood by. A
U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/06/08/line-3-pipeline-helicopter-dhs-protest/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">swooped low</a>,
kicking dust over the demonstrators, and officers deployed a sound
cannon known as a Long Range Acoustic Device in attempts to disperse the
crowd.</p>
<p>By the end of the day, 186 people had been detained in the largest
mass-arrest of the opposition movement. Some officers stuck around to
process arrests, while others stopped for snacks at a gas station or
ordered Chinese takeout before crashing at a nearby motel.</p>
<p>These latter details might be considered irrelevant, except for the
fact that the police and emergency workers’ takeout, motel rooms, riot
gear, gas, wages, and trainings were paid for by one side of the dispute
— the fossil fuel company building the pipeline, which spent more than
$79,000 on policing that day alone. </p>
<p>When the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/11/24/enbridge-line-3-pipeline-protests-minnesota/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">gave Enbridge permission</a> in 2020 to replace its corroded Line 3 pipeline and double its capacity, it included an unusual condition in the permit:<strong> </strong>Enbridge
would pay the police as they responded to the acts of civil
disobedience that the project would surely spark. The pipeline company’s
money would be <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/07/07/line-3-pipeline-minnesota-counterinsurgency/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">funneled to law enforcement</a> and other government agencies via a Public Safety Escrow Account managed by the state.</p>
<p>By the time construction finished in fall 2021, prosecutors had filed
967 criminal cases related to pipeline protests, and police had
submitted hundreds of receipts and invoices to the Enbridge-funded
escrow account, seeking reimbursement. Through a public records request,
Grist and the Center for Media and Democracy have obtained and reviewed
every one of those invoices, providing the most complete picture yet of
the ways the pipeline company paid for the arrests of its opponents —
and much more.</p>
<p>From pizza and “Pipeline Punch” energy drinks, to porta potties, riot
suits, zip ties, and salaries, Enbridge poured a total of $8.6 million
into 97 public agencies, from the northern Minnesota communities that
the pipeline intersected to southern counties from which deputies
traveled hours to help quell demonstrations.</p>
<p>By far the biggest set of expenses reimbursed from the Enbridge
escrow account was over $5 million for wages, meals, lodging, mileage,
and other contingencies as police and emergency workers responded to
protests during construction. Over $1.3 million each went toward
equipment and planning, including dozens of training sessions. Enbridge
also reimbursed nearly a quarter million dollars for the cost of
responding to pipeline-related human trafficking and sexual violence.</p>
<div><p><span><img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/expenses_by_type_treemap_final.jpg" alt="A treemap shows Enbridge's reimbursements to agencies across Minnesota, amounting to over $8.6 million." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="323" height="392"></span></p><cite>Grist / Jessie Blaeser</cite></div>
<p>Reporters for Grist and the Center for Media and Democracy reviewed
more than 350 records requested from the Minnesota Public Utilities
Commission, pulling out totals described in invoices and receipts and
dividing them into categories such as equipment, wages, and training.
Each agency had its own method for tracking expenses, with varying
levels of specificity. In cases where reporters were unable to cleanly
disentangle different types of expenses, those expenses were categorized
as “other/multiple.” Generally, totals should be considered
conservative estimates for each category.</p>
<p>The $79,000 that Enbridge paid for the single day of arrests on June
7, which doesn’t include much of the Enbridge-funded equipment and
training many officers relied on, displays<strong> </strong>the wide
range of activities and agencies Enbridge’s money touched. The
attorney’s office of Hubbard County, where the protest took place, even
attempted to get Enbridge to reimburse $27,000 in prosecution expenses.
In other words, the area’s top arbiter of justice assumed that Enbridge
would be covering the cost of pursuing charges against hundreds of water
protectors. (The state-appointed escrow account manager denied the
request.) </p>
<p>Some of the most surprising Enbridge invoices were from institutions
and officials associated with protecting Minnesota’s environmental
resources and preserving a balance between industry and the public
interest. No agency received more escrow account money than the
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, which is also one of
the primary agencies monitoring Line 3 for environmental harms. Of the
$2.1 million that the DNR received, the funds were mainly used to
respond to protests and train state enforcement officers about how to
wrangle protesters, in some cases before construction had even begun.
Conservation officers joined police on the front lines of protests, on
the pipeline company’s dime.</p>
<div><p><span><img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/lolipop_final.jpg" alt="A lollipop chart shows the top agencies to receive reimbursements from Enbridge. The Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources was the top recipient at over $2 million." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="287"></span></p><cite>Grist / Jessie Blaeser</cite></div>
<p>The Aitkin County-run <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/07/07/line-3-pipeline-minnesota-counterinsurgency/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Long Lake Conservation Center</a>,
one of the oldest environmental education centers in the U.S., provided
facilities to police to the tune of over $40,000, which the sheriff’s
office paid using Enbridge funds. And a public safety liaison hired to
coordinate among Enbridge, the Public Utilities Commission, and local
officials was paid $120,000 in salary and benefits by the pipeline
company over a year and a half.</p>
<p>The invoices also document, in unusual detail, the connection between
fossil fuel megaproject construction and violence against women:
Enbridge reimbursed a nonprofit organization for the cost of hotel rooms
for women who had reportedly been assaulted by Line 3 workers. The
pipeline company also helped pay for two sex trafficking stings
conducted by the Minnesota Human Trafficking Investigative Task Force,
leading to the arrest of at least four Line 3 pipeline workers.</p>
<p>The state of Minnesota also considered police public relations to be
expenses eligible for Enbridge funding. John Elder, at the time
spokesperson for the Minneapolis Police Department, put out police press
releases and responded to journalist queries on behalf of the Northern
Lights Task Force, which was set up to coordinate emergency response
agencies throughout the protests. Enbridge ultimately reimbursed the St.
Louis County Sheriff’s Office for 331 hours of his work at a wage of
$80 per hour. (St. Louis County Sheriff Gordon Ramsay said he was not in
office during pipeline construction and could not comment on
Line-3-related work, and Elder did not respond to requests for comment.)</p>
<p>A year earlier, Elder had handled Minneapolis police PR when one of
the city’s officers killed George Floyd, sparking an unprecedented wave
of nationwide protests. Elder was behind the notorious press release
stating that Floyd had “physically resisted officers” and died after he
“appeared to be suffering medical distress.” Hours later, a bystander
video went viral, showing that the medical distress followed an officer
pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes. Fallout
from the press release did not stop law enforcement agencies from
choosing Elder to lead officials’ public relations surrounding the Line 3
protests.</p>
<p>Water protectors contend that the state of Minnesota’s arrangement with Enbridge trampled their constitutional rights<strong>.</strong>
With 97 criminal cases unresolved across the state, five defendants in
Aitkin County are pursuing motions arguing that the escrow account
created an unconstitutional police and prosecutor bias that violated
their rights to due process and equal protection under the law. They
want the charges dismissed. Attorneys with the Partnership for Civil
Justice Fund’s Center for Protest Law and Litigation previously used the
defense against charges filed by Hubbard County that were ultimately
dismissed. They’re now preparing a separate civil lawsuit challenging
the use of the escrow account on constitutional grounds.</p>
<p>Winona LaDuke, an Anishinaabe activist and founder of the Indigenous
environmental nonprofit Honor the Earth, is among those arguing in court
that charges should be thrown out. Aitkin County, the jurisdiction
behind the allegations she’s fighting, was reimbursed $6,007.70 for
wages and benefits on just one of the days she was arrested. LaDuke
believes the money amped up the police response.</p>
<p>“They were far more aggressive with us, far more intent on finding any possible reason to stop somebody,<strong>” </strong>she said. “Law enforcement is supposed to protect and serve the people. They work for Enbridge.”</p>
<p>LaDuke added that she believes the DNR’s Enbridge money represents a
“conflict of interest.” In addition to its role in monitoring the
pipeline’s full Minnesota route, the agency is directly responsible for
the ecological health of <a href="https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/features/line3/decisions/cross-public-land-decision.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">35 miles of state lands and 66 waterways</a> where Line 3 crosses — and where Anishinaabe people have distinct <a href="https://grist.org/food/line-3-pipeline-protests-enbridge-wild-rice-treaty-rights/">treaty rights</a> to hunt, gather, and travel. To date, the DNR and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency have <a href="https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/features/line3/dnr-mpca-joint-news-release-line-3-enforcement-10-17-2022.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">charged</a> Enbridge over $11 million in penalties for violations that include dozens of <a href="https://grist.org/equity/oil-is-now-flowing-on-line-3-the-fight-to-stop-it-isnt-over/">drilling fluid spills</a> and three <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/08/06/line-3-aquifer-breach-is-leaking-more-groundwater" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">aquifer breaches</a>
that occurred during construction. LaDuke and others have criticized
the agency’s response to the incidents, noting that it took months to
publicly disclose the first of the aquifer breaches.</p>
<div><p>Juli Kellner, an Enbridge spokesperson, emphasized that the
escrow account was operated by an independent manager who reported to
the Public Utilities Commission, not the oil company. Kellner said the
account was created to relieve communities from the increased financial
burden that public safety agencies accrued when responding to protests.</p><p>“Enbridge provided funding but had no decision-making authority on reimbursement requests,” she said.</p></div>
<p>Ryan Barlow, the Public Utilities Commission’s general counsel, said
the commission had no comment about the appropriateness of specific
expenses: “If expenses met the conditions of the permit they were
approved; if they did not, they were not approved.”</p>
<p>In a statement, the DNR said that receiving reimbursement from
Enbridge does not constitute a conflict of interest: “At no time were
state law enforcement personnel under the control or direction of
Enbridge, and at no time did the opportunity for reimbursement for our
public safety work in any way influence our regulatory decisions.”</p>
<p>When asked why its officers were trained how to use chemical weapons
ahead of the protests, the DNR said their peace officers’ overall
mission is “protecting Minnesota’s natural resources and the people who
use them” and that such equipment, while occasionally necessary, “is not
used as part of conservation officers’ routine work.”</p>
<p>Hubbard County Sheriff Cory Aukes said his agency’s response was
dictated by the protestors and water protectors. “If they want to block
roads, threaten workers, and cause $100,000 worth of damage to Enbridge
equipment, well, we have a job to do, and we did it,” Aukes said, adding
that Enbridge is a taxpayer that officers have a duty to protect.
“Enbridge is a big taxpayer in Hubbard county and we would be doing an
injustice if we didn’t support them as well.”</p>
<p>“We were in the middle,” added Aitkin County Sheriff Dan Guida.
“There were probably times when it seems like we dealt with water
protectors in a more criminal way, but they were the ones breaking the
law.” He added that officers had no knowledge of the reimbursement plan
and that the funds spared taxpayers the cost of policing the pipeline.</p>
<p>Long Lake Conservation Center manager Dave McMillan, on the other
hand, said he knew the money the Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office paid his
organization for police officer lodging would come from Enbridge. “My
concern was not wanting to become a pawn or a player in this political
battle. In the same token, we said if any of the organizations that were
protesting said they wanted to come here and use our facilities, we
would have said yes,” he said. Enbridge’s connection to the facility
runs even deeper: The company’s director of tribal engagement sits on
the board of the Long Lake Conservation Foundation, which helps fund the
county-run facility. </p>
<p>With energy infrastructure fights brewing over liquid natural gas
terminals in the Southeast, lithium mining in the West, and the
Enbridge-operated Line 5 pipeline in <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/wisconsin/2022/09/08/federal-judge-rules-enbridges-line-5-can-remain-operation/8020701001/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wisconsin</a>
and Michigan, the ongoing legal cases that have ensnared the water
protectors will help decide whether or not the public safety escrow
account will be replicated elsewhere.</p>
<p>“Our concern is that this now will become the model for deployment
nationwide against any community that is rising up against corporate
abuse,” said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the director of the Center for
Protest Law and Litigation, who is representing some of the water
protectors. “It becomes very easy to sell this to the public as a
savings for taxpayers, when instead what they’re doing is selling their
police department to serve the pecuniary interests of a corporation.”</p>
<p>Long before Line 3 construction began, Anishinaabe-led water
defenders promised they would rise up if the expanded pipeline was
permitted. Members of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission warily
looked west to North Dakota, where in 2016 and 2017 public agencies
spent $38 million policing massive protests led by members of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against construction of the Dakota Access
Pipeline. With global concerns about climate change and biodiversity
reaching a fever pitch, building an oil pipeline now came with a hefty
civil disobedience bill, and the commissioners did not want taxpayers to
foot it.</p>
<p>According to the pipeline permit, finalized in 2020, whenever a
Minnesota public safety agency spent money on almost anything related to
Line 3, they could submit an invoice, and Enbridge would pay it.
Nonprofits responding to drug and human trafficking were also eligible
for grants from the account. To create a layer of separation between
police and the Enbridge money, the state hired an account manager to
decide which invoices would be fulfilled.</p>
<p>Minnesota wasn’t the only state considering this kind of account. In 2019, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/05/23/pipeline-protest-laws-louisiana-south-dakota/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">passed a law</a>
designed to establish “the next generation model of funding pipeline
construction.” The law created a fund for law enforcement and emergency
managers responding to pipeline protests, paid partly by new rioting
penalties, but also with as much as $20 million from the company behind
the pipeline. Noem’s office collaborated on the legislation with
TransCanada, now known as TC Energy, which was preparing to build the
controversial Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline. But with Keystone XL
defunct after President Joe Biden pulled a key permit in 2021, only
Minnesota would have the opportunity to fully test the new model.</p>
<p>Even beforeLine 3 received its final permit on November 30, 2020,
more than $1 million in reimbursement-eligible expenses had been spent<strong>.</strong>
Sheriffs’ offices were already buying riot gear and conducting crowd
control trainings in 2016 and 2017, in anticipation of the protests.</p>
<p>Key to coordinating it all was the Northern Lights Task Force,
established in September 2018 and consisting of law enforcement and
other public officials from 16 counties along the pipeline route or
otherwise hosting Enbridge infrastructure, as well as representatives
from nearby reservations and state agencies. Task force members met at
least a dozen times before construction began, the invoices show, and at
times Enbridge representatives joined. It didn’t necessarily matter,
however, whether Enbridge was physically in the room, because the
company’s money was always there: For the law enforcement agencies that
requested it, the corporation paid wages and overtime for each Northern
Lights Task Force meeting attended.</p>
<p>David Olmstead, a retired Bloomington police commander appointed by
the Minnesota Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
to fulfill the duties of the Line 3 public safety liaison, coordinated
between Enbridge and public officials. Enbridge reimbursed the homeland
security agency Olmstead’s salary and benefits as well as more than
$20,000 in lodging expenses that Olmstead charged to a credit card,
which included a room at Duluth’s Fairfield Inn that was rented for two
straight months at the height of protests in June and July 2021, for a
nightly rate of $165.</p>
<p>Olmstead, who did not respond to requests for comment, helped set up a
network of emergency operations centers to be activated when protests
kicked off. He also worked with task force members as they arranged
dozens of training sessions. Although a large proportion focused on
crowd control tactics, others covered techniques for dismantling
lock-downs, responding to weapons of mass destruction, policing sex
trafficking, upholding the constitution, understanding Native American
culture, and using lessons learned from policing the Dakota Access
Pipeline. Public officials spent over $950,000 of Enbridge’s money on
training expenses, including meals, lodging, mileage, training fees, and
wages. </p>
<p>Three quarters of the Enbridge training money went to the Department
of Natural Resources. The agency’s enforcement division is not only
responsible for upholding environmental laws and ticketing deviant
poachers and recreational vehicle drivers, but it also has full police
powers on state lands. While riot control may not be in the typical job
description of a Minnesota conservation officer, previously known as a
game warden, dozens of them trained to control crowds and use
less-lethal chemical weapons.</p>
<p>The Enbridge fund wasn’t supposed to be primarily for stuff. To limit
purchases, Public Utilities Commission members added language in the
permit stipulating that public agencies could only use it to buy
personal protective equipment, or PPE.</p>
<p>Over half of PPE funds went toward riot gear valued at more than
$700,000, which was purchased from police equipment vendors like
Streicher’s and Galls. For 13 county and city police forces, that meant
more than $5,000 in riot suits, shields, and gas masks. The Beltrami
County Sheriff’s Office took over $70,000 for riot gear, and the Polk
County Sheriff’s Office more than $50,000. (Neither office responded to
requests for comment.) However it was state agencies that received more
than half of the Enbridge reimbursements for crowd control equipment:
more than $200,000 for the Minnesota State Patrol, and over $170,000 for
the Department of Natural Resources.</p>
<div><p><span><img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/riot_gear_final.jpg" alt="Bar chart with log scale shows reimbursements from Enbridge for equipment cost, specifically riot gear." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="383"></span></p><cite>Grist / Jessie Blaeser</cite></div>
<p>Enbridge also covered more than $325,000 in clothing — mostly cold
weather apparel — as well as over $55,000 for hand, foot, and body
warmers. Even the identification patches worn on many deputies’ lapels
were paid for by Enbridge — totaling more than $7,000. Another $2,000
went toward porta potty rentals, and over $12,000 more toward gear to
protect police as they detached protesters who had locked themselves to
equipment, including face shields and flame-proof blankets to guard
against flying sparks.</p>
<p>Enbridge paid not only for the time the Sheriff’s deputies took to
arrest water protectors and bind their hands behind their backs, but
also for the handcuffs themselves, which were dubbed PPE and paid for by
the pipeline company. The state of Minnesota approved more than $12,500
in Enbridge funds for zip ties and handcuffs.</p>
<p>“Less lethal” weapons did not count as personal protective equipment,
the account manager decided, to the frustration of some law enforcement
leaders. However, even though Enbridge couldn’t buy these weapons, the
company did cover trainings on how to use them. Several trainings were
provided by the tear gas manufacturer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/arts/whitney-warren-kanders-resigns.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Safariland</a>,
costing thousands of dollars. Enbridge also reimbursed over $260,000
worth of gas masks and attachments, including filters for tear gas,
presumably to protect law enforcement from the chemicals they themselves
would be deploying.</p>
<p>It wasn’t necessarily the counties with the heaviest protest activity
that purchased the most equipment using Enbridge money. Among the top
five local law enforcement equipment buyers was the Freeborn County
Sheriff’s Office, located in one of Minnesota’s southernmost counties.
The agency’s only Enbridge-related expense besides equipment was for
three officers to spend a two- to three-day deployment assisting other
agencies along the pipeline route in the northern part of the state.
(The office did not respond to requests for comment.)</p>
<div><p><span><img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/mn_map_final.jpg" alt="A choropleth map of Minnesota shows counties where Enbridge invested the most in local law enforcement. Some counties are in the southern part of the state, far from the route of Line 3." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="362" height="392"></span></p><cite>Grist / Jessie Blaeser</cite></div>
<p>2021 was a year of unprecedented protest among Northern Minnesota’s
pristine lakes and wetlands. Enbridge and law enforcement faced a
drumbeat of road blockades, lockdowns to pipeline equipment, marches
through remote prairie, and layered demonstrations combining Anishinaabe
ceremony with direct action tactics refined by generations of
environmental and Indigenous social movements.</p>
<p>The biggest Enbridge escrow account expense was more than $4.5
million in wages, benefits, and overtime for officials responding to
perceived security threats during construction. More than just police
and sheriff’s offices were involved: The Department of Natural
Resources’ largest Enbridge-funded expense was $870,000 in personnel
costs during construction<strong>.</strong></p>
<p>And it wasn’t just calls for service that Enbridge paid for. Dozens
of invoices mentioned “patrols,” where law enforcement would drive up
and down the pipeline route or surveil places occupied by pipeline
opponents.</p>
<p>The Cass County Sheriff’s Office’s “proactive” safety patrol,
described in an invoice, may help explain why that agency expensed far
more money for response costs to the escrow account — over $900,000 —
than any other county or city, despite facing fewer mass demonstrations
than other areas.</p>
<p>Like Cass, Hubbard County at times instituted patrols as well as
mandatory overtime shifts. The invoices confirm that sheriff’s deputies
surveilled the Namewag camp, which was located on private land and used
both as a space for Anishinaabe land-based practices and as a jumping
off point for direct action protests. “On 3/6 and 3/7, Hubbard County
Deputies observed roughly 30 previously unidentified vehicles arriving
and periodically leaving the Hinds Lake Camp (Ginew [sic] Collective
Camp) in Straight River Township, Hubbard County,” one invoice states.</p>
<p>It goes on to describe intelligence shared by an Enbridge employee,
detailing the movements of various groups of pipeline resistors. “Migizi
camp [another anti-Line 3 encampment] is empty at this time and
intelligence suggests Migizi and Portland XR [short for Extinction
Rebellion] are camping at a public campground,” the message from
Enbridge stated.</p>
<p>Enbridge also paid for gas that fueled officers’ cars, hotels they
stayed in when assisting other jurisdictions, and food they ate during
shifts. During both planning stages and periods of law enforcement
action, Enbridge covered at least $150,000 in meals, snacks, and
drinks.The oil company bought bagels, Domino’s pizza, McNuggets, Subway
sandwich platters, a Dairy Queen strawberry sundae, summer sausage,
cheese curds, deep fried pickles, Fritos, Gatorade, and energy drinks,
including one called Pipeline Punch.</p>
<p>From planning through construction, police and sheriff’s offices
together received at least $5.8 million in Enbridge funds. For state
agencies, the Enbridge funds represented a tiny proportion of massive
budgets. However, for the Cass County Sheriff’s Office, the Enbridge
money added up to the equivalent of more than 10 percent of the office’s
2021 budget. (The office did not respond to requests for comment.) Five
other sheriff’s offices received reimbursements equivalent to over 5
percent of their annual budgets.</p>
<p>The range of choices law enforcement agencies made regarding what to
invoice makes clear the discretionary nature of the Line 3 response.
Clearwater County is home to one of two places where Line 3 crosses the
Mississippi River and the site of a number of protests. Although 20
other law enforcement agencies billed Enbridge for assisting the local
sheriff, Clearwater County billed nothing to the pipeline company.</p>
<p>The invoices also offer insight into the way the influx of pipeline
workers translated into incidents of human trafficking and assault.
“Since the Line 3 Replacement project has come to our area, we have
experienced an increase in calls and need for services,” reads a grant
application from the nonprofit Violence Intervention Project, or VIP,
based in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, a community through which the
pipeline passes, just outside the Red Lake Reservation. “We have
provided services to several victims that have been assaulted by
employees working on the Enbridge line 3 project.”</p>
<p>Enbridge reimbursed the organization for two hotel rooms for assault
survivors, since VIP’s shelter was full at the time. The company also
paid $42,000 worth of hazard pay for shelter workers during the 2021
winter, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>Enbridge’s biggest human trafficking grant recipient was Support
Within Reach, a northern Minnesota organization that works with
survivors of sexual violence, which used the money to pay for extra
personnel costs during pipeline construction and to buy emergency cell
phones for advocates.</p>
<p>Additional funds also went to public agencies: Enbridge reimbursed
$43,551.96 to local law enforcement agencies working with the Minnesota
Human Trafficking Investigative Task Force. The documents describe at
least two multi-agency operations in Grand Rapids and Bemidji, and <a href="https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/2-arrests-in-human-trafficking-sting-were-line-3-workers" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">news reports</a> from the time confirm that they led to the arrest of four Line 3 workers.</p>
<p>Kellner, the Enbridge spokesperson, said that any employee caught and
arrested for human trafficking would be fired by the company. She added
that the four workers who were arrested were subcontractors, not direct
employees of the oil company, and were fired by the contractor Enbridge
worked with.</p>
<p>The Link, a nonprofit based in North Minneapolis, received $36,870
from Enbridge and used it in part to assist the task force with sting
operations and support survivors who were found. Beth Holger, the
organization’s chief executive officer, said she did not feel conflicted
about taking Enbridge’s money, because it was going to victims: “Yes we
took money from a corporation that has caused harm, and we’re giving it
to people to help with that harm.”</p>
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<span>Read Next</span>
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<img src="https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Line-3.jpg" alt="Illustration: Two First Nations men in a red canoe harvesting wild rice, with a pipeline under the water" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="392" height="270">
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<p>The $8.6 million in expenses covered by Enbridge by no means accounts
for the full public cost of responding to opposition to the Line 3
pipeline.</p>
<p>Several sheriffs’ offices anticipated thousands more Enbridge dollars
than they received. The sheriffs’ offices in Cass, Beltrami, and Polk
counties each attempted to expense around $25,000 of equipment that was
ultimately denied reimbursement.</p>
<p>Hubbard County Sheriff Cory Aukes said that it was unfortunate that
the Hubbard county attorney’s request for prosecutorial funds was denied
by the account manager, as Aukes sees the influx of charges and
protestors as an undue burden on the attorney’s office as well as the
sheriff’s office. He said that his agency had plenty of other expenses
that weren’t covered.</p>
<p>He added that he believes it would be fiscally irresponsible to
decline Enbridge’s funds. “Shouldn’t they have to fund that? Shouldn’t
they be responsible to reimburse these additional costs?” Aukes asked.</p>
<p>To water protectors, however, the greatest costs of the pipeline are
its consequences for the climate, water, and the Canadian forest
ecosystem decimated by tar sands oil production. The nonprofit LaDuke
co-founded, Honor the Earth, issued its own invoice to Enbridge before
the creation of the escrow account, estimating that Line 3 would cost
$266 billion annually in environmental losses and social damages.</p>
<p>So far, she hasn’t received a response.</p>
<p><em>Jessie Blaeser contributed data reporting, visualization, and analysis to this story.</em></p>
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