18 June 21
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17 June 21
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Erin Brockovich and Suzanne Boothby | What to Know About The Toxic Bacteria Lurking in Your Lake or Ocean Water
Erin Brockovich and Suzanne Boothby, The Brockovich Report
Excerpt: "For so many, the summer season is about spending time on the water. We've all been cooped up since last year and we're ready to venture out to our local watering holes to float, swim, and boat."
ey, Texas! You’re a hot mess. Last week, Governor Greg Abbott signed a series of reforms and said that “everything that needed to be done was done to fix the power grid in Texas.” This week, Texans are being asked to conserve power (aka turn off their lights and don’t use the appliances!) as temps climb and generators are shut down for repairs.
The grid can’t sustain in cold winters, and now it can’t handle the heat. When do you plan to get real, get prepared, and fix these problems? It’s not getting better on its own.
And in other “I told you so” news, let’s get to our main story.
Harmful Algal Blooms Are Trending & It’s Not Good
For so many, the summer season is about spending time on the water. We’ve all been cooped up since last year and we’re ready to venture out to our local watering holes to float, swim, and boat.
But before you dive in, I recommend you review your HAB FAQs and these Healthy Water Habits, especially if you are planning a water day with pets or children.
The CDC defines “harmful algal blooms” as the rapid growth of algae or cyanobacteria that can cause harm to people, animals, or the local ecology. They also harm local economies and can impact drinking water.
Cyanobacteria can look like foam, scum, or paint on the surface of water and come in all different colors. These blooms happen in waterways across the U.S. and the world in fresh water, such as lakes and rivers, salt water, such as oceans or bays, and brackish waters (a mix of fresh and salt) such as estuaries.
I’ve been yapping about HABs for years and posted many pics and videos on my Facebook page of algal blooms with dead or dying aquatic life. It’s awful! It feels like every year they start earlier and last a little longer than the year before.
I’ve met with clean water advocates and worked to rally support for this important issue. You can see me here in 2018 talking to a group fighting to stop harmful algae blooms near the St. Lucie River in Florida.
And yet here we are.
In the last few weeks, we’ve seen…
- a water treatment plant in the City of West Palm Beach detect blue-green algae toxins in the drinking water
- a spike in harmful blue-green algae linked to several dog deaths in the City of Austin, Texas
- a swimming area at a New Jersey state park closed for the 2021 summer season thanks to HABs
HABs are increasing throughout the country. A national map created by the NRDC tracks state-reported freshwater HABs from 2008-2020. I’m a visual learner, so I love these kinds of tools and it’s easy to see that these toxic outbreaks are increasing.
According to their data, all 50 states have experienced a freshwater HAB within the past 15 years, and between 2008 and 2020, more than 44,000 HAB events were recorded in 38 states.
California has a huge problem, going from 56 outbreaks in 2016 to 316 in 2020 (an increase of more than 464 percent!) In 2020 alone, California experienced a 60 percent increase in reported HABs from 2019.
These toxic blooms are not a new phenomenon by any means, but scientists continue to look at their connection to agricultural run-off (think phosphorus and nitrogen), which can feed toxic algae, along with rising temps.
The Piney Point spill in Florida back in April wasn’t an immediate issue, but it will result in more HABs, which impacts both tourism in that region along with manatee populations.
The first-ever study looking at trends in global harmful algal blooms did not find a statistical increase worldwide, but that certain regions are on the rise. And of course, North America makes the list, along with Greenland, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, the Mediterranean, and western and northern Europe.
Stacey Abrams in Atlanta, Nov. 3, 2020. (photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
Stacey Abrams Says She Supports Joe Manchin's Voting Rights Compromise
Christopher Wilson, Yahoo! News
Wilson writes: "Activist and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams said she 'absolutely' could support Sen. Joe Manchin's, D-W.Va., compromise proposal on voting rights."
“What Sen. Manchin is putting forward are some basic building blocks that we need to ensure that democracy is accessible no matter your geography,” the Georgia Democrat said Thursday during an interview with CNN, “and those provisions that he’s setting forth are strong ones that will create a level playing field, will create standards that do not vary from state to state and I think will ensure that every American has improved access to vote despite the onslaught of state legislation seeking to restrict access to the right to vote.”
Manchin’s office circulated a three-page memo outlining his voting rights proposal after writing earlier this month that he didn’t support the For the People Act, a sweeping piece of legislation on voting, elections and campaign finance that passed the House in March. The West Virginian said he thinks a voting rights bill passed along party lines would “destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy.”
Key provisions in Manchin’s proposal include mandating an early voting period and eliminating partisan gerrymandering in an attempt to get fair legislative maps, in addition to making Election Day a federal holiday and increasing access to absentee balloting. However, Manchin’s proposal also backed a couple of provisions typically opposed by Democrats, including increased voter ID requirements and allowing local election officials to purge voting rolls.
When asked about the voter ID provision, Abrams said, “That’s one of the fallacies of Republican talking points that have been deeply disturbing. No one has ever objected to having to prove who you are to vote. It’s been part of our nation’s history since the inception of voting. What has been problematic is the kind of restrictive IDs we’ve seen pop up,” pointing to states that make it more difficult for Native Americans and students to vote.
Abrams has become one of the nation’s leading advocates for increased voting rights following a contentious loss to Republican Brian Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial race. Her group Fair Fight Action is credited with helping to swing Georgia in the 2020 election, where it went for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time since 1992 and elected two Democrats to the U.S. Senate a few months later.
The Peach State was also one of the earliest to enact new voting restrictions, with Kemp’s decision to sign the package into law in March drawing blowback, including the loss of Major League Baseball’s All-Star game. A number of GOP-controlled states across the country have pushed laws that reduce voting hours and make it more difficult to vote by mail, amid other restrictions. A report last week also warned that some state legislatures are looking to make it easier to change election results.
For a voting rights bill to pass the Senate, it would require at least 10 Republican votes or for all 50 Democratic senators to vote to lower the legislative filibuster and allow a bill to advance with fewer than 60 votes. Manchin has said he won’t vote to remove the filibuster, but there’s hope among liberals that if he continues to see Republicans refuse to budge on his attempts at bipartisanship, he will at least consider changes to the filibuster if not its complete elimination.
“I’ve been sharing everything that I support and things I can support and vote with and things that I think is in the bill that doesn’t need to be in the bill, that doesn’t really interact with what we’re doing in West Virginia,” Manchin told reporters on Wednesday. “We’ll have to see what changes are made.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is among the many Democrats skeptical that Manchin will be able to reach a bipartisan deal on substantive voter projections, noting that GOP state legislatures tend to pass their voting bills along party-line votes.
“The idea that this can have some kind of bipartisan solution befuddles me, because every action taken in the legislatures is done just with Republican state senators, Republican assembly members, with no Democratic participation or input,” Schumer said Wednesday.
Rep. Barbara Lee, D-CA, was the sponsor of the House bill to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The measure now heads to the Senate. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty)
In Historic, Bipartisan Move, House Votes to Repeal 2002 Iraq War Powers Resolution
Claudia Grisales, NPR
Grisales writes: "The U.S. House of Representatives moved Thursday to repeal a nearly two-decade-old war powers measure, marking what many lawmakers hope will be the beginning of the end of wide-ranging authorities given to the president after the 9/11 terror attacks."
The vote was 268 to 161. The measure now heads to the Senate.
Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee of California — who in 2001 and 2002 voted against two war power measures passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks — was the sponsor of the repeal bill. The plan would end the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, that greenlighted then-President George W. Bush's plans to invade Iraq.
"It's been such a long time coming," Lee said ahead of Thursday's vote. "It's Congress' responsibility to authorize the use of force, and that authorization cannot be blank checks that stay as authorizations for any administration to use the way they see fit."
Lee's legislation drew bipartisan support. Her repeal of the 2002 authority, which was issued on Oct. 16 of that year, had more than 130 co-sponsors.
In the Senate, Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia is sponsoring a similar bill with help from Republican Todd Young of Indiana and four other GOP senators. On Wednesday, the repeal drew the support of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for the first time.
"It will eliminate the danger of a future administration reaching back into the legal dustbin to use it as a justification for military adventurism," Schumer said.
He noted that former President Donald Trump used the 2002 authority as a partial justification for an airstrike against an Iranian target in Iraq last year. Now, with the Iraq War over for nearly a decade, the 2002 authorization, and its use as a primary justification for military action, has lost its vital purpose, Schumer said.
A Senate committee is slated to take up the plan next week.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., earlier on Thursday warned that Democrats leading the charge on the repeal are ignoring a critical step addressing how the U.S. will fight against terrorists going forward.
For example, McConnell said that debate also needed to happen before President Biden rolled out his "hasty" plans to leave Afghanistan this year.
"Reality is more complicated, more dangerous, and less politically convenient than its supporters believe," McConnell said. "The fact of the matter is the legal and practical application of the 2002 AUMF extends far beyond the defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime. And tossing it aside without answering real questions about our ongoing efforts in the region is reckless."
What about the 2001 AUMF?
The effort, which has been debated for years, is what Lee and others hope will signal the initial steps to dismantle both war power measures issued after 9/11.
The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force was issued to allow the president to order the invasion of Afghanistan, and it has remained a key justification for military action against terrorist groups around the world.
But some say if the 2001 measure is repealed, it must be replaced, which is the subject of ongoing discussions now, Lee said. She and other lawmakers warned that it could be a months-long process but could be resolved by year's end.
This week, the White House issued a statement supporting Lee's bill repealing the 2002 authority, noting it would have minimal impact.
The administration also signaled openness to considering the end of other war powers in lieu of stricter alternatives.
"The President is committed to working with the Congress to ensure that outdated authorizations for the use of military force are replaced with a narrow and specific framework appropriate to ensure that we can continue to protect Americans from terrorist threats," the White House statement said.
Three states have now approved public health insurance plans that will be sold on the Affordable Care Act's insurance marketplaces alongside commercial coverage. (photo: Getty)
The Public Health Care Option Is Now a Reality in 3 States
Dylan Scott, Vox
Scott writes: "We're about to learn a lot about how a public health insurance option actually works in the US.
olorado Gov. Jared Polis on Wednesday signed into law a public health care option, making it the third state in the US to approve the creation of a government-run health insurance plan to be sold alongside commercial coverage on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces.
More than a decade ago, a federal public option was cut out of the ACA, largely because of objections by centrist Senate Democrats. Now it’s enjoying a revival of sorts. President Joe Biden campaigned on a public option in 2020, and while the chances of his proposal (or something like it) passing at the federal level have faded, Democrats in Congress are seeking input on what a federal public option should look like.
But some states aren’t waiting for Congress to act. Their public options may be more limited than what a possible federal version could be, but they are still valuable experiments that will test the concept in the real world.
Washington state first approved its public option in 2019 and made it available to consumers for enrollment in 2020. The state now has a year of experience getting the Cascade Care program up and running, and it’s already starting to tinker with the policy design. It’s also offering lessons for Colorado and Nevada (the other state to pass a public option this year, one week before Colorado).
As these states have drawn up their plans, one thing has become clear: The potential value of a public option is in keeping health care costs in check by keeping rates lower than those of private insurance plans. But it still remains to be seen whether a public option can expand health coverage to more people.
Already, more than half of the uninsured in the US are eligible for either Medicaid enrollment or ACA subsidies for private coverage. Surveys have shown that price concerns often keep them from enrolling — so if these public options can help put a check on rising health care costs, perhaps they can also have an effect on coverage. But that is an open question at this point.
“The jury is very much still out on whether the public option will expand enrollment,” Sabrina Corlette, co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, told me.
“The unifying theme of these three bills is they try to reduce health care costs for consumers by tackling provider prices,” she said of the public options in Washington, Colorado, and Nevada. “Time will tell whether they also expand coverage as a result of lowering premiums.”
With three state-level public options now out in the wild, we’re getting a clearer idea of the traits they share and how they are distinct. Even if nothing happens in Congress, the coming years will be a natural experiment in how to run a public option.
What the Washington, Colorado, and Nevada public options have in common
None of the states offer a “public” option like the one Congress contemplated in 2009, where the government sets up and administers its own health insurance plan.
“None of them are true public options in that sense,” says Katie Keith, who writes about insurance reform for Health Affairs and consulted with states as they developed public option legislation.
Instead, she compares them with public-private partnerships. States are contracting with private companies to create new insurance options to be overseen, if not run, by the government. States would face practical challenges to doing a “true” public option — namely, building up the financial reserves they’d need to pay out claims — so they’re taking another approach wherein private insurance companies will run the public option under rules set by the government.
This isn’t unprecedented: Medicare and Medicaid already rely on private companies to administer benefits for some of their enrollees.
The plans will be sold on the ACA marketplaces, alongside ACA-compliant private insurance. Only people who are eligible for ACA coverage through the individual and small-group market can sign up; these plans aren’t the kind of public option contemplated by some Democrats during the 2020 presidential campaign, which would also have allowed people who have large-group coverage to enroll.
All of these states are also trying to save money for both the government and consumers. Nevada, for example, has established very specific goals: The public option should have premiums that are 5 percent lower than a benchmark plan in the short term; over the longer term, the goal is to bring premiums down to 15 percent below comparable private plans on the market. Similarly, Colorado will require public option plans to reduce premiums by 15 percent over three years.
Importantly, all three states are pursuing waivers from the federal government. (Washington didn’t originally, as the Trump administration was categorically opposed to state-level public options, but new legislation requires the state to do so.) Those waivers would allow the states to keep any savings achieved for the federal government through lowering premiums (and therefore ACA subsidies). That money can then be used to provide more financial aid to cover people’s premiums or otherwise decrease health care costs.
But these states are deploying different strategies to achieve their savings, as well as to make sure doctors and hospitals actually accept the public option so that patients can get the medical care they need.
How these three state-level public options are different
At first glance, these state public options look very similar. But in the details, they have several important distinctions.
How much to pay health care providers is the most important issue for any health insurance plan — those prices dictate the premiums charged to customers — and these states are taking divergent approaches in their calculations.
Washington has capped provider payments at 160 percent of Medicare payment rates. Colorado has dictated that provider rates can’t be lower than 155 percent of Medicare; however, if insurers fail to achieve a 15-percent premium reduction, the state insurance commissioner has the authority to mandate lower rates. Nevada has said its public option can’t pay providers less than Medicare, but it otherwise leaves flexibility for the plan to hit its own premium-reduction targets.
One challenge in trying to set lower provider rates is that doctors and hospitals might simply choose not to accept the public option plan. That was Washington’s experience in its first year: Some hospitals refused to contract with the public plan, and since an adequate provider network isn’t possible without a hospital, the plan has only been available in 19 of the state’s 39 counties.
Washington is trying to correct that issue through recently signed legislation that will, among other things, require hospitals in large systems to participate in at least one public option plan. Nevada and Colorado, having seen Washington’s network-adequacy issues, are setting up their own provider participation requirements from the start.
“Nevada and Colorado clearly took a page from Washington’s experience,” Georgetown’s Corlette said.
In Nevada, if a provider accepts the state employee health plan, workers’ compensation, or Medicaid, they must accept the public option. Meanwhile, hospitals in Colorado will be required to accept the public option — with the threat looming that if costs don’t come down quickly enough, the state could step in and mandate lower reimbursement rates.
For benefits, Colorado and Washington are establishing what’s called a standardized benefit plan through their public options. With standardized benefits, some services (primary care visits and generic prescription drugs, for example) are provided at either no cost or for a small copay, even if the policyholder has yet to meet their deductible. Other common medical services have clearly defined cost-sharing obligations for patients, designed to make it easier for customers to know what they’ll need to pay out of pocket for health care if they sign up for that plan.
Nevada, on the other hand, hasn’t said how benefits have to be structured under its public option, nor what the cost-sharing obligations for patients must be.
When you look under the hood, there are important differences in how these public options will operate. But they’re all striving toward the same goals: lower health care costs and, hopefully as a result, more coverage. The test now is whether they can achieve their objectives.
“It will be interesting to see if additional intervention is needed,” Keith said, “or if this can be successful.”
President Biden. (photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
ALSO SEE: Supreme Court Throws Out Child Slavery Lawsuit Against Nestle, Cargill
Supreme Court Saves the Affordable Care Act in 7-2 Decision
Justin Rohrlich, The Daily Beast
Rohrlich writes: "The Supreme Court has tossed out a lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to do away with the Affordable Care Act, known to many as Obamacare."
he Supreme Court has tossed out a lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that sought to do away with the Affordable Care Act, known to many as Obamacare, in a 7-2 decision that means, among other things, that some 21 million Americans will keep their health insurance while insurance companies must continue to cover pre-existing conditions. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his majority opinion that the “plaintiffs do not have standing,” that is, a legal right to sue, to challenge Obamacare’s individual mandate “because they have not shown a past or future injury fairly traceable to defendants’ conduct enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional.” Alito and Gorsuch dissented.
The Trump administration refused to defend the ACA, which was signed into law in 2010 by former President Barack Obama, and urged the Supreme Court—along with 18 Republican state attorneys general—to kill it. When now-President Joe Biden took office, his Justice Department reversed the Trump position, keeping the ACA in place. “Following the change in Administration, the Department of Justice has reconsidered the government’s position in these cases,” Biden’s deputy solicitor general, Edwin Kneedler, wrote in February to Supreme Court clerk Scott Harris. According to a New York Times survey conducted last month, 44 percent of all Americans believe the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Of Democrats, 62 percent think the ACA is constitutional, compared to 40 percent of independents and just 26 percent of Republicans.
Bolivian president Luis Arce, left, and former president Evo Morales raise their fists during the 26th anniversary celebrations of the ruling Movimiento al Socialismo party, in La Paz, Bolivia, March 29, 2021. (photo: Azizar Raldes/Getty)
Bolivian Ex-Minister of Defense Plotted a Second Coup Using US Mercenaries
Laurence Blair and Ryan Grim, The Intercept
Excerpt: "A top official in the outgoing Bolivian government plotted to deploy hundreds of mercenaries from the United States to overturn the results of the South American country's October 2020 election, according to documents and audio recordings of telephone calls obtained by The Intercept."
Leaked phone recordings and emails reveal a top official was prepared to use foreign troops to block Bolivia’s left-wing MAS party from returning to power.
top official in the outgoing Bolivian government plotted to deploy hundreds of mercenaries from the United States to overturn the results of the South American country’s October 2020 election, according to documents and audio recordings of telephone calls obtained by The Intercept.
The aim of the mercenary recruitment was to forcibly block Luis Arce from taking up the presidency for Movimiento al Socialismo, or MAS, the party of former Bolivian President Evo Morales. The plot continued even though Arce, a protégé of Morales, trounced a crowded field, winning 55 percent of first-round votes and eliminating the need for a runoff election.
In one of the leaked recordings, a person identified as the Bolivian minister of defense said he was “working to avoid the annihilation of my country.” The armed forces and the people needed to “rise up,” he added, “and block an Arce administration. … The next 72 hours are crucial.”
Disagreements between ministers and divisions within the armed forces, strained under the weight of Arce’s convincing victory on October 18, 2020, appear to have undermined the plan. It was never executed, and several top officials of the outgoing government have either fled Bolivia or been arrested on separate charges linked to corruption and their alleged role in the 2019 coup.
For over a year prior, Bolivia had been plunged into a rolling crisis. In October 2019, when Morales was on the ballot for a controversial fourth term, the opposition accused him of rigging the election, and the Organization of American States, or OAS, quickly echoed the charge. Amid widespread protests, a police mutiny, and pressure from the army, Morales was forced to step down and flee the country. Jeanine Áñez, a little-known evangelical senator, was hastily sworn in as caretaker president, promising to hold new elections within weeks.
Instead, she reoriented the government away from Morales’s leftist approach and toward Donald Trump’s White House, adopted a strident Christian tone in contrast to Morales’s championing of Indigenous Andean culture, and issued a decree preemptively shielding soldiers from prosecution. The armed forces soon afterward carried out multiple massacres while suppressing opposition to the new interim government.
Prosecutors and gangs persecuted MAS supporters in the courts and the streets. After 14 years of growth under Morales, thousands were dragged back into poverty during the Covid-19 pandemic — which Áñez repeatedly cited as a reason to postpone a rerun of the vote. Amid mass demonstrations demanding new elections, Áñez finally allowed the balloting last fall. She also ran for president herself, only to drop out of the race after polls placed her a distant fourth.
Arce’s eventual victory last fall, in a closely scrutinized election, was a stunning rejection of the right-wing shift overseen by Áñez. The long-serving economy minister under Morales, Arce also distanced himself from his former boss. “We have recovered democracy,” Arce told supporters, vowing to work to stabilize and unify the country.
The Bolivian right wing, however, was not ready to relinquish power. The call with Áñez’s defense minister, in which the speakers suggest several other top officials are likely to be on board, sketches a coup plot even more flagrant than the one in October 2019.
Several of the plotters discussed flying hundreds of foreign mercenaries into Bolivia from a U.S. military base outside Miami. These would join forces with elite Bolivian military units, renegade police squadrons, and vigilante mobs in a desperate bid to keep the country’s largest political movement from returning to power.
The phone calls, along with leaked emails discussing a mass deployment of hired guns to coincide with the elections, reveal how Bolivia could have seen fresh bloodshed late last year.
Two U.S. military sources confirmed that the Special Operations commands that they work for had gotten wind of the Bolivia coup plot. But nothing ever came of it, they told The Intercept. One special ops source added, “No one really took them seriously as far as I know.”
“The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces”
The longest of the recordings is a 15-minute phone call with a person The Intercept has identified as Luis Fernando López, a former paratrooper and businessman appointed defense minister by Áñez in November 2019. López, who is referred to in the call as “Mr. Minister,” can be identified through references to his work as minister with the armed forces, and by comparing the voice of the relevant speaker and claims he makes in the recording to his publicly available speeches.
The other main participant appears to be Joe Pereira, a former civilian administrator with the U.S. Army who was based in Bolivia at the time. Pereira, who has previously boasted of links to U.S. special forces and been held in a Bolivian jail awaiting trial on fraud charges, is identifiable by references to the use of a company that he has directed, as well as the leaked text of emails that describe him as organizing a mission involving mercenaries in Bolivia. Two of the people included in the emails confirmed to The Intercept that the emails are authentic and that Pereira was the lead organizer. An ex-employee of Pereira’s who listened to the audio said that he had no doubt that the voice on the recordings was his former boss. Members of Pereira’s church said the same.
In a separate recording, Pereira identifies his translator as “Cyber Rambo,” while in a later phone call he is referred to directly as “Luis.” “Cyber Rambo” is a nickname given to Luis Suárez, a Bolivian American former U.S. Army sergeant known for creating an algorithm that boosted anti-Morales tweets during the 2019 political crisis. Reached for comment by The Intercept, Suárez denied having been in contact with López and Pereira or having any involvement in the coup plot. He said that after he was contacted by The Intercept in June, he found a previously unread and unanswered message from Pereira. Suárez speculated that Pereira could have been trying to fool López into believing he was involved. López did not respond to questions sent via his lawyer, who said his client did not want to speak to the press and was seeking asylum abroad. Pereira could not be reached for comment via telephone and did not respond to questions emailed in October or May.
References to Arce’s election win indicate the call took place after October 18, and it appears to have been made before November 5, when López fled Bolivia for neighboring Brazil — three days before Arce’s inauguration.
The recording begins mid-conversation, with the man identified as López saying, “armaments and other military equipment are obviously highly important to reinforce what we are doing.”
“The military high command is already in preliminary talks,” he continues. “The struggle, the rallying cry, is that they [MAS] want to replace the Bolivian armed forces and the police with militias, Cubans, and Venezuelans. That is the key point. They [the police and armed forces] are going to allow Bolivia to rise up again and block an Arce administration. That’s the reality.”
López further suggests that the commander of the armed forces is “already” mulling over a preemptive coup d’état and will be the one who “initiates the military operation.”
“I want to emphasize the following. The commander of the armed forces is working on all of this,” López says. The top general appointed by Áñez was Sergio Orellana. Believed to have fled Bolivia for Colombia in November, he could not be reached for comment.
“We’ve been working on this all week,” López emphasizes. “I can guarantee you that right now we have a united armed forces — not 100 percent, because there are obviously blues,” he stipulates, in apparent reference to the official color of the MAS. Some military officers are likely to back “the winning horse [Arce] because he won the election,” he admits, but insists that they are “very few.”
“I guarantee you that 95, 98 percent are super patriotic and don’t want to disappear,” he concludes. “I’ve been working for 11 months to ensure that the armed forces have dignity, have morale, are tried and tested, and think of the fatherland above all. I guarantee you that this won’t fail.”
A day before Arce’s inauguration, Morales — at that point still in exile in Buenos Aires — claimed that Orellana had been trying to persuade senior officers to establish a “military junta,” using the rationale that Arce planned to replace the armed forces with militias. Morales suggested that a pro-MAS general had overruled Orellana — and that although orders had been given to mobilize elite troops, these had quickly been canceled. At the time, international media largely ignored Morales’s claim.
“I heard rumors to the effect, but nothing concrete, nothing about [troop] movements,” said Tomás Peña y Lillo, a retired general and army chief of operations until 2010, when asked about the plot by The Intercept. “I imagine that it was nothing more than a wish.”
Yet Bolivian military figures remain genuinely concerned that MAS harbors designs of sidelining the army by arming its own supporters, Peña y Lillo argued. “This is the intention of the [Arce] government,” he added. “They would obviously like to do that, they might try. But the constitution doesn’t allow it. And the army will abide by the constitution.”
“Armed Militias of the People”
During his 14 years in power, a cordial relationship between Morales — himself a conscript as a young man — and Bolivia’s armed forces, much of whose senior command was trained by the United States, deteriorated into an open rift.
His praise for Ernesto “Che” Guevara — who was captured and killed in Bolivia with CIA support in 1967 — and the creation of an “anti-imperialist” military academy angered many soldiers. Gripes about pay were also shared by the police. Their refusal to quell protests in the wake of the contested 2019 vote was pivotal in forcing Bolivia’s longest-serving president into exile, first in Mexico, then in neighboring Argentina.
But the suggestion that top generals were deliberating about how to block the MAS from returning to power under Arce a year later — disregarding the 2020 election result and contravening the constitution — indicates that distrust of the country’s dominant popular movement among some senior military figures has strayed into paranoia.
In his call with Pereira, López stressed, “My work right now is focused on avoiding the annihilation of my country and the arrival of Venezuelan and Cuban troops, and from Iran.” In a speech given in October 2020 to mark the anniversary of Guevara’s killing, López similarly vowed that foreign invaders “of any nationality, Cubans, Venezuelans or Argentines … will find death in our territory.”
The claim that Cuban, Venezuelan, and Iranian operatives have successfully infiltrated governments, left-wing parties, and protest movements across Latin America has become a frequent right-wing talking point across the region in recent years, but — outside of Venezuela itself — has little concrete evidence to back it up.
In January 2020, while in exile in Buenos Aires, Morales told MAS supporters that if he returned to Bolivia, he would seek to organize “armed militias of the people” along Venezuelan lines. His rivals alleged that his comments betrayed plans for a pro-MAS paramilitary force. Morales subsequently claimed that he was referring to a tradition of local self-defense patrols in Andean communities.
Eduardo Gamarra, a Bolivian political scientist and professor at Florida International University, suggested a simpler reason why the generals who helped topple Morales might have wanted to keep Arce out of power. “Was there unrest in the armed forces? Were they worried? Yes,” Gamarra said. “They were rightly concerned there was going to be a major purge. The MAS was going to be furious.”
Pereira was also monitoring the former MAS leader’s whereabouts. In another phone call, he speaks amicably with an older man, Manuel, who informs him that Morales has moved from a temporary residence near an American school in the La Lucila suburb of Buenos Aires.
“What a pain. What a pain our buddy Evo has … gone from that place,” says Pereira.
“We’ll have to find out where he is,” replies Manuel. “He’s got to be somewhere.”
“I Can Get Up to 10,000 Men With No Problem”
During the 15-minute call, Pereira says that the request for weapons is “not a problem” and asks how many Hercules C-130 aircraft the defense minister has available. López’s response: There are only three C-130s in all of Bolivia, and he only has control of one, while the national police have two. Pereira reassures him, “Following the phone call I’m having with you, I’m going to do the same to coordinate with the police authorities. With high command.”
The aircraft, Pereira says, are needed “to pick up personnel in Southern Command in Homestead Air Force Base in Miami.”
“By the time the C-130s get inbound, I’ll have them contracted, I’ll have them geared up, and … all their weapons ready,” he adds.
The translator further spells out the arrangement: The troops will be collected “in such a way as if they were private contractors, under no representation of the American state.”
“We are going to put all those people under shell contracts for Bolivian companies operating already in-country,” Pereira continues, with López agreeing on each point.
“I can get up to 10,000 men with no problem. I don’t think we need 10,000,” he stipulates. “All special forces. I can also bring about 350 what we call LEPs, Law Enforcement Professionals, to guide the police. … With me [in Bolivia] I have a staff of personnel that can handle various different jobs. … If there’s something else I need, I will have them fly in as undercover, like if they were photographers, they were pastors, they were medics, they were tourists.”
David Shearman, one of the U.S.-based recruiters Pereira had asked to organize those men, later told The Intercept that the 10,000 number was absurd. “You couldn’t get 10,000 people even if Blackwater was back in business and going back to Iraq,” Shearman told The Intercept in June.
Pereira, in the audio, suggests that this cohort of mercenaries will be welcomed with open arms by Bolivians — 3.2 million of whom had voted to return the MAS to power just days previously. “We have done a lot of infiltration. … They are not going to go and try to persuade people to follow the MAS. More people want liberty for your country.”
Pereira adds that he will need to talk with Arturo Murillo, then the interior minister and responsible for the police, “so he is not making mistakes, being scared.” In the weeks before the 2020 election, Murillo repeatedly warned in public and private that the MAS was planning an armed insurrection if it lost the vote. In October, Murillo traveled to Washington, D.C., for meetings with U.S. diplomats, the OAS, and the White House, where he said that matters of “national security” and “threats” to the elections were discussed. At the time, Murillo told the press that “the United States can help with many things,” later confirming that Bolivia was buying weapons in order to “defend democracy” at “any price.” In May 2020, he boasted of having met with the CIA, claiming that Mauricio Claver-Carone, the Trump administration’s point person on Latin American affairs, had “opened many doors for us.” Murillo did not respond to requests for comment made by The Intercept in October.
But Pereira, in the call, maintains that there should be no trace of U.S. involvement. “Whether they see us as mercenaries or they see us as [a] contract state or however they want to look at us, I could care less as long as they cannot tie us into direct Special Forces, Army, or Air Force [involvement],” he says.
The translator asks the minister a question directly “as a Bolivian.” How ready “are all of you,” he asks, “to make this work? Are you ready to carry out psychological operations, are you ready to manipulate information in the same way as the MAS?” The response is unequivocal: “One hundred percent.”
“I really have no clue about that,” Suárez told The Intercept, stipulating that he was now a software engineer based in Texas but not involved in cybersecurity or government-related work.
“I had no intention to prevent Arce from taking power,” Suárez said, “I think he won the election fair and square and not like Evo Morales with fraud.”
“Come and Help Us”
Another call entirely in Spanish, which Pereira appears to have held after his conversation with the minister, indicates that Pereira may have exaggerated the level of military support for the planned coup.
“Last night I was up until two in the morning, almost 2:30, [with] intelligence reports, counterintelligence … speaking of rumors, maneuvers, and strategies,” Pereira complains to the recipient, who is unidentified. “It’s very worrying. … People are going from left to right, right to left, as they please. … They’re afraid,” he surmises, adding that bribes, self-interest, and even social media are affecting soldiers’ loyalties.
“We’re looking for the weapons, I already have all the information you asked me for. We already know who we can count on,” Pereira’s interlocutor reassures him, mentioning a police colonel who “wants nothing to do with the MAS,” is “100 percent with us,” and “has lots of people who back him.”
“They are tired of their bosses getting everything while they expose themselves to the bullets for nothing. There are strategic people in each unit who are completely for us,” he explains.
Pereira singles out the need to secure the backing of special forces based at the Condors paratrooper academy and Bolivia’s elite Rangers regiments.
“We need to look at everything we talked about several months ago,” Pereira says on the call. “We spoke about the action plan, [the] case of demonstrating force, of taking strategic places. I think that with what we have now, we’re in a much better position, in that we won’t have to confront Bolivian troops. We will have to show efficiency, seriousness, manpower, and once they see it for themselves, I think they will invite us inside and say ‘Come and help us.’”
“Things Are Moving Forward”
Pereira’s promises to bring in planeloads of guns-for-hire to aid the insurrection were likely overblown. But evidence seen by The Intercept suggests that plans to deploy hundreds of mercenaries, including former U.S. service members, to coincide with the election were well advanced in the weeks leading up to October 18.
In the text of emails shared before the vote with The Intercept by a retired security contractor — who asked not to be named because he feared retaliation — Pereira is named as one of three organizers of the mission. The other two, David Shearman and Joe Milligan, have extensive experience in overseas counterinsurgency and covert operations.
The first message, which is written by Milligan and whose recipients are described as being on the “LEP/Medic email chain,” indicates that at least 250 contractors, including Law Enforcement Professionals and medics, have signed up for “the Bolivia project.” It stipulates those who have “put in for the Red Team” will be contacted separately. In the call between López and Pereira, the translator refers to Pereira with the codename “Red.”
According to the email, the deployment was delayed due to the July 23 postponement of elections, from September 6 to October 18. “We are still on track to get you in early enough to do the train up and gear issue,” Milligan continues.
“This project is very sensitive right now,” Milligan cautions. “I have only put it out on a few Facebook sites that I know LEP’s and the Medics are on and some police pages. So, let’s keep this secure as possible. There is a lot of moving parts to this and we don’t want to jam up the other guys that are working on the ground to make this happen.”
Recipients of the email are asked to call a number registered to Milligan, a licensed gun dealer in Dallas, Texas. A LinkedIn page describes Milligan as a police and military trainer and head of security for a Dallas scrap metals company. Between 2006 and 2012, he worked on counterinsurgency and bomb-disposal operations in Afghanistan with private military firm MPRI, and trained Iraqi police with Blackwater, notorious for perpetrating a massacre of civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
Reached by telephone on the given number before the election, Milligan denied any knowledge of the operation, saying first that he was a truck driver, then that he worked at a scrap metals firm. “It must be another Joe Milligan, there are several on Facebook,” he added, before hanging up. Reached again in June, he acknowledged that the emails were authentic, and that Pereira, organizing the effort, had reached out through a mutual network. He maintained that he had no specific knowledge of what Pereira was planning in Bolivia.
“I really don’t put much stock in what people say to me until I see a paycheck or airplane ticket. I’ve worked overseas for years, so I don’t even worry about what they think they’re going to do or what they’re talking about until it actually materializes with a paycheck,” he said.
Shearman, the other listed contact, describes himself in an online biography as a former U.S. Marine who has worked “around the world” on a variety of “covert operations,” including protecting U.S. officials in Iraq and South America. In a second email, Shearman’s name, email, phone number, and blog — named Viper One Six after his military call sign in Afghanistan — are appended in the form of a signature.
“Things are moving forward. We continue to seek more interested professionals with tenured law enforcement experience and who are interested in this type of unique mission,” Shearman’s message begins. He proceeds to ask interested recipients to email a nondisclosure agreement to Pereira to receive further instructions, and to “Think low-profile … Jeans, casual pants, long and short sleeve shirts capable of concealed carry.”
“If you have a pilot’s license, the company will pay all fees regarding renewals, etc. for you while you are down there. School up and Guerilla Group – MSA, the main foe down there,” Shearman adds, potentially scrambling the abbreviation for MAS. “Our program is adding to an existing program and our program is still being stood up.”
The emails hint that the project is politically sensitive. “Updated timeline appears to be late September into early October. The date revolves around politics there. Groups will move staggered and you will be advised of your movement group and more information on travel will follow as you proceed in the process,” Shearman writes. “You all will be getting briefings when we travel, and you will get a more enhanced view of the operation, mission, and the concerns/sensitivity of it.”
Shearman concludes by promising that an “HQ South” will handle all “company in-processing, equipment issue, and range quals” — referring to firearms certificates — and offer a “full medical/dental facility.” It remains unclear whether the group had the use of a new or preexisting base in Bolivia or not.
Reached by telephone before the election, Shearman said he was retired and denied being involved in any project in Bolivia. Warning that handling the leaked messages could be illegal, he said: “If a person were to release sensitive documents that may be a serious legal liability for any individual involved.”
In June, Shearman acknowledged he had sent the emails, and explained that Pereira had reached out to him for help with recruitment and administration for what he had understood to be a legitimate police-training project. “Unfortunately, if I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t have helped them out, but those emails seem to paint a picture of some fantastical thing, and so I can see the intrigue from the outside looking in,” he said, adding that the contents of the emails had largely been provided by Pereira. “A lot of that stuff was just repeated from Joe.”
Shearman also said he wasn’t paid for the work, and he hasn’t heard from Pereira in months. He said Pereira told him the project involved “work with the Bolivian government to provide law enforcement training — training of their law enforcement agencies down there in regular police tactics. … That’s the extent of what I know and the extent of what the recruitment effort was. Anything beyond that, I don’t have any clue because I was not privy to any of that.”
“SOCOM Will Never Fail Me”
Pereira arrived in Bolivia roughly a decade ago. Members of a Baptist church in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, a hotbed of opposition to Morales, said he was believed to be an ex-soldier and pastor working in the oil industry. For a while, he ran Bridge 2 Life Foundation, which claims to bring pastors, doctors, and teachers to work across Latin America and the Middle East. A 2014 advertisement for a motivational talk by Pereira describes him as an “ex-Army Officer of the Special Forces” and an “ex-marine,” though public documentation refers to him as a civilian contractor. According to an internal bulletin, he had previously worked as a reserve affairs mobilization planner at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, North Carolina — an Army training center for United States Special Operations Command, or SOCOM — in 1999. Another publication describes him as a civilian contractor in the same role in 2002.
A Facebook page for Pereira lists him as “President Oil & Gas at China National Group” from March 2017 onward. Headquartered in Santa Cruz, the firm’s now-inactive Facebook page describes it as occupying a “platform” left by a previous company working with Chinese investors.
In October 2020, China National Group’s offices in central Santa Cruz were empty and up for rent. An official registry showed the firm had officially closed before the end of March 2019. Yet the leaked emails from September 2019 suffix Pereira’s email address with the letters “cng,” and the contractors are asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement labeled “CNG-NDA.”
A judicial summons from November 2016 outlines fraud charges against Pereira and his wife. A court ruling from July 2019 indicates Pereira was in pretrial detention as of November 5, 2018, and that a police colonel had threatened to transfer him to a different cell block unless Pereira returned him $80,000. It is not known whether the case was pursued or Pereira was convicted or acquitted.
The suggestion of deceptive business practices tallies with his promises to López that he could use “shell contracts” to bring foreign mercenaries into Bolivia “undercover” in the guise of pastors, doctors, and tourists.
Pereira’s first recorded Facebook “check-in” was in Santa Cruz on November 16, 2019: six days after Morales fled the country and Añez took power. In February 2020, he posted screenshots of a WhatsApp conversation to Facebook, claiming to be in charge of troops on a base in Bolivia, and joking — in the context of a lost bet on the Super Bowl — that “SOCOM will never fail me.”
Among Pereira’s 535 Facebook friends are dozens of current and former U.S. military personnel and private security contractors. Phone calls to a number for the China National Group were unanswered. Pereira did not respond to emailed questions. His current location is unknown.
“Alive, Free, or as President of Bolivia”
A further pair of recorded conversations reviewed by The Intercept suggest that disagreements between defense minister López and Murillo — as interior minister, ultimately in control of the police — may have derailed the coup. They appear to have taken place soon before López fled the country on November 5. The recordings suggest that López was not only involved, but also that the plotters had dangled the prospect of his becoming president instead of Arce.
A woman who refers to herself as a relative of López’s says in one call that he is under pressure “not to unmask Murillo’s plan,” referring to the interior minister. “It seems like he’s afraid, he says even he doesn’t know what he’s going to do,” she adds.
“So the issue is simple,” responds the speaker, who is called by Suárez’s first name, Luis, the same first name as the “Cyber Rambo” who Pereira said was translating on the call between and López. “It’s Murillo that’s putting an obstacle in our way.” The woman responds, “Exactly, he says that they’re threatening him.”
Far from the bravado of some days prior, the former paratrooper appears to have gone to ground. “Tell López’s mother,” the speaker continues, “that probably his only option of getting out of this alive, free, or as president of Bolivia is for him to pick up our call. … Her son is already in a lot of danger,” he adds, “I have to talk with him, and he has to stop committing errors.”
In a subsequent recording, Pereira concludes: “He’s shitting in his pants right now.”
In the event, the coup never materialized, and the threat to Bolivian democracy appears to have subsided. Arce was sworn in as president of Bolivia on November 8, 2020, a day after most mainstream media outlets called the U.S. presidential election for Joe Biden. Morales returned to Bolivia soon afterward and has appeared at MAS party rallies, but has not taken a formal government post. Arce fired the military commanders Áñez promoted, including Orellana, and replaced them with officers believed to be more loyal.
Murillo and López fled together across the border with Brazil on November 5 with the help of a Bolivian Air Force plane, shortly before corruption allegations were leveled against them. They are suspected of having received bribes after a Florida-based private security company, Bravo Tactical Solutions, secured a contract to supply Bolivia’s security forces with tear gas at vastly inflated prices.
Murillo, however, found no refuge outside the country. On May 26 of this year, the FBI announced it had arrested him on charges of conspiring to commit money-laundering connected to the tear gas case. The same day, Arce’s interior minister indicated he would also seek López’s extradition from Brazil in connection with the case. López has denied wrongdoing, tweeting last month that “the Bolivian people know I worked tirelessly for the country, in accordance with the constitution.”
Orellana, who fled to Colombia in November, has arrest warrants out against him for his role in the ouster of Morales and the subsequent killing of protesters by troops. In March, Áñez herself was arrested for her involvement in the 2019 coup. She insists her caretaker presidency was constitutional.
But there are ongoing rumblings of disquiet among the military. Peña y Lillo, the retired general, said that by jailing military officers “like common criminals,” the Arce administration was seeking to “terrify and take vengeance on the armed forces” for their role in unseating Morales. He described the 2019 coup as a constitutional intervention to “defend society.”
“There Would Have Been So Much Bloodletting”
Abortive coups often appear slapdash in hindsight, but such plots don’t need to be perfectly executed to be successful. The U.S. government notoriously overthrew democratically elected leaders in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s, both times in shoestring operations that ended up victorious amid the resulting chaos. The 1954 Guatemala coup succeeded because the local military correctly perceived the U.S. was behind it.
But the plot Pereira was selling does not appear to have had the backing of the U.S. government. It more closely resembles the May 2020 efforts of Silvercorp USA, a Florida-based private military company that launched a botched coup attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Eight participants were killed, and 17 were captured. Among those now in jail in Venezuela is the former Green Beret leading the operation, who later claimed that it was authorized by Donald Trump’s White House. The Trump administration denied involvement.
“These [are] yahoos punching above their weight trying to get rich quickly,” said Sean McFate, a professor of strategy at Georgetown University and former military contractor who reviewed the emails shared with The Intercept. “It’s just amateur hour. And we’ve seen a lot of that [recently].”
Gamarra, of Florida International University, argued that Pereira’s claims to have the support of the U.S. military were most likely false, but that they highlighted the problem of weak oversight of soldiers-turned-mercenaries around the world.
Such groups of soldiers of fortune became more dangerous after the Trump administration encouraged them to “freelance,” he added, referring to the alleged discreet endorsement of the White House for Silvercorp’s activities in Venezuela.
“These guys are a dime a dozen, they all think they’re generals. … They’re dangerous because of what they promise,” said Gamarra. “Conspiracies are generally just that, conspiracies, but they cause a lot of damage, especially in fragile places like Bolivia. All you need is one Pereira to mess things up.”
If the short-lived Bolivian operation were funded by the U.S. government, or enjoyed its “tacit or explicit approval,” it would show how deep into “reckless cowboy territory” the Trump administration’s Latin America policy had gone, said Adam Isaacson, director of the Defense Oversight program at the Washington Office on Latin America.
“It beggars belief that professional diplomats or military commanders would approve a half-baked mission like this,” Isaacson added.
“The last thing this region needs right now is bands of mercenaries paid by who knows whom trying to install their preferred leaders by force,” agreed Eric Farnsworth, a former U.S. diplomat and vice president of the Council of the Americas, who also reviewed the emails and agreed that the plot seemed well advanced. “It’s not democratic and it can’t be condoned.”
A grim example of what might have occurred unfolded in November 2019, when at least 19 demonstrators, mainly poor and Indigenous MAS supporters, were shot dead by Bolivian security forces under the oversight of Áñez, Murillo, López, and Orellana. Among those killed was Omar Calle Siles, 28, a keen soccer player who left behind a 5-year-old son.
“We cry every day,” said Omar’s sister, Angélica Calle Siles. “We haven’t been able to eat together for the past 17 months because we feel his absence at the table.”
“All we want is justice,” she added, “for the people who have destroyed so many humble families to pay, so my brother can rest in peace.”
Had the planned coup in 2020 gotten off the ground, Gamarra warned, “there would have been so much bloodletting in Bolivia.”
Last week, thousands gathered in Minnesota for the #TreatyPeopleGathering to protest Line 3. (photo: Divest Ed)
The Line 3 Pipeline Fight Is the Next Standing Rock
Samir Ferdowsi, VICE
Ferdowsi writes: "Activists in Hubbard County, Minnesota, chained themselves to a semi truck carrying drilling equipment Monday in an attempt to stop construction of Line 3."
At least 500 water protectors have been arrested protesting the pipeline, which will carry toxic tar sands oil from Canada into the U.S.
ctivists in Hubbard County, Minnesota, chained themselves to a semi truck carrying drilling equipment Monday in an attempt to stop construction of Line 3, a $9.3 billion pipeline meant to transport some of the most climate-destructive oil in the world into the states.
That’s when local cops stepped in. Officers arrested the activists blocking the equipment as well as 29 water protectors peacefully protesting on the side of the road, according to Tara Houska, a lead resistance organizer, tribal attorney, and former adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders on Native American affairs.
“If I was there, I would have been arrested,” said Houska, who was helping with other protests nearby and monitoring the situation via phone. “There was one person who was trying to figure out how to have the best view for our friends who were locked down to the equipment. A few seconds later, you heard the police officers saying, ‘You’re all under arrest.’”
The new pipeline, being built by Canadian-based energy behemoth Enbridge, would carry tar-sands, a particularly dirty type of oil, from Alberta, Canada, across the North Dakota border, through a large portion of Minnesota, and finally to a port in Superior, Wisconsin. It’s a thick mixture of sand, clay, and a peanut-butter-like substance called bitumen. The oil causes three times the amount of greenhouse gas emissions than the production of conventional oil and takes significantly more freshwater to produce.
Not only does the pipeline put the local water sources and ecosystems at risk of contamination, the intended location also covers Native American-protected land. Leaders of local nations say the pipeline violates treaties signed in the 1800s meant to protect Indigenous peoples’ ability to live off their land.
Earlier this month, a massive protest brought over 2,000 people from around the country for a four-day event in solidarity with Anishinaabe people, whose land is being disturbed by the project. At one point, a Department of Homeland Security helicopter—the same one that surveilled George Floyd Square during protests—flew dangerously low to the ground and sprayed protesters with dirt and debris. Nearly 200 people were arrested, bringing the total number of detained protesters in the Line 3 fight to more than 500, according to Houska.
The local sheriff, however, maintains that Monday’s arrests were necessary.
“Driving recklessly and forcing a semi tractor-trailer on the highway to slam on their brakes and stop is not the proper way to demonstrate,” said Hubbard County Sheriff Cory Aukes. “Occupants of the vehicle then jumped out and chained themselves underneath the semi causing a major traffic hazard. This certainly was not a lawful protest and the Hubbard County Sheriff's Office was forced to take legal action against those breaking the law.”
Enbridge has marketed the pipeline as a “replacement” for one that burst in 1991, causing the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history. But the new project would double the existing line’s oil carrying capacity to 760,000 barrels per day. That’s the environmental equivalent to building 50 new coal mines in the area, according to multiple environmental groups.
Tar sands oil is highly toxic and could be detrimental to natural ecosystems, if the new Line 3 pipeline were to leak. Nearby wetlands would become poisoned by the substance, harming wildlife and contaminating wild rice fields—a source of food and significant spiritual importance for the Anishinaabe. The project crosses 800 wetlands and 200 bodies of water in total, according to Houska.
It’s these homelands that are protected under the treaties signed more than 200 years ago. Between 1825 and 1865, the U.S. government and the Anishinaabe in Minnesota signed 10 treaties that protected wildlife so that the Native Americans could hunt, fish, and gather wild rice on their land without disturbance. Native American treaties, however, have been repeatedly broken across the United States.
“Our struggle continues,” Houska said. “An invitation to folks to come take a stand remains.”
Indigenous peoples have also been harassed on their land near the Line 3 site, as VICE News previously reported. In February, two workers with an Enbridge pipeline contractor helping build Line 3 were arrested in Northern Minnesota during a sex trafficking sting operation.
Still, the project is moving forward as planned.
Monday’s arrests came the same day as a three-judge panel with the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in-favor 2-1 of the pipeline. They affirmed the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission's (PUC) position that the pipeline is needed, even though they acknowledged the harm the pipeline will cause.
“With an existing, deteriorating pipeline carrying crude oil through Minnesota, there was no option without environmental consequences,” the court’s decision reads. “There was no option without impacts on the rights of indigenous peoples.”
The one dissenting judge, Peter Reyes, disagreed and wrote that the decision “cannot stand,” because of the harm to Minnesota’s Indigenous people and wildlife.
Indigenous leaders also slammed the court's affirmation. Honor the Earth, a Native-led environmental protection coalition composed of multiple Native nationals, said in a statement the court had violated treaty rights established in 1855, and that they plan to continue in protests.
“We are very disappointed that the Court of Appeals upheld the PUC’s decision to issue the certificate of need,” said White Earth Reservation Business Committee Chairman Michael Fairbanks in a release. “Despite the Court’s ruling, the White Earth Reservation remains steadfast in our opposition to the construction of this unnecessary and dangerous pipeline.”
President Joe Biden, however, could step in and halt the project—just like he did earlier this month with the Keystone XL pipeline. And that’s what water protectors are hoping will come of all the arrests and pain they’ve experienced.
“The reality moving forward is that this lies squarely with the Biden administration to decide what happens with Line 3,” Houska said. “He needs to follow the climate science and uphold tribal sovereignty. The actions on the ground will continue until that outcome is reached.”
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