Grandmothers against pipelines
Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in The New Political’s Winter Magazine: “Moving Forward.”
Three grandmothers sat in chairs outside the gates of construction of the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline, their arms locked together and chained to the gate. They attached a banner to the gate that read “Grandmothers Stop Line 3.”
“We’re gonna rise like the water. We’re gonna shut this pipeline down. I hear the voice of my great granddaughter, saying ‘Keep it in the ground,’” they sang.
Judy Smucker, Anne Sparks and Claudia Sheehan, all from the Athens area, traveled to Minnesota in July 2021 to take direct action against the construction of Line 3 by obstructing one of the roadways for pipeline construction.
Their efforts granted them all felony theft charges. As of December 2021, the women are still out on bail and awaiting trial.
“This is my time, it’s my generation that made the mess … We want to take care of our children and our grandchildren, but we did such a poor job of not cleaning up the mess,” Smucker said. “I can do it now. There’s nothing to stop me. We’re a force –– grandmothers are a force, a real force. We can be if we unite.”
Smucker, Sparks and Sheehan are all environmental activists who have worked with the Athens County Future Action Network (ACFAN). Originally, ACFAN stood for Athens County Fracking Action Network. The group has fought against fracking and injection wells in Athens County since 2011.
In the summer of 2021, ACFAN asked for volunteers to travel to Minnesota to fight against Enbridge Line 3, a replacement pipeline for the Canada-based oil and gas company. The line extends from Alberta, Canada, to Wisconsin, with the replacement adding 330 miles to the line, according to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission.
Environmental and Indigenous rights activists have prioritized Line 3 due to the line crossing through land of multiple Indigenous tribes, including Anishinaabe territory, and through lakes and wild rice beds. Line 3 violates the sovereignty of tribal nations on the land and violates treaty rights to hunt, gather and fish on the land, according to Stop Line 3. The line transports heavy tar sands which must be pushed through the pipes. This burdens a massive carbon and fossil fuel cost on the environment, and poses threats to the communities and environment surrounding possible spills.
Manoomin, or wild rice, is a sacred food for Anishinaabe people, according to High Country News. The construction of the Line 3 replacement involves draining bodies of water, according to Enbridge, which could harm the wild rice lakes. In August 2021, the White Earth Band of Ojibwe exercised Rights of Manoomin, tribal law that gives legal status to the plant species and what is known as a Right of Nature, to stop the construction of Line 3 in tribal court.
“Tribal communities have been putting their bodies in harm’s way for over seven years to end pipeline construction and transport of tar sands through their homelands … Science tells us that our earth is at a tipping point. Yet our politicians subsidize fossil fuels and block clean energy, refusing to act responsibly and require use of cleaner and safer energy sources,” Sheehan, Sparks and Smucker wrote in a statement published on ACFAN about their actions.
In June 2021, the three Athens grandmothers traveled to an Earth First! camp in Minnesota with activists planning direct action against the pipeline. While there, the women used pseudonyms and were informed that there were likely undercover agents at the camp. During the week, a neighboring camp led by Indigenous peoples was put “under siege” by the Hubbard County Sheriff’s department.
The media outlet Unicorn Riot and anti-pipeline organization Giniw Collective documented on video the Hubbard County Sheriff’s Department preventing vehicles taking supplies into the Indigenous camp, despite it being on private property and used with the approval of the land owner.
According to the Intercept, at the time of the barricade, Enbridge reimbursed Hubbard County $2,660 for riot helmets, face shields, chest protectors and other equipment to remove pipeline protests.
The women were sent to the camp to provide support, and upon arriving, heard a loud, piercing sound. Sheehan described it “like people screaming and torture, it sounded so loud and so bizarre.”
“I realized they were using sound, these huge sound devices, in the middle of the night just to torment the people in this camp. Just for no reason at all. If they’re saying it’s a road issue, why are they using this loud sound?” Sheehan said.
The Giniw Collective has documented law enforcement use of Long Range Acoustic Devices – sound cannons – against pipeline protests. The devices are known to cause nausea, fatigue, sweating, hearing loss, memory loss and difficulty thinking.
The women were initially turned away from the camp but were able to return and provide aid. They were the sentries at the Indigenous camp and negotiated allowing food and water in with the sheriff’s department, because being three older white women wouldn’t provoke the situation.
“The way they were being treated is just, there’s no justice in it at all. I know that they wouldn’t get away with it if it was anything but a Native American camp. I know that they were targeted for being Native American,” Sheehan said. None of the other camps, according to the women, were treated in that manner.
Members around the camps referred to the women as the grandmothers. The women were chained to the gate and each other for three hours until they were arrested. Currently, they are out on bail and advised to “not even jaywalk.”
Cusi Ballew, member of the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi Nation and Millfield resident, has also been a long standing activist. When you look up his name, you find articles published by fossil fuel companies decrying Ballew’s direct action.
He has traveled across the country fighting pipelines and for the environment with his wife Madeline Ffitch, author of “Stay and Fight” and “Valparaiso, Round the Horn,” and their children.
Ballew is part of the Athens community fighting against pipelines and spoke at the protest on March 29, 2021 outside Chase Bank on Court Street. Chase Bank is one of the largest monetary supporters of fossil fuels, contributing over $196 billion since 2016, according to Stop the Money Pipeline.
“We can’t wait for presidents, bankers, or governors to have a change of heart about fossil fuels. Anishinaabe water protectors are asking people everywhere to join the fight, to put themselves out of their comfort zone and take mass action to stop this and every pipeline on stolen land,” Ballew said at the protests.
On the outside of the Village Bakery, customers are greeted with signs that read “Stop Line 3” and “Seas are rising and so are we.”
The Village Bakery is an unapologetic part of the activist community in Athens. In an Instagram post of a customer review, a customer said that the Village Bakery was “To liberal, don’t mix business and politics, I won’t go back (sic)”. The Village Bakery account captioned the post “We’ll be mixing business with politics from 8 AM - 3 PM today”
Christine Hughes, owner of the Village Bakery, said that the Village Bakery wants to have an overall positive impact on the environment. The bakery purchases ingredients from local farms, uses solar panels and uses more energy conserving appliances. The bakery raised $1,500 for different organizations fighting the pipelines, including the Giniw Collective.
The Village Bakery is not about profit, Hughes explained. “We’re about making the world a better and happier, healthier place for everyone to live in,” she said.
And on the way to Strouds Run Park, visitors will see signs also in opposition to Line 3.
Oil began running through Line 3 pipeline on Oct. 1. Smucker, Sparks and Sheehan are being careful in their activism per the advice of legal experts. But the activists in Athens are continuing to work against pipelines and for the environment and for Indigenous peoples’ rights.
“It’s a momentous thing to know that decisions that we make now are gonna affect the rest of civilization, the future of our planet. The decisions that our government people are making now, it’s gonna affect all of life. Forever,” Smucker said.