Fiscal Note
No appropriation is required.
Title
SUBSTITUTE - Supporting Clean Water and Treaty Rights
Body
WHEREAS, the Great Lakes comprise largest freshwater system in the world containing over 20% of Earth’s fresh water and being the primary water source for more than 40 million people; and,
WHEREAS, Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake by surface area on Earth containing 10% of the Earth’s fresh water; and,
WHEREAS, The Kakagon and Bad River Sloughs on the shore of Lake Superior in the Bad River Reservation were designated Wetlands of International Importance by RAMSAR in 2012 as they contain the only remaining extensive wild rice bed in the Great Lakes region; and,
WHEREAS, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, the second longest river in North America, are located at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota; and,
WHEREAS, a great diversity of iIndigenous peoples have lived in the Great Lakes region for thousands of years, leaving behind creating many sites of historical and cultural significance to contemporary tTribal communities; and,
WHEREAS, Ojibwe communities’ Tribes' rights to hunt, fish, gather and practice traditional lifeways off reservation throughout northern Minnesota, northern Wisconsin and northern Michigan’s have been codified by more than a dozen treaties with the US Government during the 1800’s, particularly in 1837, 1842, 1854 and 1855, and have been upheld in several federal courts since then; and,
WHEREAS, these treaty rights, along with many historic cultural sites and the waters in the Upper Mississippi watershed and the western Great Lakes, are threatened by the construction of Line 3, a new an expanded, rerouted, tar sands pipeline passing through northern Minnesota, and portions of Line 5, a new reroute of an old, corroding crude oil pipeline that should have been decommissioned over a decade ago passing through northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula crossing under the Straits of Mackinac by Enbridge Ene...
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