We the people, do hereby petition our Minnesota Legislature; House and Senate, Governor Dayton; our United States delegation to Congress and federal agencies; to promptly enact a moratorium on new oil pipelines through northern Minnesota wild rice lakes, rivers and streams anywhere north of Interstate 94.

This would mean denying the proposed Sandpiper Pipeline.

The Sandpiper Pipeline would cross waters, lakes, wild rice beds and lands in northern Minnesota which are of great biodiversity. Our lands and lives will be harmed by a pipeline. Those lands include 137 public lands, including the Mississippi Headwaters State Forest, and 76 public waterways.

Primary wild rice beds and lakes in the state of Minnesota would also be at great risk -- lakes that have been used in perpetuity by the Anishinaabeg people. The proposed 375, 000 barrel pipeline should not go through this lake region to a port in Superior, where a much of it is proposed to be tankered across the largest freshwater lake in the world.

The Enbridge Corporation has already had 800 spills, including the Kalamazoo Spill, and the risk is too great for our lakes. We need to establish rigorous environmental protections and to begin meaningful, long-term efforts to safeguard the freshwater aquifers and watersheds for: 1) Red River to the Hudson Bay, 2) Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico, and 3) St. Louis River and Lake Superior to the Atlantic Ocean. Until Enbridge shows that it can adequately ensure the safety of their pipelines, and be accountable for cleaning up such spills as the 2010 Kalamazoo oil spill, and the 2014 oil byproduct spill in the Missouri River, all permits through the culturally and ecologically sensitive areas listed above should be denied.

We are not convinced that there is a need for this pipeline. These are the prime fishing and ricing lakes in Minnesota. We ask that you look at southern routes and deny the permit through the North Country entirely.