Oil will begin flowing through the controversial new Line 3 pipeline across northern Minnesota on Friday after Enbridge announced that work on the controversial project is "substantially complete."
The $3 billion-plus pipeline is a replacement for the 50-year-old Line 3, which is corroding and operating at half capacity.
Construction of the $3 billion-plus Minnesota portion of the pipeline — one of the largest projects in the state in recent history — began last December after a six-year battle before state regulators.
"From day one, this project has been about modernizing our system and improving safety and reliability for the benefit of communities, the environment and our customers," Enbridge CEO Al Monaco said Wednesday in a news release. "Line 3 was developed and executed with the most state-of-the-art approach to design, construction and environmental management."
The pipeline also restores full flow of oil to 760,000 barrels a day, boosting earnings for the Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge.
Hundreds have been arrested along the pipeline route as regular protests occurred during the construction. Environmental groups and Ojibwe tribes fought the pipeline before the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and in multiple lawsuits, arguing it would open a new region of Minnesota lakes, rivers and wetlands to degradation from oil spills, as well as exacerbate climate change.
"This is not the outcome we hoped for, but the fight to stop Line 3 has always been a fight for climate justice and a future free from fossil fuels, and that fight will not stop just because Enbridge has succeeded in building this pipeline," Margaret Levin, director of the Sierra Club North Star Chapter, said in a statement.
The pipeline runs partly on a new route, veering off from Enbridge's current corridor that contains six oil pipelines running across Minnesota to the company's terminal in Superior, Wis., at the Clearbrook station.