Over 1,000 Pipeline Protesters Gather Peacefully Southwest of Bemidji

CLEARWATER COUNTY, MN (trfnews.i234.me) More than 1,000 pipeline protestors gathered along the Mississippi River southwest of Bemidji Monday morning.
Neil Berg here at coffee pot landing the scene of uh where around 1500 protesters are expected to soon start gathering according to clearwater county sheriff darren halvorsen they’ll march from here about a mile away where the inbridge replacement pipeline uh is scheduled to be aboard under the mississippi river any idea how many protesters you’re expecting uh the word we’ve had is it’s uh excess of a thousand uh they’re expecting today we’ve heard anywhere from a thousand to fifteen hundred okay it doesn’t look like that yet no there’s supposed to be a smaller number uh gathering first this morning they were anticipating about three to four hundred there and then they’ll move to coffee pot landing and um okay probably over a thousand people all right and we’re at uh the entrance to coffee pot landing the idea then is to walk yeah they plan to march to the mississippi river where the uh pipeline will go under under the river uh at some point okay and that’s how far down the road here about a mile and a half mile and a half down the road so do you have a lot of different sheriff’s department agencies helping today um currently right now it’s just our agency here so okay so kind of okay with it i mean not expecting anything yeah but yeah i’ve i’ve had a good relationship with some of the organizers and i’ve spoke with them and um they’ve you know ensured that it’ll be a safe environment and um so we’re hoping for that as well and what we’re here for is to uh look at traffic control and make sure everybody’s safe [Music] around 10 a.m the car started lining the highway a lot of them uh parked along the highway uh for close to two miles here bringing in people from all over the united states uh first what’s your name where are you from charlie cooper from philadelphia philadelphia what brought you all the way out here i couldn’t stay away is this this is more than about line three isn’t it are we talking about a oil-based economy you want stop yes very much so uh i guess this is the the perfect intersect for me for defending mother earth and for supporting indigenous rights and supporting treaty rights all right can i ask what you did for a living or do for a living i’m retired now i was in i.t support at university of pennsylvania for 20 years okay so environmental issues always been important to you very much so uh i try and pay rent for being here on mother earth now as of uh 12 p.m everything has gone peacefully at this protest uh we’ll just let the video roll here and you can watch the crowd go by um all right okay [Music] seriously um foreign foreign is one three water is is stop along the mississippi river some 15 miles southwest of bemidji minnesota i’m neal carlson reporting for trfnews.i234.me