Minnesota judge: Blocking pipeline protest camp was wrong

PARK RAPIDS, Minn. (AP) — A judge in Minnesota has ruled that sheriff’s officials had no right to block access to a camp set up in opposition to the Enbridge Line 3 oil pipeline. In an order issued Tuesday, Hubbard County District Judge Jana Austad ruled the pipeline protesters were using a private driveway, not a county trail, to access Camp Namewag near Menahga. In June 2021, the Hubbard County served notice on American Indian activist Winona LaDuke that the road to the camp was a county-owned trail which would be barricaded and that those who drove on it would be arrested. LaDuke had purchased a parcel of land near Menahga several years earlier and secured an easement to reach it across county-managed land using the existing driveway in question.