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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

@ssteingraber1.bsky.social
25K followers 2.8K following 7K posts

PhD biologist, author, climate activist, adoptee rights activist. Senior Scientist and Writer in Residence, Science and Environmental Health Network, Rachel Carson scholar with Library of America. Reminder: Nobody’s coming.

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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Revolving Door Project @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Bad news for Exxon, and a win for the power of public pressure calling out the blatant corruption of the Roberts Court: Justice Alito is stepping down from further participating in Suncor v. Boulder, a week before oral arguments. We've been calling for his recusal from this case for YEARS: 🧵
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 15h
Humanities got me, a biologist, through a 12-day jail sentence. There are lots of literary and historical protagonists in jail cells to identify with. Also it helps to have some poems memorized for this very situation.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Dr ShinyGoth @ghostingdani.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Humanities will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no humanities.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 15h
“Data centers are basically rows of computers sitting on racks…a supersize version of that mysterious closet full of tangled wires and blinking lights at your workplace. Once construction is finished no one but a couple of tech guys ever has any reason to go in there” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | It Won’t Be So Easy for Democrats to Make Data Centers Their Issue
The problems of technology were there before Trump and will be there after.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
the horrific cornell gang rape case has me thinking about emma sulkowicz who alleged she was raped as a student at columbia in 2014 and never got any justice. it has me thinking about the physical and mental weight young women are forced to carry while their safety is subsumed by male potential.
Emma Sulkowicz carrying around a mattress on the Columbia campus in 2014 to raise awareness of her alleged rape and the university's inaction.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Revolving Door Project @revolvingdoordc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“Y’all are going to need a bigger hospital.” Already burdened by petrochemical plants, Louisiana is facing a wave of gas-powered AI data centers—and their pollution. Dorothy Slater, an oncology nurse, writes for @dissentmag.bsky.social about nursing her patients at the frontier of AI buildout.
dissentmagazine.org
Death by Data Centers - Dissent Magazine
I’m an oncology nurse in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley. My patients and I breathe the same polluted air, and we can’t afford the toxic exposure from the gas-fired plants set to power the state’s proposed A...
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility @peer.org · 24/09/2026
EPA admitted that two of the most widely-used forms of “forever chemicals” are still being manufactured and imported in the U.S. This admission comes In response to a PEER complaint. ow.ly/YvgM50ZQZ9g #PFAS #ForeverChemicals
ow.ly
EPA Retracts Central Claim of PFAS Progress
Agency Makes Grudging Admission That PFAS Are Still Being Manufactured and Imported
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Erik Hoffner @erikhoffner.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Researchers w/ Wildlife & Climate Consensus have a new study out, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... In July I solicited this op-ed for @mongabay.com by them about bringing #wildlife into #climate conversations Good to see it's now 350+ signatories strong, here's why it's captured attention:
news.mongabay.com
Wildlife helps regulate the climate & this belongs in policy discussions (commentary)
When we talk about climate change and wildlife, most people think about the impact of climate change on animals. We see individual organisms struggling to find food and being pushed into new places an...
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN) @sehnetwork.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"The Trump administration on Monday finalized its plan to significantly weaken fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, scaling back Biden-era rules meant to reduce gasoline consumption and speed the shift to electric vehicles." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/c...
nytimes.com
Trump Sharply Scales Back Fuel Economy Rules for New Cars (Gift Article)
The move marked the final step in the administration’s efforts to dismantle policies aimed at speeding the shift to electric vehicles.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Birdwatching on Amtrak with the tidal, Nor’easter-swollen Hudson River just feet from the tracks. It’s easy to feel like “the before time” means before COVID, Trump, or 9/11 but this view reminds me that we’re still living in a time before the rivers swallowed the rail lines and birds all vanished.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Student reporting that named names at the @cornellsun, thereby igniting organized public outrage, did this. Your reminder that campus police report to the board of trustees, not the general public. Gift link: Cornell Sexual Assault Investigation to Be Reopened www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/n...
nytimes.com
Cornell Sexual Assault Investigation to Be Reopened (Gift Article)
After outrage over allegations in a lawsuit, the Tompkins County district attorney will revisit the decision not to pursue criminal charges against seven fraternity members.
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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Doesn't surprise me that this is their (garbage) take But it does remind me that so many social movements (successful and failed alike) were driven by underemployed, overcredentialed, and aggrieved young people, even movements that primarily benefit other groups we're dangerous to the WSJ types
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Woke up thinking about that time 45 yrs ago when I saw a naked woman in a sleeping bag carried out of a frat house. Went to the gym and thought about the Kavanaugh hearings. Vaccuumed and meal prepped and thought about that time I was given a choice between sex and BJ or he wasn’t driving me home.
Headline in People magazine with aerial view of Cornell University campus in Ithaca: 

Cornell Student Alleges Frat Members Gang-Raped Her, Only 2 Were Expelled While Others Had to Write Essays: Lawsuit
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The state of the data center moratorium in NYS where 12 large-scale data centers are operating with 38 more in the queue, collectively seeking power equal to 70% of the electric demand of the entire state on an average day: It’s narrower in scope than needed 👇 edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dyn...
edition.pagesuite.com
Across the country, fear is growing that AI could soon outpace our ability to control it. In New York, the immediate question is whether we can control AI data center buildout before these noisy, power-hungry facilities overwhelm our communities.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Don Schreiber/Methane Mad Man @vivarioarriba.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
@ssteingraber1.bsky.social Thinking of you.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
When I visited the Permian Basin last year—on a fact finding trip w members of the Mexican legislature—it felt like this had already happened. Massive machinery operating w/o oversight. Ongoing malfunctions, fires, unlit flares just pouring methane into the air. A ghost town emergency in process.
Black smoke plume from an unstaffed fracking siteMalfunctioning flare stack and drill rigs with no workers present.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“No essays for SAs” would be a thing that Cornell alums could scrawl on donation cards and mail back or, you know, affix to a flag and carry into battle. Thank you, student reporters, for providing their names and pulling back the curtain: www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...
cornellsun.com
EDITORIAL | Cornell Won’t, We Will
The Editorial Board demands that Cornell stops protecting the alleged Chi Phi rapists through the University's opaque sexual assault policies.
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Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 26/09/2026
A functioning regulatory system would include frequent, randomized spot checks, done regularly by well-funded civil servants using modern technology, plus consequences - fines or jail time - serious enough to actually prevent polluters from sickening or killing nearby people.
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Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 26/09/2026
"Hope third parties obtain evidence of polluters breaking laws and share it with the state" can't be how we enforce air pollution laws meant to protect nearby people from polluters who'll happily increase their risks of "asthma, heart attacks and even premature death" if it means more profit.
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Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 26/09/2026
Microsoft's data center subcontractor in New Jersey illegally runs a bunch of gas "backup" generators on site, figuring they won't get caught or will just eat the wrist-slap fines if they do. Regulatory enforcement is so bad that a third party had to take drone images to get the state to act.
theguardian.com
New Jersey datacenter fined $1.1m after visual investigation showed dozens of unpermitted generators
State regulator’s record fine for DataOne facility in Vineland follows Floodlight investigation with the Guardian
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that the US is the world’s leading exporter of LNG with multiple, new, capital-intensive, highly polluting LNG liquefaction plants and export terminals currently planned, permitted, and/or under construction. Mostly sited in non-white, impoverished communities. ROI = typically 20-30 years
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
1970s-80s: the U.S. banned toxic pesticides for use but still allowed their export to nations with lax regulations and that was a scandal 2026 Uno Reverse Card: the U.S. is one of the only nations where a Swiss-made pesticide linked to Parkinson’s is still used www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Revealed: the undisclosed safety data emerging as weedkiller maker faces Parkinson’s lawsuits in US
Syngenta denies keeping relevant data from the EPA as paraquat stays in the US market despite global bans
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Sadder 6 word story: For sale: baby shoes, never worn
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Toxic secrets vs disclosure obligations to homebuyers in Johnson County,TX: www.texasobserver.org/north-texas-...
texasobserver.org
Did These North Texas Developers Have a Duty to Disclose Oil and Gas Waste History?
A housing development and school was built atop an old drilling waste site in Johnson County. New test results came back safe, but it’s unclear what the homebuyers had a legal right to know.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Antonia Juhasz @antoniajuhasz.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Bill language being drafted. Question on pre or post mid terms depends on if Republicans have any Hill activity pre mid terms. But likelihood of passage pre midterms significantly increased by White House indicating its support for what's moving now.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Antonia Juhasz @antoniajuhasz.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
What I hear most from those who live where large energy projects take place, including fossil fuel, petrochemical, & now data centers, is their fear that "permitting reform" is designed to cut them out of the democratic process, to speed past public input which for them is too often life or death.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
New from us! * 👉 Live in a community targeted by a data center? Here’s how to write an ordinance. 👇 (* us = the people on my team who are lawyers/governance wonks as opposed to me, the biologist who can just tell you how an aquifer works or what water contamination can do to pregnant women.)
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“62 large natural-gas generators operating at the site without the permits required under the state's Air Pollution Control Act.” And it’s still under construction. Just shut it down. 6abc.com/post/vinelan...
6abc.com
New Jersey's largest data center fined $1.07M for air pollution violations
DEP Commissioner Ed Potosnak said the action is intended to send a message to the industry.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Energy dominance” is the rhetorical balloon. This thread is the pin. Read all the way down into the replies:
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“Reduces fuel efficiency” is euphemism for “more completely and incompletely combusted hydrocarbons plus smog, including CO, NO2, superfine particles, and formaldehyde, that contribute to cancer, asthma, heart attack, stroke, preterm birth, and impaired cognitive development going into your air.”
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Don Boesch 🇺🇦🇬🇱 @donboesch.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Congratulations to my dear friends and coastal algal bloom heroes, Pat Glibert and Bob Howarth, for their election as AGU Fellows for 2026. @profbobhowarth.bsky.social email.agu.org/OTg3LUlHVC01...
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Wtaf is this question my university just asked me about my project?
Does the project involve any work that could be interpreted as promoting DEIA, climate change research, or non-compliant to any Presidential Executive Orders?
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We do not.
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Antonia Juhasz @antoniajuhasz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"We know that fossil fuel interests won't step aside on their own. For decades, Big Oil has treated the atmosphere as an open sewer -- and cashed in on the consequences," said United Nations chief Antonio Guterres in a withering attack on Big Oil at the UN on Tuesday. www.afp.com/en/un-chief-...
afp.com
UN chief says 'Big Oil' treats atmosphere as open sewer
Major global oil companies are treating the atmosphere like an "open sewer," the outgoing United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said Tuesday in a withering attack on the energy...
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Fellow olds: if you didn’t know, you can just walk into a pharmacy and get a measles, mumps, rubella booster rn. I like data so had my titers measured. Turns out I had ZERO immunity to mumps. Somehow never got that vaccine as a kid and have just been walking the Earth reliant on herd immunity. 😳
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Justin Mikulka @justinmikulka.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We have been assured that using expensive natural gas [methane] power for US data centers is not a competitive disadvantage. This has been one of the arguments behind the planned massive build out of gas power for data centers. But what if it's wrong? (it is).
oilprice.com
Is China’s Secret Power Advantage About To Trigger An 89% Crash In US AI Stocks | OilPrice.com
High costs, heavy borrowing and private-credit exposure could trigger bankruptcies and a broader technology-sector selloff.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Breaking: the Canadians are both mad at us AND LOLing at us.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Food & Water Watch @foodandwater.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Cutting fossil fuel emissions ➡️ cleaner air ➡️ a better future for our kids.
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Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈
Jason Read @jasonread.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It always seems odd to me when people criticize a book that is an attempt to describe its conjuncture by arguing that "has not held up" after time. Was the book wrong, or has the conjuncture passed.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Must-read on Ohio’s data center boom, which is being powered by natural gas fracked out of the impoverished eastern half of the state—plus from public lands and state parks—with massive healthcare costs from air pollution. And without public or evidentiary hearings: www.dispatch.com/story/opinio...
dispatch.com
Meta's massive plants may spell massive health problems for Columbus area | Opinion
If Google can power its data centers with clean energy, why can’t Meta?
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Overheard one-sided cell phone conversation on a park bench between a mom and her kid, at 9:33 am: “Look, skipping school isn’t as fun as it used to be and you aren’t learning enough the way it is so you should just stay there.” A+ for argumentation and audience awareness
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Bedtime stories from the oil and gas boys retailed into talking points by the government they own. Not said: “energy independence” means nothing when oil majors own the entire supply chain and are allowed to sell whatever they extract to wherever in the world the price is highest.
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RDS (formerly shawphd) @rds773.myatproto.social · 21/09/2026
Having been in one of your writing workshops and having read many of your pieces, I’m beyond bemused by anyone thinking you’re lacking in reading or writing skills (Also… “inane”? Wtf)
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
And with the name of my literary agent right there in my bio…
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Yes, it’s me—a queer woman scientist who works on climate—sanctimoniously walking away from a platform full of Nazis, dick pic DMs, and offers to SA me and add me to the homicide tally. But, oh look!, I brought my Twitter habit of quote-posting the pricks right over here to BlueSky.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
NEW RESEARCH from NYC: Air pollution harms kids’ brains in ways that impair memory, problem-solving, speech, and language. Cleaner air = better cognitive development [Your reminder that air pollution is just another word for fossil fuel combustion byproducts] www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Improved air quality linked to better mental development in toddlers, study finds
Long-term research in New York shows efforts to reduce air pollution associated with higher cognitive test scores
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Food & Water Watch @foodandwater.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The fact that this is an actual headline is truly embarrassing for the U.S. 🙈
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Ohio’s bedrock is a destination spot for toxic, radioactive fracking waste from all over Appalachia because it’s porous. But it is not staying down there. Dem candidate for governor, Amy Acton, MD, is now campaigning on this. Gift: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/17/c...
nytimes.com
Toxic Fracking Waste Bubbling Up in Ohio Is Becoming a Political Issue
The Democratic candidate for governor backed restrictions on disposal of fracking wastewater around a hard-hit town, and called for a “thorough investigation” of the dangers.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Another day, another fracking disaster. Plus a literal thing said by a Louisiana sheriff: “State Police came in, did air quality test. They all tested good. It’s methane, natural gas, so it rises up … into the atmosphere and no health risk at all.” Feel better? www.klfy.com/local/jeff-d...
klfy.com
Pipeline explosion west of Jennings forces evacuations; residents given all-clear
Residents are back home after a natural gas pipeline explosion west of Jennings prompted evacuations and road closures Friday morning.
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Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Wisconsin news: Enbridge’s bore hole machine was destroyed by fire just weeks after a massive pipeline spill that escalated tensions with the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, whose territory Line 5 runs through and who is suing to stop it. www.myupnow.com/news/suspici...
myupnow.com
'Suspicious' fire destroys Line 5 drilling machine, Enbridge blames 'criminal saboteurs'
ASHLAND, Wis. (WBUP/WJMN) — Arson investigators are looking into a fire of "suspicious origin" that destroyed equipment at an Enbridge Line 5 project site early Thursday.
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