tonight -- >> if there's a spill here, anywhere near here, it's going to affect all of those rice lakes. >> an oil pipeline cutting through tribal lands. inside one of the most controversial environmental battles in our country. >> president biden, where the [ bleep ] are you at? >> we shouldn't have to do this to protect the water. to protect our people. >> indigenous communities faced with tough choices. >> my reservation came to an agreement with ambridge. >> why some scientists are sounding the alarm. >> climate scientists say, leave the tar sands in the ground,

full stop. >> this special edition of "nightline"," oil and water: battle for line three" will be right back. better get new febreze fabric antimicrobial. its water-based formula penetrates fabrics to kill 99.9% of bacteria and it eliminates odors. spray it on your furniture, your rugs, your clothes - wherever bacteria and odors hide. you can even sanitize your car seats! for a deeper clean and a freshness you'll love... try new febreze fabric antimicrobial.

we are in such an urgent time. the world is on fire. there's a reckoning that is coming for the generations to come. they're going to look at us and say, what did you do?

what did you do to protect me? >> reporter: near the northern edge of america, before the sun meets the sky, there are whispers of war. >> almost there. >> reporter: a battle over oil and water. a massive pipeline, line 3, owned by a canadian oil company snaking through the delicate water of indigenous land in northern minnesota. >> if there's a spill here, anywhere near here, it's going to affect all of those rice lakes. >> reporter: its cargo, what's called tar sands. a fossil fuel used in products from gasoline to plastics and often described as the world's dirtiest oil. supporters call it a much-needed replacement. >> it's the safest way to transport fossil fuels. >> reporter: critics warn it's an environmental disaster waiting to happen.

>> climate scientists say, leave the tar sands in the ground. full stop. ♪ >> reporter: at the tip of this climate sphere, local indigenous women. >> who do you serve? >> reporter: for them, this is not political, it's personal. home. family. life. >> our job was to hold the project off as long as possible. >> is there ever a point where we start to look around and open up our eyes and say enough? >> president biden, where the [ bleep ] are you at? >> take a right, go down a little bit. >> reporter: over the past few months, abc news obtained rare access to the front lines of this conflict. we're about to enter a pipeline resistance camp to talk to one of their leaders. no drugs, alcohol, no weapons,

no law enforcement. drive this way? >> yep, straight up the road. welcome to amawok. >> reporter: the camp is one of several pipeline opposition camps along the line 3 route. it's led by one of the movement's many indigenous matriarchs, tara hauska. >> i'm from a small town in northern minnesota. i grew up on the lake, in the woods. the land is in the heart. as an indigenous person, it is my obligation as a woman to keep the water, to protect the water. >> reporter: she had a different line of work before choosing to

live in the woods. you are a lawyer? so isn't there a different way to go about this, to get this done? >> i was out in washington, d.c., had had internships in the white house, under the obama administration, was part of the 16 bernie sanders run. >> as kids would say, you have receipts. >> yeah. >> you participate in the process. >> but what i observed over time was a process that was so incremental. >> code red for humanity. >> historic floods and tornados. >> drought conditions impacting 60 million americans. >> we're at this point in human history, and there are already climate migrations happening, seas are rising. there is a point we start to look around and open our eyes and say, enough? >> reporter: so she came back home, back to minnesota, where she's up against her latest opponent, the line 3 pipeline. approved by both minnesota and federal authorities, it transports tar sands from canada to lake superior. the company enbreach describes

it as a modernization and safety replacement project for an aging line put in in the 1960s. mike fernandez is the chief communications officer for enbridge. you call it and the company has referred to this as a replacement project. others call it an expansion project. >> yeah, the only thing that has happened here isn't that there's more pipeline, what has happened is we restored to the original capacity levels. >> the new version will have more than double its operating capacity, and more than one-third of the route is entirely new. is that true? >> there are new boundaries in certain places. and a lot of those new boundaries were defined by twribtwrib tribal communities as well as input from environmentalists. >> this is not a replacement project. it's a bigger pipe, it's a different route, it's a new pipeline. >> reporter: laura triplett is

an environmental scientist who testified against line 3 during the permitting process. she's one of a chorus of scientists urging a moratorium on tar sands growth entirely. >> tar sands oil burns dirty, has high carbon emissions per energy produced, and also takes a lot of energy to pump through the pipe. because it's thick and sludgy and heavy. there are roadmaps for how we can transition to a lower-carbon emissions economy. but building a brand-new big pipeline to bring tar sands oil to market, that's not part of any transition. that's terrifying. >> reporter: three minnesota tribes sued to stop line 3. but as construction moved forward, tara and others in the movement saw themselves as the last line of defense. launching what they called direct action. >> direct actions are moments where we are using our bodies to

stand in front of the machines. >> reporter: as the pipeline nears completion, tara and her team on this day bringing a van packed and weighed down with concrete. >> almost there. >> reporter: their goal, block the entrance to an enbridge facility and stop construction. >> one, two, three! >> water is life! >> there was definitely a lot of adrenaline. >> water protection! >> we shouldn't have to do this to protect the water. to protect our people. >> i was locked down in the van for nine hours that day.

you've got to put yourself in a different spot mentally. because you know, as the saws and the drills and, you know, the hammers are going at it, you know, right by your hand -- if you start focusing on that, it starts getting traumatizing. ♪ ♪ >> we stopped over 200 workers from reporting to their shift that day. >> it's beautiful. it's powerful. it's sad. it's scary. it's all the things at once. >> i've lived here basically my whole life. loved growing up here. grew up having respect for the land. >> reporter: some tribal members have welcomed the line 3 project. >> here we are. >> reporter: like rob

abramowski. rob's worked on enbridge projects for years, including line 3. >> we're a little bit soft at the reservation on spread five -- >> my reservation came to an agreement with enbridge, which i thought was a good decision. couldn't have been an easy one. because of pipelines being so controversial now. >> reporter: of the nearly 4,000 temporary workers enbridge hired to work on line 3, abramowski is one of the roughly 500 native americans employed on the line 3 project. >> native people, the experience that they're gaining here today, they can carry that as far as they want. >> i hear you, that you support the line. yes? >> yes. >> you think it is necessary evil, fair? >> yes, absolutely. >> i don't hear a full-throated endorsement of it. >> well, i mean, who really wants pipelines near their area? but it's a reality. we are all consumers. and everything we do all relates

to petroleum in some way or another, right? why not make it as safe as possible? >> reporter: it's also enbridge's past that concerns critics. enbridge pipelines resulted in two of the largest inland oil spills in u.s. history. grand rapids, minnesota, 1991. kalamazoo, michigan, 2010. so how do you get people who say, we failed you then, but trust us now? >> yeah, so part of it is, you know, what did you do after the incident? right? and what we did is we spent $5 billion making sure that things were safe. we also cleaned up the site. it was a big wakeup call for us. as a company. >> reporter: and there have been issues during the construction of line 3. the critics say it's already damaged nearby wetlands. is it true that the company paid a $3 million fine for illegally

piercing an aquifer during construction of line 3? >> so what has happened is, again, in this process, we were drilling. we found the problem. we took the problem to the state department of natural resources. they assessed a fine. and we're going to pay it. >> so the answer is yes? >> yes. >> we came here through prophecy to find the food that grows on water. >> reporter: for generations, indigenous people like tayshia martineau have harvested wild rice along lakes they say will be threatened by the pipeline. >> the rice itself, it symbolizes the resilience of our people. we have to do due diligence to protect it so that it can continue to sustain us.

>> reporter: tayshia and her four children often live at camp miigizi, a resistance camp she founded in northeastern minnesota. >> for me the line 3 fight was more than just my treaty rights, it was more than just the wild rice. it was a promise that i made to my oldest daughter, that i would stop line 3. >> reporter: it was a decision that would put her at odds with her own tribe. the fondalack band, one of the two tribal nations who came to nonpublic agreements with enbridge to not oppose the pipeline, reportedly involving money. not only are you attempting to save something, save the water, save this beautiful land, but you're also sacrificing something, family? your tribe? why sacrifice so much? >> i knew that for future generations, somebody had to.

>> reporter: the tribe was reportedly given a difficult choice between allowing the pipeline to cross along its current route or cut through the tribe's valued treaty territories. >> the major part is that my reservation leaders have a say in what happens here, not only today, but in the future. >> at the end of the day, the way i and many others look at it, when there is a loaded gun held to your head, it doesn't matter who built that gun. when that gun goes off, we're still going to be dead. ♪ >> reporter: with time running out to stop construction -- >> president biden, where the [ bleep ] are you at? >> reporter: tayshia's camp prepares to take action. will it be too late? we'll be right back. manage your type 2 diabetes knocking you out of your zone? lowering your a1c with once-weekly ozempic® can help you get back in it. oh, oh, oh, ozempic®!

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"nightline," "oil and water: battle for line 3" continues. here again, byron pitts. >> is there another car fully ready? >> reporter: it's just after dawn. >> we are heading out today. we're going to show up and, you know, utilize our voices and our bodies. >> reporter: tayshia martineau is leading a resistance to construction on the enbridge line 3 pipeline, which crisscrossed through her home, tribal lands of the fond du lac reservation in northern minnesota. >> when we take to the front line, please remember why we are here. ♪ we're not here to fight the police. we are not here to intimidate workers. we are here for that water. ♪

i personally carry a lot of fear every time an action happens. it's because, you know, i prioritize the safety of all of these amazing, beautiful people who are literally willing to run into battle. >> you're here at an enbridgewater pump station. we're blocking the gate. we're stopping this work because we are stopping this pipeline. >> you're in violation of minnesota statute 609705, unlawful assembly. >> where they at? what i see is rapists, murderers, killers of mother earth here. president biden, where the [ bleep ] are you at? you're wearing that uniform -- [ bleep ].

>> don't hurt him! >> the resilience of our people lives within me. >> for water! for water! >> and it's this community that taught me to stand fond du lac strong. >> don't put your hands on her! >> standing for something. >> [ bleep ]! >> that's where our power lies. >> reporter: despite one remaining tribal lawsuit, this month the pipeline became operational. shortly after, canadian oil shipments to the u.s. jumped to their highest volume this year. when you found out it goes online, what was your immediate reaction? >> how hard we all caught. but i did think about the disappointment and disgust.

in minnesota's lawmakers, at the biden administration, for not intervening. >> president biden, candidate biden, campaigned on the notion he would be the climate president. >> he absolutely did. and what i've seen is a pattern of climate policy that is reflective of the status quo. >> reporter: the biden administration declined our interview request and did not respond to our request for comment. i sense you're burdened by something. what's going on? >> we're coming to the end of the fight. and i'm trying to process and accept that the fight isn't over, and we didn't lose. i let the fight become me. and now i'm not sure where i fit in a better world, where the warriors >> reporter: the women can see they lost this battle.

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♪ finally tonight, there's a native american proverb. we did not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. that's "nightline" for this evening. catch our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here same time tomorrow. thanks for the company, america. good night. ♪ ♪ tequila herradura. extraordinary awaits.