Nearly 800 Line 3 pipeline workers tested positive for COVID-19

Healthcare workers say cases ‘could have been avoided’ if governor had paused construction.

A total of 788 workers building Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline through the US state of Minnesota have tested positive for COVID-19, according to data obtained by Al Jazeera from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH). The project, the largest in Enbridge history, would replace a 1,700-kilometre (1,000-mile) oil pipeline that runs from Edmonton, Alberta in Canada to Superior, Wisconsin in the US. Construction is on track to continue until the end of the year, amid protests and Indigenous resistance to the project. In late November, amid the worst wave of the pandemic in the state, thousands of out-of-state workers arrived to build the pipeline through rural communities in northern Minnesota.