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News > World

Sioux Nation Rallies Against Environmentally Damaging Pipeline

  • The Sacred Rock camp unites members of Standing Rock, members of neighboring tribes and other allies in resisting pipeline construction.

    The Sacred Rock camp unites members of Standing Rock, members of neighboring tribes and other allies in resisting pipeline construction. | Photo: Facebook / Waniya Locke

Published 9 April 2016
Opinion

The Lakota of North Dakota are inviting allies to come pray, rally and teach at the Sacred Rock camp ... indefinitely.

Native American nations are joining a Spirit Camp built April 1 on the proposed path of a pipeline to protect tribal lands and prevent Keystone XL Pipeline-level environmental degradation from the project.

The Lakota Sioux nation led a 200-person horse ride to inaugurate the Sacred Rock camp, a site of teepees for tribal members and allies to pray, rally and teach in support of the North Dakota tribe for an indefinite period of time.

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The Standing Rock members are challenging the construction of the pipeline by citing violations by the Army Corps of the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act and National Historic Preservation Act for failing to evaluate the impacts both on the environment and on the tribe. Besides conducting an environmental survey, the Corps must consult the tribes affected, especially when the land is protected as a historical site.

They met with the Corps and convinced the Environmental Protection Agency, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs to submit personal requests for thorough studies before advancing with the project.

The pipeline would not run through a reservation, but it does cut through land, including burial grounds, given to the nation by treaty, handed over by eminent domain.

“The Corps will get sued either way,” Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault told Indian Country Today. “If they approve of the pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will sue them. If they reject it, Energy Transfer Partners (pushing the pipeline) will sue them.”

Archambault continues to meet with chairmen of other tribes to encourage them to pressure the Army Corps. An online petition has already gathered over 1,600 signatures.

The Army Corps of Engineers will decide in the coming days whether it will permit construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, also known as the Bakken Pipeline, which has still not conducted an environmental impact study or taken into account widespread grievances by the tribe.

Expected to transport 450,000 barrels a day across four midwestern states — from North Dakota to Illinois — the pipeline would cross the fragile Ogallala aquifer and the Missouri River twice underground.

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“Of the many atrocities we as Native Americans have faced and overcame, this is one which will affect not only us but all of mankind,” said Virgil Taken Alive, Standing Rock member, in a statement. “Earth is our mother. We have to protect her.”

The aquifer is one of the largest in the world, and the Missouri River — the U.S.’ longest — is the primary source drinking water for both tribal and non-tribal members in the area.

The collective that has formed around resistance also expects farming, fishing, wildlife and “entire ecosystems” to be in danger, especially since oil pipelines regularly break. In less than two years, the AP counted about 300 ruptures in pipelines in North Dakota, none of them reported.

Many compare the potential effects to those of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline, which President Barack Obama rejected after widespread popular protest. Last summer, seven tribal nations also set up a spirit camp in South Dakota, on the proposed path of the pipeline.

However, the Bakken pipeline is privately funded and does not cross the Canadian border, so no executive order could stop its construction.

North Dakota is the second-biggest oil producer in the United States, but the steep drop in oil prices has left 1,000 wells idle and added US$1 billion to the state deficit. The Dakota pipeline would cost US$3.7 billion and contribute to about five percent of state revenue from oil production.

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