Thousands of Native Americans Gather to Protest Dakota Access Pipeline

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**jasper76**

Interesting story, not much coverage:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/showdown-over-oil-pipeline-becomes-a-national-movement-for-native-americans/2016/09/06/ea0cb042-7167-11e6-8533-6b0b0ded0253_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_standing-rock-8am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

CANNON BALL, N.D. — The simmering showdown here between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the company building the Dakota Access crude oil pipeline began as a legal battle.

It has turned into a movement.

Over the past few weeks, thousands of Native Americans representing tribes from all over the country have traveled to this central North Dakota reservation to camp in a nearby meadow and show solidarity with a tribe they think is once again receiving a raw deal at the hands of commercial interests and the U.S. government.

Frank White Bull, a tribal council member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, was overcome with emotion as he looked out over the ocean of brightly colored tepees and tents that have popped up on this impromptu 80-acre campground.

“You think no one is going to help,” said White Bull, 48. “But the people have shown us they’re here to help us. We made our stance and the Indian Nation heard us. It’s making us whole. It’s making us wanyi oyate. One nation. We’re not alone.”

At issue for the tribes is the 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline — or DAPL — that runs through North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, and has a capacity to transport more than 500,000 barrels of oil a day. The $3.8 billion pipeline now under construction was approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cross under the Missouri River just a mile north of the reservation.

That river is the source of water for the reservation’s 8,000 residents. Any leak, tribal leaders argue, would cause immediate and irreparable harm. And tribal leaders point to what they consider a double standard, saying that the pipeline was originally planned to cross the Missouri north of Bismarck, the state capital, but was rerouted because of powerful opposition that did not want a threat to the water supply there.

The tribe says it also is fighting the pipeline’s path because even though it does not cross the reservation, it does traverse sacred territory taken away from the tribe in a series of treaties that were forced upon it over the past 150 years.

The reservation sued the Corps in July, saying that the agency had not entered into any meaningful consultation with the tribe as required by law, and that the Corps had ignored federal regulations governing environmental standards and historic preservation.

“The construction and operation of the pipeline, as authorized by the Corps, threatens the Tribe’s environmental and economic well-being, and would damage and destroy sites of great historic, religious and cultural significance to the Tribe,” the lawsuit asserts.

“This pipeline is going through huge swaths of ancestral land,” said Dean DePountis, the tribe’s lawyer. “It would be like constructing a pipeline through Arlington Cemetery or under St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
Violence flares

Tensions flared Saturday when Dakota Access workers plowed under two locations adjacent to the pipeline path that just a day earlier the tribe had identified in a court filing as sacred and historic sites. When tribe members and others tried to prevent the action, they were stopped by private security workers for Dakota Access who used guard dogs and pepper spray to drive them back. Photos of the encounter shared online showed snarling German shepherds lunging at protesters. A spokesman for the tribe said six protesters were bitten. The Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported that four security guards and two dogs were injured.
The Missouri River is seen beyond an encampment Sept. 4, 2016, near Cannon Ball, N.D., where thousands have gathered to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)

That incident prompted the tribe’s lawyers, from the nonprofit legal organization Earthjustice, to request a temporary restraining order on any further construction on the pipeline in that location. U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg granted the order Tuesday. Boasberg said he will issue a ruling Friday on the tribe’s request to halt all work on the project until permitting issues and the tribe’s disputes with the Corps have been properly addressed.

On Tuesday, several pipeline opponents attached themselves to Dakota Access construction equipment in a “lock-down” protest. Others hung a large white banner on a bulldozer that read “Water is our first medicine.” Police watched from afar, but did not make any arrests, according to a tribe member.

Lawyers for the Corps have argued in court that there was a standard review process for the pipeline and that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was consulted on the project.

Representatives of Dakota Access, a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, declined to comment for this article and directed a reporter to the company’s website.

Large labor unions, including the Laborers’ International Union of North America, have supported the pipeline and in a statement characterized protesters as “extremists.”
Support for tribe

Even as the battle over the pipeline was playing out in court, support for the tribe’s position poured in from all over. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has called on the United States to provide the tribe a “fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process to resolve this serious issue and to avoid escalation into violence and further human rights abuses.” More than 200 Native American tribes have declared their support, and many have sent food and other supplies.

On social media, activists have used the #noDAPL hashtag to spread information about the protest and provide live video feeds from the campsite and from protests. Actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Shailene Woodley, Rosario Dawson and Susan Sarandon have offered to support the tribe’s efforts.

Environmentalists also have joined the fray, hoping to halt construction of the pipeline and make it go the way of the Keystone XL pipeline, which ultimately was killed by an order from President Obama last year. Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited the Standing Rock reservation in 2014. The tribes and environmental groups have appealed to the president to use his authority to halt the Dakota Access project, but they have received no response from the White House.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein toured the area and met with protesters Tuesday. Speaking at a campfire meeting in the evening, she called on Obama to “take back this illegitimate permit given by the Army Corps of Engineers.”

Neither Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton nor GOP nominee Donald Trump has stated a position on the pipeline.

For Native American environmentalists, the cause extends beyond the boundaries of the reservations.

“The goal is to stop the pipeline, and it’s not just for us,” said Nick Tilson, 34, of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. “We know there are 17 million people downstream from us. The problem is bad for whatever community is near this pipeline. It’s not going to be if it breaks, it’s going to be when it breaks.”
A sense of reawakening

At the growing campsite, just a mile down the road from the pipeline’s planned route, a sense of rural village life is emerging. There is a central kitchen where meals are prepared morning, noon and night. Another huge tent provides clothing, food and toys. Water and other supplies arrive by the truckload. Children run about kicking a basketball and squealing. The whinnies of horses blend with the whir of a chain saw cutting firewood and the far-off beat of a drum. Smoke fills the air.

Many of the Native Americans who have come here speak of a spiritual reawakening taking place.

As morning broke Tuesday, Jefferson Greene, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Ore., greeted the day with a song in Ichshkiin, his voice carrying across the slowly stirring campground. The song was giving thanks for the light coming over the horizon and for the strength it provides, he said. Greene had arrived the night before with his aunt and his young son.

“There’s such a feeling of unity here,” he said. “When tribes put the call out for help, we need to support them. We all need to be here for each other.”

Jo Kay Dowell, 59, of Tahlequah, Okla., was beginning her third week at the camp in a tent she shares with her daughter Anna Walker, 25, and granddaughter Kyah Vann, 6.

Dowell, a member of the Quapaw and Cherokee tribes, said she has become frustrated hearing from so many Native Americans that “there’s nothing we can do about it” when it comes to standing up for tribes’ rights.

“To see this many people come fight for something like this is a dream come true,” she said.

Drucilla Burns, an octogenarian and tribal elder from Fort Mojave Indian Tribe in Needles, Calif., sat under a stretched tarp eating a breakfast of tortillas and buffalo cooked over a nearby fire.

“Water is what we’re made of,” said Burns, the elder from California. “We’re supposed to be the protectors of the land and water. My god, they took everything away from us. And now they want to take our water, too?”

For Dave Archambault, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the questions about what happens after Friday’s ruling are existential. Standing in his back yard, he smoked a cigarette and recited a list of treaties that his people made with the government that were broken whenever economic interests outweighed tribal rights.

“How do you eliminate a race?” he asked, letting the question hang in the air. “That’s what the government has been trying to do for 200 years. But we’re still here. We have maintained our culture. We’ve maintained our way of life. We’ve maintained our dignity. We’re still here.”

**Orlanth**

Didnt Obama want to build a military base on reservation land because to get other land would tread on land ownership rights of other Americans.

It appears that even now the native peoples still have no actual rights to their land.

**jreilly89**

Seen this situation developing. Not only tragic, but the corporations profiting off this are so far up their own ass they don't even see reason at this point.

**Frazzled**

" Standing Rock Sioux Tribe "

They need need ghost Stonewall Jackson and Rock of Chickamauga Thomas to help out.

**feeder**

It's stupid to sink money into dangerous pipelines when mass clean(er) energy is just around the corner.

**Prestor Jon**

feeder wrote:
It's stupid to sink money into dangerous pipelines when mass clean(er) energy is just around the corner.

There are a lot more petroleum based products that are commercially made than just gasoline/fuel.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orlanth wrote:
Didnt Obama want to build a military base on reservation land because to get other land would tread on land ownership rights of other Americans.

It appears that even now the native peoples still have no actual rights to their land.

Land "ownership" isn't all that ironclad for any American, just see where your rights to "your" land get you if you stop paying taxes on it.

Politics always comes into play with land development whether it's Trump's golf courses and casinos or where to put nuclear power plants or land fills or oil derricks or wind mills. The people with the most political clout/money get their way and the people with less political power/money just have to deal with it.

**Frazzled**

feeder wrote:
It's stupid to sink money into dangerous pipelines when mass clean(er) energy is just around the corner.

There's clean energy around the corner? Really?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Orlanth wrote:
Didnt Obama want to build a military base on reservation land because to get other land would tread on land ownership rights of other Americans.

It appears that even now the native peoples still have no actual rights to their land.

Do British citizens even have mineral rights to their land?

**feeder**

Prestor Jon wrote:
feeder wrote:
It's stupid to sink money into dangerous pipelines when mass clean(er) energy is just around the corner.

There are a lot more petroleum based products that are commercially made than just gasoline/fuel.

Good point.

My main beef with pipelines is when (not if) they fail, it's a huge clusterfeth of a catastrophic mess, whereas when (again, not if) a truck or trainload goes, it's not as bad. (still bad though).

**Frazzled**

A trainload is typically far more likely to have an accident and the amount of environmental cost is typically equal or more.

(I am referring to land of course not ocean).

**feeder**

Frazzled wrote:
feeder wrote:
It's stupid to sink money into dangerous pipelines when mass clean(er) energy is just around the corner.

There's clean energy around the corner? Really?

Yes Fraz. Perhaps you have heard of Tesla.

**Frazzled**

You know electricity has to be generated right? Right?

Ok lets take a refresher. A source of energy is something burned or used to generate energy. A Use of energy is something that takes that energy and converts it to mechanical effort. For example an electric car uses energy to convert it to movement. It does not generate the energy.

A tesla is a user of energy not a source of energy.

**feeder**

Frazzled wrote:
You know electricity has to be generated right? Right?

Ok lets take a refresher. A source of energy is something burned or used to generate energy. A Use of energy is something that takes that energy and converts it to mechanical effort. For example an electric car uses energy to convert it to movement. It does not generate the energy.

A tesla is a user of energy not a source of energy.

Yes Fraz. Hydro is a big thing where I come from. Pretty clean. Tidal and geo thermal are great ways to generate clean power. Solar is getting there, not yet though.

Coal fired plants need to feth right off though. When is this, 1886?

**lonestarr777**

We get it, your old and new ways of thinking and doing things scare you Fraz.

Anyway on topic, a few friends of mine have been keeping an eye on this for awhile now. Glad the cops have largely been hands off and that so many tribes are standing together.

Lets hope it stays peaceful.

**Frazzled**

feeder wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
You know electricity has to be generated right? Right?

Ok lets take a refresher. A source of energy is something burned or used to generate energy. A Use of energy is something that takes that energy and converts it to mechanical effort. For example an electric car uses energy to convert it to movement. It does not generate the energy.

A tesla is a user of energy not a source of energy.

Yes Fraz. Hydro is a big thing where I come from. Pretty clean. Tidal and geo thermal are great ways to generate clean power. Solar is getting there, not yet though.

Coal fired plants need to feth right off though. When is this, 1886?

You know whats really cool?

Hydro, tidal, solar, and geo make up less than 10% (I'd say less than 5% but can't confirm).
Coal is not what the pipeline is about.
So there is no new tech around the corner-you just made it up. Way to go.

So they are suing about land they don't have title to, based on the argument the land is a cemetery?

**feeder**

Frazzled wrote:
feeder wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
You know electricity has to be generated right? Right?

Ok lets take a refresher. A source of energy is something burned or used to generate energy. A Use of energy is something that takes that energy and converts it to mechanical effort. For example an electric car uses energy to convert it to movement. It does not generate the energy.

A tesla is a user of energy not a source of energy.

Yes Fraz. Hydro is a big thing where I come from. Pretty clean. Tidal and geo thermal are great ways to generate clean power. Solar is getting there, not yet though.

Coal fired plants need to feth right off though. When is this, 1886?

You know whats really cool?

Hydro, tidal, solar, and geo make up less than 10% (I'd say less than 5% but can't confirm).

Yes Fraz, hence, just around the corner.

So there is no new tech around the corner-you just made it up. Way to go.

Wait, so it's currently at 5 or 10%, but mass clean energy is not just around the corner?

Coal is not what the pipeline is about.

You're right, this train of thought (see what I did there?) is OT.

So they are suing about land they don't have title to, based on the argument the land is a cemetery?

Basically, yes. They are claiming the land was ceded to them in the original treaties, but taken away bit by bit over the years. Given what we uncovered up here with our Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I easily believe the tribe was lied to and abused out of their treaty-granted rights.

I'm with the Dakota people on this one (and not just because we borrowed their name for my truck)

**djones520**

Sorry, I'm the first to agree that the many different Native American people got screwed by our government/people in the past, but at this point, reversing 130ish years of land transactions and the like, would almost be akin to reparations for slavery.

It's just unrealistic. The legal rights of the current land owners should not be trampled because of the actions of over a century ago.

**Frazzled**

Yes Fraz, hence, just around the corner.

Thats not just around the corner. Thats "I have no idea how this happens in the realm of physics currently"

So there is no new tech around the corner-you just made it up. Way to go.

Wait, so it's currently at 5 or 10%, but mass clean energy is not just around the corner?

5-10 < 100

So they are suing about land they don't have title to, based on the argument the land is a cemetery?

Basically, yes. They are claiming the land was ceded to them in the original treaties, but taken away bit by bit over the years. Given what we uncovered up here with our Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I easily believe the tribe was lied to and abused out of their treaty-granted rights.

OK, thanks.

**jasper76**

I'd like to know why private security companies have been empowered to deploy pepper spray and attack dogs on unarmed protestors.

**Iron_Captain**

Ah, good to see the US still being its old self. No justice for indians, eh?

**Frazzled**

I'd like to know why private security companies have been empowered to deploy pepper spray and attack dogs on unarmed protestors.

Thats a fair question.

Iron_Captain wrote:
Ah, good to see the US still being its old self. No justice for indians, eh?

Still using tanks on your own citizens in Grozny comrade?

**OgreChubbs**

If the gov wants to build a road and your house is in the way they give you money for it and kick you out. We all share the same rights.

Also this would not be a problem if people finished the job. When you fight a war and you take their land finish them all off dont give them some land.... We still got quebec problems because of that. Finish the job.

**jreilly89**

Frazzled wrote:
feeder wrote:
Frazzled wrote:
You know electricity has to be generated right? Right?

Ok lets take a refresher. A source of energy is something burned or used to generate energy. A Use of energy is something that takes that energy and converts it to mechanical effort. For example an electric car uses energy to convert it to movement. It does not generate the energy.

A tesla is a user of energy not a source of energy.

Yes Fraz. Hydro is a big thing where I come from. Pretty clean. Tidal and geo thermal are great ways to generate clean power. Solar is getting there, not yet though.

Coal fired plants need to feth right off though. When is this, 1886?

You know whats really cool?

Hydro, tidal, solar, and geo make up less than 10% (I'd say less than 5% but can't confirm).
Coal is not what the pipeline is about.
So there is no new tech around the corner-you just made it up. Way to go.

So they are suing about land they don't have title to, based on the argument the land is a cemetery?

Frazz, there's TED talks about Lithium power that are about 10 years old at this point. There's plenty of other options that aren't Hydro Tidal, Solar, and Geo.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

djones520 wrote:
Sorry, I'm the first to agree that the many different Native American people got screwed by our government/people in the past, but at this point, reversing 130ish years of land transactions and the like, would almost be akin to reparations for slavery.

It's just unrealistic. The legal rights of the current land owners should not be trampled because of the actions of over a century ago.

How so? If a culture has a cemetery, regardless of race or belief, that land should be respected. The same thing happens with archaeological digs that discover ancient relics or fossils.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

OgreChubbs wrote:
If the gov wants to build a road and your house is in the way they give you money for it and kick you out. We all share the same rights.

Also this would not be a problem if people finished the job. When you fight a war and you take their land finish them all off dont give them some land.... We still got quebec problems because of that. Finish the job.

A house is a lot different from "my grandparents grandparents were buried there". Ever see Poltergeist?

**Iron_Captain**

Frazzled wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:
Ah, good to see the US still being its old self. No justice for indians, eh?

Still using tanks on your own citizens in Grozny comrade?

No, we have learned the skill of subtlety. Instead of just throwing more tanks at a problem, our problems now just mysteriously disappear without a trace. It is like Stalin once said: "No man, no problem."

So now, when are these troublesome savages scheduled to be ~~massacred~~ deported?

**OgreChubbs**

Dont you only have legal rights over your grave for 100 years

**Frazzled**

Iron_Captain wrote:
Frazzled wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:
Ah, good to see the US still being its old self. No justice for indians, eh?

Still using tanks on your own citizens in Grozny comrade?

No, we have learned the skill of subtlety. Instead of just throwing more tanks at a problem, our problems now just mysteriously disappear without a trace. It is like Stalin once said: "No man, no problem."

So now, when are these troublesome savages scheduled to be ~~massacred~~ deported?

You wild and crazy guys!

Frazz, there's TED talks about Lithium power that are about 10 years old at this point. There's plenty of other options that aren't Hydro Tidal, Solar, and Geo.

All hat and no cattle. Lithium is for storage, not generation.

How so? If a culture has a cemetery, regardless of race or belief, that land should be respected. The same thing happens with archaeological digs that discover ancient relics or fossils.

You can't however, claim a region the size of New England is your cemetery. Ok, maybe China could...
Their argument about the river probably has more merit though, and people power can be a force. Go for it.

Its weird but I've always found land issues in the West as confusing and very aggressive.

**feeder**

OgreChubbs wrote:
If the gov wants to build a road and your house is in the way they give you money for it and kick you out. We all share the same rights.

Also this would not be a problem if people finished the job. When you fight a war and you take their land finish them all off dont give them some land.... We still got quebec problems because of that. Finish the job.

Is this some ITG schtick? Advocating genocide?

**Frazzled**

On the one hand advocating genocide make Happy Buddha angry. On the other side, he said Quebec and it is wrong to be French. Decisions..decisions...

**feeder**

Quebec is French like Brazil is Portuguese.

**OgreChubbs**

I looked it up and indeed you have your plot of land for 100 years. So unless they covered the land with dead every 99 years the land cant be called a cemetry.

**Frazzled**

feeder wrote:
Quebec is French like Brazil is Portuguese.

Samba!!!

to the topic:
Judge orders partial halt:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-north-dakota-pipeline-20160907-snap-story.html

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled Tuesday that work will temporarily stop between North Dakota's State Highway 1806 and a point 20 miles east of Lake Oahe, but may continue on privately owned land west of the highway because he believes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lacks jurisdiction on private property.
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The judge said he would rule by the end of the day Friday on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's challenge of federal regulators' decision to grant permits to the Dallas-based operators of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which will cross North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois.