The fight to stop the Dakota Access pipeline has reached another crisis point, as the Trump administration has given the final go-ahead to build the pipeline under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. This mile-and-a-half section will connect two segments of the 1,172-mile pipeline that will take half a million barrels a day of dirty, explosive Bakken oil from North Dakota across South Dakota and Iowa, into Illinois, where it will connect to other pipelines taking the fossil fuel to the Gulf Coast for refining.
Hundreds of people have remained at the camps to act as water protectors since the Obama administration announced on Dec. 4 that it would require a full Environmental Impact Statement on the project. Now that Trump’s Army Corps of Engineers has reversed that finding, hundreds more people are returning to what they’re calling their “last stand” against the pipeline, including three contingents of veterans. The Standing Rock tribe has also filed a last-ditch legal effort to pause the pipeline, but even the tribal chairman, Dave Archambault II, has said it’s unlikely to be successful.
Seventy-six water protectors were arrested on Feb. 1 when they refused to leave a new encampment, set up outside the flood plain where the other camps were originally erected. One of them was Chase Iron Eyes, an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, an attorney with the Lakota People’s Law Project and a co-founder of the Native American news website Last Real Indians. In this recording of a talk given by Iron Eyes on Feb. 7, he describes the current situation and asks for help from supporters, either by traveling to Standing Rock or protesting against the banks funding the project wherever they live across the nation.
Learn more about the resistance being organized in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline by visiting lastrealindians.com or on Facebook at Facebook.com/lastrealindians/
Related Links:
- No DAPL Solidarity at nodaplsolidarity.org
- No DAPL Facebook at Facebook.com/RedWarriorCamp
- “The United States Army Corp has granted the easement giving DAPL permission to drill under the Missouri River. Live with Chase Iron Eyes,” Facebook
- “A guide to recent events in Dakota Access pipeline battle,” ABC News, Feb. 14, 2017
- “Construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline Continues, for Now,” The Atlantic, Feb. 14, 2017
- “Federal judge rejects request to block Dakota Access pipeline — for now,” The Washington Post, Feb. 13, 2017
- “Judge rejects Standing Rock request to block Dakota Access pipeline drilling,” The Guardian, Feb. 13, 2017
- “The Billionaire CEO Behind the Dakota Access Pipeline Would Rather Be Talking About Country Music,” Mother Jones, Feb. 10, 2017
- Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline at change.org
- “‘Indian Givers’ song about the Dakota Access Pipeline struggle,” by Neil Young via Youtube