(Largest?) Native American Protest in American History (Oil Fields/Pipes)

[Shiranu]

I am hesitant to quote simply because, for whatever reason, the text goes all sorts of wonky and it will take me about an hour to get everything looking like it shoud... but I'll give it one go and see what happens...


http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/09/protests-fracked-oil-pipeline-just-keep-getting-bigger/

A federal court said on Wednesday it will rule next month whether to temporarily halt construction of a controversial oil pipeline that has prompted large protests in North Dakota.
After more than an hour-long hearing, Judge James E. Boasberg said he’ll decide as early as Sept. 9 on the injunction request the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed against the so-called Bakken pipeline, a massive fracked oil line that would cut through four
Midwestern states and hundreds of waterways.

“We are pleased that we had our day in court today, and we look forward to a ruling soon,” said Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archaumbault II. “I believe that everyone who attended the hearing today will understand that the tribe is seeking fundamental justice here.”
Native Americans say the pipeline threatens sacred sites and drinking water resources, and that no meaningful consultation took place. The Army Corps of Engineers disagrees. During the court hearing, the agency said the tribe declined to be part of the process. The tribe in turn said they didn’t want to legitimize a flawed process. The company building the pipeline, Dakota Access, says the project is safe and will benefit the region and boost energy independence. They have, however, agreed to stop construction in that area of North Dakota until the court rules on the injunction.

The hearing in D.C. comes about a month after the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued the Corps over the permits the Corps gave to the developer, Dakota Access, to build on an area roughly half-mile north of the reservation, and through the Missouri River â€" as well as other federal waterways.

The Bakken pipeline is roughly 48 percent complete, officials said during the court hearing, and the line is scheduled to start delivering oil in January. Construction is ongoing almost everywhere else, though a small group of Iowa landowners managed to get a construction reprieve from state regulators Wednesday.

As the court hearing went on indoors in D.C., outside scores of mostly Native Americans from as far away as Arizona gathered in a packed rally that continued even after the hearing was over. Actresses Susan Sarandon and Shailene Woodley were part of the protest. Woodley, who has been protesting in North Dakota, is one of many celebrities that have over the past few months called along Native Americans for a halt to construction and a repeal of pipeline permits.

Comparable in size to the more-famous (but rejected) Keystone XL, the Bakken pipeline is slated to be the largest oil line coming out of North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, among the nation’s most active due to the fracking boom. The line would move up to 570,000 barrels of sweet crude oil daily through the Dakotas, Iowa, and Illinois.

The nearly $3.8 billion pipeline is slated to cross multiple watersheds in its more than 1,150 mile course. Aside from the alleged threat to sacred sites, critics say the pipeline brings the threat of spill damage to thousands of miles of fertile farmland, forests, and rivers. Federal agencies have said the Bakken Pipeline avoids “critical habitat.”

Most of the affected land is farmland, but the project does run through wildlife areas and major waterways like the Mississippi, and the Missouri, the longest river in North America.

https://www.hcn.org/articles/dakota-access-pipeline

Taken in larger historical context, the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline appears not as an isolated incident â€" but as a piece of a much longer story. The tribe is a descendent of the Great Sioux Nation, a combination of Lakota and other tribes whose territory in the early 19 th century stretched from eastern Montana through western South Dakota, into southern North Dakota, northern Nebraska and northeast Wyoming.

These tribes were pushed into a reservation in western South Dakota under the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. In 1889, U.S. Congress seized parts of that reservation land and created several smaller reservations, one of which was Standing Rock. In 1946, the Army Corps began construction to dam the Missouri River, flooding Native American communities in the Missouri Valley, forcing them to move yet again. The Dakota Access Pipeline is planned to traverse land that is less than a mile north of today’s Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The potential threat to water and sacred sites further rankles tribe members who see it as part of a long-term pattern, helping fuel both the lawsuit and the subsequent protest.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II points to dams that created hydropower for the greater region as part of a history of exploitation: “We’re all in favor of energy independence, but not off our backs. This has gone on for too long, where we pay for it," he said in an interview.
According to court documents, original proposals for construction placed the pipeline near the water supply for Bismarck, a city that is 88 percent white. “They altered the route because people were concerned about the impact on the city’s water supply,” Jan Hasselman, an Earthjustice attorney representing the tribe said in an interview. “(The government) put the risk on the tribe. That’s not right.”

[Shiranu]

http://www.theearthchild.co.za/the-largest-native-american-protest-in-history-is-happening-right-now/



I can't imagine why they don't want the wonderful economic opportunities this pipe will bring...