Demonstrators join members of North Dakota’s Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to protest against construction of a Bakken shale pipeline they say would pollute water and desecrate sacred land, in Washington DC August 24, 2016.
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“This is a very serious issue and it’s one that can be challenged in a number of different ways”, said Houska, one of several attorneys at the camp Thursday.
The company said the pipeline would include safeguards such as leak detection equipment, and workers monitoring the pipeline remotely in Texas could close block valves on it within three minutes if a breach is detected.
The Morton County Sheriff’s Office will send a patrol auto to escort the students’ bus to and from school on Thursday, the first day of classes.
In a letter addressed to Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II, Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye said the nation stands in solidarity with protesters to protect those lands.
In North Dakota, people are camping out near the pipeline construction site.
A section of the Dakota Access Pipeline would run underneath the Missouri River, a federally protected waterway. She added that while permitless protesters can be ticketed by the Corps, only law enforcement are authorized to remove them.
However, Kirchmeier said the sheriff’s office has no authority to prevent Dakota Access from resuming construction.
“They are calling us protestors. but, they have it wrong: we are not protesting. we are p.r.o.t.e.c.t.i.n.g”, she wrote on Instagram.
Sen. Bernie Sanders issued a press release of his own on Thursday, condemning the pipeline and upholding the grassroots efforts to stop it.
“After years of pipeline disasters-from the massive tar sands oil spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2010, to the recent oil pipeline spills in the San Joaquin Valley and Ventura, CA-our organizations and our millions of members and supporters are concerned about the threat these projects pose to our safety, our health, and the environment”, reads the letter (pdf), signed by groups such as the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Sierra Club, and 350.org.
In their suit, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said the Army Corps used a fast-track permitting process that forfeited the public input process.
“I’m here as a mother and a grandmother to thank the people of the Standing Rock community for bringing our attention to this awful thing that is happening to their land, which in turn will endanger all of us. because all of our waters are connected”, said Sarandon, the Oscar-winning actress.
“With unity, there are a lot of things we can overcome”, said Archambault, noting that 120 tribal nations have sent letters of support.
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On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear the tribe’s lawsuit, which claims a federal agency violated multiple statutes for protecting clean water and culturally significant sites by issuing permits to Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline’s builder.
