Officers from the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department, Mandan Police, Bismarck Police, North Dakota Highway Patrol, Parole and Probation, State Parks, Mercer County Sheriff’s Department and Beulah Police were on scene at the protest.
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“This is just another way that those in power use police presence to oppress people who again are already marginalized and fighting to protect our planet”, said Juliana Britto-Schwartz, California protester.
They say it could disturb sacred sites and impact drinking water for 8,000 tribal members in the North Dakota area, as well as millions further downstream the MS and Missouri rivers.
“We have been in this pipeline fight for over two years, and have vowed to use all of the tools available to us in our fight”, Mason said in a statement. Boone County sheriff, deputies, and state troopers are at the scene.
Business leaders and union construction workers have lined up in support of the project, citing positive economic benefits and a desire for US energy security.
Dakota Access, a subsidiary of the Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, alleged in its petition that planned acts of civil disobedience by local resistance groups Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) and Bold Iowa “represent a risk to the physical safety of Dakota Access employees and representatives, and the protesters”.
An offshoot of the Bold Nebraska group that opposed TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline, Bold Iowa on Wednesday held a civil disobedience training session prior to what it called an afternoon of “direct action” to oppose the Dakota Access project.
Tom Iverson says construction was temporarily halted.
“We’ve actually used up all of our other options”. She set a hearing for Friday to consider the issue further.
Construction had started in May on the $3.78 billion pipeline project in North Dakota, South Dakota and IL.
Donnielle Wanatee, a member of Sac and Fox of the MS in Iowa, said the project poses a threat to Iowa’s land and water with no benefit for the residents of the state, while Keith Puntenney, one of the landowners who brought legal action against Dakota Access, said called the pressurized pipeline “a bomb waiting to go off” near a number of Iowa water sources. Only 22 percent of the pipeline in the state were welded and lowered into trenches, while three-fourths of the route is cleared, utility regulators were told last week.
The 30-inch-diameter pipeline typically will carry about 450,000 barrels per day, with capacity of up to 570,000 barrels per day.
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“The pipeline is getting too close and we don’t need it that close to where the boundary is at”. More than a dozen projects, worth about $33 billion, have either been rejected by regulators or withdrawn since 2012, according to news reports. A decision on the eminent issue could ultimately be decided by the Iowa Supreme Court.
