Ed Fallon, a protestor and director of the organization Bold Iowa, said protestors made sure no one was hurt during the arrests.
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About 100 people joined in the protest at the staging site near the Central Iowa Expo Center.
Earlier this month, Energy Transfer Partners presented at an infrastructure conference sponsored by Citibank, highlighting the Dakota Access Pipeline as a “growth project” under a section about how the company is “exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on USA energy exports”. At an organizing meeting earlier, Mason said those protesting believe the state regulatory process failed them. The planned pipeline would transport 500,000 barrels of crude hydro-fracted oil from the Bakken fields in North Dakota, bisecting the entire state of Iowa on its way to Patoka, Illinois. “We will deliver the oil to the refineries for the producers”, said Vicki Granado, Energy Transfer Partner’s spokesperson. The project also has faced protest and controversy in North Dakota and South Dakota.
The Dakota Access pipeline is a $3.7 billion project that would carry 470,000 barrels of oil daily from the oil fields in Western North Dakota to IL, where it would be connected with other pipelines.
The Dakota Access Pipeline route brings oil from the Bakken fields to a hub in IL, from which it will connect to existing pipelines that lead to the Nederland, Texas terminal on the Gulf Cost, a facility owned by Sunoco Logistics, a partner to the Dakota Access project, capable of crude oil exports. Opponents unsuccessfully petitioned the board to overturn its ruling and some landowners have a lawsuit pending in district court.
“Committed activists willing to take an arrest for the movement has been a way to advance our cause”, Mason said. We further call on your administration to revoke Nationwide Permit 12 or modify it to prevent the segmentation of pipelines in the future and resume its prior practice of evaluating the environmental impacts of individual fossil fuel pipelines.
Dakota Access officials did not comment on the arrests. “It’s not good for our communities, and it’s not good for our planet”.
“It also was the first time a formal effort was made to encourage a large number of arrests in a bid to obstruct construction work in Iowa”, the Register noted.
“We’ve actually used up all of our other options”.
There were no violent events during the protest, and law enforcement officials at the site expressed satisfaction with how it unfolded.
Among the protesters was Dick Lamb, who owns land just a few miles from the protest site through which the pipeline is passing. They didn’t stop (the pipeline).
The pipeline moves through ancestral land of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, and the tribe has mounted protests against the project, according to a Yahoo Finance article.
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“People are using civil disobedience as a means to raise awareness of the issues and the need to protect the water and as a way to delay construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline”, said Dallas Goldtooth, an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, to Inforum.
