Thousands have been gathering with the tribes in their opposition to the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline project, with at least eight of the 11 tribes having written letters supporting the two tribes.
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If granted, construction in that area would stop while Judge Boasberg weighs a broader request to halt construction on the pipeline all together.
Native Americans protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in southern North Dakota.
A federal judge on Tuesday issued a short-term restraining order against construction work on a section of a controversial pipeline project in North Dakota.
Protesters made their position clear outside the U.S. District Court building in Washington, DC during the emergency hearing. Ortegon says she’s anxious about protecting the water since the line is supposed to travel underneath the Missouri River. As noted in the Sierra Club’s letter to the President, the recent spate of pipeline spills in California’s Central Valley and Ventura, as well as 2010s still active disaster in Kalamazoo Michigan, should inform even an oil-friendly person that pipelines in and around drinking water sources, much less under a river, are catastrophes waiting to happen and a frightful idea.
“In the meantime, we don’t want them doing this to the land”, her brother said.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II is expected to release a statement on Facebook later Tuesday.
He counts the current events at Standing Rock among those crimes.
When another speaker asked the crowd of protesters that had gathered around the stalled equipment who they were there for, Christinia Eala, a 70-year-old Sicunga Lakota grandmother, shouted, “my grandchildren!”
He hoped to bring back to Aotearoa what he had learned from the experience, he said.
At the weekend a confrontation ensued at a work site near Lake Oahe as people opposing the pipeline breached fences and attempted to stop bulldozers conducting earthworks. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who advocates for clean energy, spent Monday evening with them and used red spray paint to write “I approve this message” on the blade of a bulldozer, a spokeswoman said.
“I’m not here for a photo op”.
“The original sin of this country is that we invaders shot and murdered our way across the land, killing every Native American we could, and making treaties with the rest”, he says. It’s been described as the largest unification of Native American tribes in decades. At one point, a protester said “Where’s Obama?” and she replied “Exactly, where is Obama?”
The pipeline has faced months of resistance from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and members of almost 100 more tribes from across the USA and Canada. Reed said he fought in Iraq and is now fighting “fighting for our children and our water”. But he said the protest is also a matter of respect for tribal sovereignty.
Many Hides volunteered to carry Oregon’s Grand Ronde flag to North Dakota to join the Sioux in their protest. We were constructing according to our plans.
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That evening, a press conference was held up at the construction site. “They did this on a holiday weekend, one day after we filed court papers identifying these sacred sites. There is not going to be an alternative route”, Hall said.
