Several hundred marchers also rallied in Denver.
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A camp set up to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s fight against the oil pipeline has swelled over the past few days, now populated by thousands of people from across North America.
The Yankton Sioux Tribe in southern South Dakota has sued federal regulators for approving permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline that will move oil from North Dakota to IL.
The Yankton Sioux Tribe, also known as the Ihanktonwan Oyate, claimed in the suit, also filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that the approval was illegal because it “foreclosed the legally-mandated consultation process before consultation even began”.
The line would be the first to allow movement of crude oil from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The Corps did not immediately return a call seeking comment Thursday evening. The Standing Rock Sioux asked the judge for an injunction because of the sacred burial sites.
Members of the Dakota and Lakota nations from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation established a camp at the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers, about 50 miles south of Bismarck, North Dakota.
“The Guard members will serve in administrative capacities and assist in providing security at traffic information points – the Guardsmen will not be going to the actual protest site”, Balken said. People from tribes all across the state gathered to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The tribe has been leading a protest for weeks at a site where the route passes near its reservation near the North Dakota-South Dakota border.
The clashes near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, have at times been rowdy and physical, with protesters pepper-sprayed and construction equipment damaged.
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Paul Picha (PEE’-kuh) told The Associated Press that the trip likely won’t happen until next week. The tribe was successful in getting a temporary work halt on portions of the pipeline earlier this week. It starts from the oil-rich Bakken Field in North Dakota, and ends in IL.
