For its part, Energy Transfer Partners has sued several protesters, claiming they in some cases threatened and intimidated company-hired contractors who were working at the site.
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Allard also noted that her tribe is not the only that’s filed a lawsuit.
The Sioux continue to use the banks of the river for spiritual ceremonies, and a manufactured lake behind the dam, Lake Oahe, plays an important role in the tribe’s daily life.
A judge is expected to rule Friday whether to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline that has pitted the Army Corps of Engineers against Native American tribes.
The proposed Dakota Access Pipeline Project, spearheaded by the north Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. Tribal leaders say the pipeline will destroy sacred sites and threatens the reservation’s water supply. “Nothing like this has ever happened in my lifetime-I’m 44 years old”.
As with the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would have carried crude oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast but was blocked by President Barack Obama last fall, opponents have linked the Dakota Access Pipeline to climate change and risks to drinking water. “In the interim, we request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe”.
“This is a historic, unprecedented, and overdue move by the Administration that is reflective of the fearless and principled stand by the Standing Rock Sioux”, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement. Tribal officials said workers allegedly bulldozed sites on private land that Hasselman said in court documents was “of great historic and cultural significance”. Pipeline supporters also say it would cut the amount of oil that travels by train.
“Out of an abundance of caution”, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple activated the National Guard no Thursday. Over the weekend, protests at the construction site turned violent.
Four private security guards and two guard dogs were injured, officials said, while a tribal spokesman said six people – including a child – were bitten by the dogs and at least 30 people were pepper-sprayed.
Rogneby says the board wants to finish its investigation “sooner rather than later”.
“People standing up against a $3.8 billion pipeline – I just felt moved to come here”, she said.
The pipeline’s original route crossed the Missouri River near Bismarck, N.D., The New Yorker reported, “but authorities anxious that an oil spill there would have wrecked the state capital’s drinking water”.
Today, the Department of Justice, Department of the Army, and Department of the Interior released a statement on the Standing Rock injunction.
At the state Capitol, pipeline protesters were happy to learn about federal authorities recommending that construction be halted.
The battle has galvanized Native American tribes throughout the United States, in a months-long protest that has garnered worldwide attention.
The tribe haggled with the oil pipeline developers over whether the National Historic Preservation Act, which allows the government to preserve historical and archaeological sites, can and should be used to prevent the building of the $3.8 million pipeline.
Friday’s gathering of Native Americans might be the largest in a century, according to Judith LeBlanc, a member of the Caddo Nation in Oklahoma and director of the New York-based Native Organizers Alliance, a group that aims to help advance the interests of Indian Country.
People have come from as far as NY and Alaska, as well as Canada.
“Resource extraction is a awful deal”, she said.
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Dakota Access has said that underground oil pipelines are safe.
