There have been representatives of more than 120 tribes at the camp, including Navajo from Arizona, where a mine “cleanup” polluted their water, and the Prairie Island Indian Community from Minnesota, “where the federal government flooded sacred burial mounds and sited a nuclear power plant and fuel storage facility near their land”.
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The Dakota Access Pipeline plans to transport crude oil 1,170 miles from North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois.
Dakota Access made the freaky decision last Saturday to leap ahead of their obvious construction route and sneak in on a holiday weekend to destroy a sacred site and burial ground that were due to be assessed by the North Dakota Preservation Office.
The statement declared that construction that borders Lake Oahe would not go forward.
Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II told hundreds of protesters who braved a torrential downpour to gather at the North Dakota Capitol grounds in Bismark that a public policy win is a lot stronger than a judicial win. The tribe has already appealed the injunction denial to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The government says it now is reconsidering its decision on the pipeline and wants input from the tribe.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied the request of the Standing Rock Sioux for a temporary injunction against the four-state pipeline that would transport Bakken Shale oil to IL.
As a result thousands of Native Americans and environmentalist protesters had camped on the construction site, in a peaceful protest that turned violent last week.
“It’s solidarity with No Dakota Access Pipeline that we’re here for and for our treaties’ rights as indigenous peoples – to keep those sacred treaty rights”, she added. He says historically, tribes have been only consulted on energy infrastructure projects, with the federal government making the actual decisions. As NPR points out, there are also concerns of the pipeline rupturing and polluting local drinking water.
“We were very apolitical in the decisions we made”, he said.
The Department of the Army said on Friday that construction of the pipeline on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe will not go forward at this time. “I think it is very unsafe for government institutions to weigh in as heavily handed as this”. “No sane American company would dare expend years of effort and billions of dollars weaving through an onerous regulatory process receiving all necessary permits and agreements, only to be faced with additional regulatory impediments and be shut down halfway through completion of its project”.
The delay’s impacts on infrastructure development could be dire, said Stevens, the spokesman for the Midwest coalition.
Dakota Access, the subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners LP that is building the pipeline, declined to comment.
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“That said, the pipeline could also be in limbo indefinitely, without permission to complete the section under Lake Oahe”, the group said in a memo.
