The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, with the support of many other Native American tribes, claims that construction of the DAPL was deliberately rerouted over the Labor Day holiday weekend, to target traditional burial grounds and ritual sites.
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Protest of the almost $4 million dollar oil pipeline turned violent Saturday when members of a Native American tribe Standing Rock Sioux and private security forces clashed as construction crews began work on the project in Morton County, N.D.
The Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes have said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to provide formal consultation with regards to the project.
A group of firms led by Energy Transfer Partners ETP.N is building the 1,100-mile (1,770-km) pipeline. The area in which Dakota Access agreed to halt activity until Friday represented some but not all of the area requested in the temporary restraining order.
Tribal officials say Saturday’s clash happened because workers allegedly bulldozed sites on private land that tribal attorney Jan Hasselman said in court documents were “of great historic and cultural significance to the tribe”. The company’s lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment after the ruling.
When Māori Television questioned the company regarding accusations of the use of dogs and pepper spray, a spokesperson, Vanessa Granados responded in an email saying, ” The safety of our workers is our top priority and we will do all that is necessary to ensure they are safe, including having security along our right-of-way”.
Dakota Access said in its reply to the requested restraining order that the bulldozers were operating under the company’s construction schedule and did not destroy any important historical sites.
Protests against the pipeline turned violent in North Dakota over the weekend, with some demonstrators breaking down a wire fence and trespassing onto a construction site, the Morton County Sheriff’s Department said.
A weekend confrontation between protesters and construction workers near Lake Oahe prompted the tribe to ask Sunday for a temporary stop of construction, which a judge partially granted Tuesday.
Attorneys for Energy Transfer Partners filed court documents on Monday denying that workers destroyed any cultural sites but cited broken fences, incidents of trespass and “horrible threats of physical violence” against construction workers and other employees. Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party spray painted the blade of a bulldozer used by a construction crew.
The Army Corps of Engineers won’t oppose the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request for a temporary work stoppage on part of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The pipeline would transport up to 500,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil per day across the country to IL.
“If we all stand together, that gives us more of a chance to beat the pipeline”, Ortegon said.
The judge will also consider the tribe’s challenge to permits for the pipeline granted by the Corps.
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