CANNON BALL, N.D./WASHINGTON A Native American tribe’s efforts to halt construction of a crude oil pipeline in North Dakota have swelled into a movement, drawing global attention and the support of movie stars and social media, and making a major oil company blink.
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A multibillion-dollar pipeline being built through land claimed by Native Americans to be culturally sensitive has sparked outrage, protest and heartbreak among tribe members who say sacred sites are being “bulldozed”. As a federal judge, Boasberg needed to find a compromise that would appease both supporters and protesters of the pipeline project briefly.
“We know that if something happens to the river, it happens to all of us”, said Larry Wright Jr., chairman of the Ponca Tribe.
Tribal preservation officer Tim Mentz said in court documents that the tribe was only recently allowed to survey private land, where researchers found burials, rock piles called cairns and other sites of historic significance to Native Americans. Stand up for water.
Obama went on to say “of course, we can not complete the transition to a clean-energy economy overnight”.
The tribe says it also is fighting the pipeline’s path because even though it does not cross the reservation, it does traverse sacred territory taken away from the tribe in a series of treaties that were forced upon it over the past 150 years.
“It’s become increasingly hard to look at projects like this”, Barteau said, “and evaluate them on their merits and costs and benefits”.
“Now mainstream is seeing it for the first time because it’s time for us to expose ourselves and to be vigilant and to be visible”, Cummings said.
The militarization of the checkpoints comes a day before the DC Circuit Court is expected to rule on injunction request that, if granted, could suspend all construction in the area.
The company declined to comment to The World-Herald.
Grand Ronde tribal council secretary Cheryle Kennedy said Grand Ronde was monitoring the situation in North Dakota but did not have any plans to extend further assistance. But the judge asked the developer to stop construction on another area, east of Lake Oahe, pending a separate ruling on a previously filed request to halt construction there. That decision is anticipated to come Friday, following a ruling last week that placed a temporary moratorium on building near a contested river site.
Kleeb said President Barack Obama has the power to step in to put the project on hold and that Thursday’s meeting also showed that Congress has a role in the permitting process.
Labour’s Māori caucus says the US Government needs to respect the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
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John Strand, a Fargo city commissioner and member of the Native American Commission, address Dakota-Access pipeline protesters at Sacred Stone Camp near Cannon Ball, N.D., on Saturday Sept. 3, 2016. She said any pipeline is a threat to land and water, and that her group would fight to stop every new pipeline project.
