The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is anxious that the DAPL will disturb or potentially destroy sacred sites and might negatively impact drinking water for both thousands of tribe members and millions of others downstream.
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Protesters fear the construction will disturb sacred sites and contaminate drinking water for the tribe and millions more and a pipeline leak would be an ecological disaster.
Archambault said at least a half-dozen people were maced and pepper sprayed and several people were bitten by the security guards’ dogs – one woman bitten on her breast – after protesters entered the construction zone.
The US Army Corps of Engineers approved the Dakota Access Pipeline in July allowing it to run under the Missouri River very close to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
About 500 to 800 people traveled to the construction site around 2:30 p.m. Saturday and broke down a fence to get in, the department said.
A statement by one law enforcement official, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, said that the some of the protesters had actually crossed over onto private property and had assaulted private security officers using flag poles and wooden posts.
A video taken of the protest scene shows Native Americans becoming upset as bulldozers begin tearing up private land behind a barbed wire fence as corporate security guards with German shepherds try to keep demonstrators at bay. They stampeded the site with horses, dogs and vehicles, according to the authorities. They also said the pipeline construction violates long-standing treaties.
Preskey says there were no law enforcement personnel at the site when the incident occurred and that the crowd disbursed when officers arrived and no one was arrested. The oil pipeline is being constructed by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners. Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said he will continue to promote peace at the worksites. “These grounds are the resting places of our ancestors”.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed an emergency motion Sunday to block further construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The ancient cairns and stone prayer rings there can not be replaced. He continued by saying that numerous witnesses had said the crowd of a few hundred protesters became violent within about five minutes.
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The Dakota Access Pipeline is created to transport crude oil from North Dakota into IL, and will run through those two states as well as South Dakota and Iowa. He said that it did not seem like a protest, but more like a riot. An original pipeline route proposal was rejected for posing exactly the same kind of water source threat to the city of Bismarck, ND. The motion seeks to prevent additional construction work on an area two miles west of North Dakota Highway 1806, and within 20 miles of Lake Oahe until a judge rules on the Tribe’s previous motion to stop construction.
