Four security guards and two guard dogs were injured in the protest.
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Protests over the construction of an oil pipeline turned violent over the weekend, as members of a Native American tribe and opponents to the project clashed with private security guards in North Dakota.
In the meantime, Dakota Access is agreeing to stop construction for the next few days in accordance with the judge’s ruling.
Commissioners highlighted that more than 500 cultural resources identified along the site were addressed through reroutes, mitigation or other measures, and that the tribe had ample opportunity to weigh in at public hearings and through consultations with the company that began in September 2014.
Tuesday’s in-court announcement of a brief halt is just the latest in a string of protest actions, restraining orders and construction reprieves.
“The Dakota Access Pipeline traverses a path on private property and does not cross into the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation”, said the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now.
We get an update from Stephanie Tsosie, associate attorney with Earthjustice who helps represent the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in its lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers over the Dakota Access pipeline.
After the pipeline is completed, it would shuttle 470,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to developer Energy Access Partners.
Hundreds of people have joined the Standing Rock Sioux to protest the pipeline.
The 1,172-mile pipeline would stretch from the oil-rich Bakken Formation – a vast underground deposit where Montana and North Dakota meet Canada – southeast into South Dakota, Iowa and IL. “We have to give them a voice”.
“They’ve been making really good use of social media as part of this and that has actually changed the way Native American activism takes place”, said Katherine Hayes, chair of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/St. Paul. We also asked him for a temporary restraining order on the land on the other side of route 1806 and that was what was denied. What we’re saying is that what happened on Saturday is in no way a peaceful event.
“Dakota Access pipeline has every legal right to be doing the work that they are doing. We are working with law enforcement to ensure that all offenders are arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law”. “Law enforcement has been caught in the middle”. “There is nothing that is going to be gained from this”, he said. It was kind of chaotic.
Energy Transfer Partners is pushing ahead with their construction – and in North Dakota’s dirty-energy-oriented economy, these corporations have the backing of the political establishment. “There is no alternative for water”, a Sioux tribe member told Newsy.
“Thousands of indigenous peoples from different nations have gathered in the Sacred Stone Spirit camp, in North Dakota, to block construction of the pipeline”.
“What we’re opposed to is paying for all the benefits that this country receives”, he said.
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“For indigenous peoples, the environment is a living entity that contains our life sources as well as our sacred sites and heritage. It’s up to us to do the same for our future generations”, Richards says. “The world is watching what is happening in North Dakota”.
