Local native Americans and supporters joined others across the country in a national day of action calling for rejection of the Dakota Access Pipeline and asking President Barack Obama to permanently stop the project.
Advertisement
Hundreds gathered in front of the White House Tuesday afternoon in Washington to listen to speakers, including U.S. Sen.
Energy Transfer has reiterated its commitment to completing the Dakota Access Pipeline despite controversy surrounding a portion of the line’s route.
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,172-mile, 30-inch pipeline that will transport up to 470,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil from North Dakota to IL daily.
Part of the pipeline would cross Sioux lands and run under the Missouri River, the tribe’s sole water source, drawing concerns from environmentalists and tribe leaders that a potential oil spill could devastate the reservation.
According to the Associated Press, ETP CEO Kelcy Warren said in a memo to employees on Monday: “I am confident that as long as the government ultimately decides the fate of the project based on science and engineering, the Dakota Access Pipeline will become operational”. Their main goal is to encourage energy transfer partners to reconsider. The same company is also behind the Trans-Pecos pipeline in Big Bend.
Energy Transfer Partners disputes those claims, saying the pipeline would include safeguards and that workers monitoring the pipeline remotely could close valves within three minutes if a breach is detected.
As construction continued, the tribe filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order, but the U.S. District Court Judge overseeing the motion denied it and construction continued.
Advertisement
Community members and those involved with the Fort Collins Native American population are organizing the event to show support for thousands who have gathered in North Dakota to protest construction of an oil pipeline on sacred lands that would go under the Missouri River. The section of work that was stalled came within a half-mile of the reservation, which straddles the North and South Dakota border. Shortly after the decision, however, the federal government said it would stop work that occurs on federal land to see whether it should “reconsider any of its previous decisions” to allow the project to proceed. “The water blessing this evening is meant to bring awareness and bless out wetlands”, says Lightfoot Holm.
