The tribe is challenging the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners’ $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline, which crosses through four states, including near the reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border.
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A hearing was set for Thursday in the case, but has been postponed because Archambault plans to travel to Washington, D.C., for a hearing on Wednesday in the tribe’s lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Purdon said.
The $3.8 billion pipeline, which will run 1,168 miles through Iowa, Illinois, North Dakota and South Dakota, has generated legal challenges and protests, most aggressively in North Dakota and Iowa.
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“We need to make sure our tribal voice is heard and when we raise our voice, we need to make sure it transcends this issue”, she said, noting the important symbolism of land to the Native American community.
The pipeline would be a major carrier of crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation to the Midwest and down to the Gulf of Mexico, leading some to see it as Keystone XL 2.0, named after the Canada-to-Texas tar sands pipeline that was eventually blocked by the Obama administration.
“I’m here because of my grandkids and what they’re going to go through”, she said.
They’re also putting pressure on the protestors by removing drinking water tanks from the site near the Missouri River. The letter says the Navajo Nation pledges to send water and food to North Dakota “for those who are there with you”. It doesn’t quite cross through the Standing Rock reservation, but it will cross the Missouri River less than a mile away.
A North Dakota federal court issued a restraining order on August 18 against the protesters’ at the request of the developer of the pipeline, Dakota Access, citing that worker and law enforcement safety was at risk. A hearing by the pipeline contractor seeking a preliminary injunction against the protesters is scheduled for September 8.
Last Friday, the landowners asked Polk County District Court Judge Jeffrey Farrell for a similar emergency motion to stop pipeline construction, but Farrell ruled on Monday that petitioners had not exhausted their administrative options with the IUB.
While the hearing goes on, Indigenous people from various tribes around the country as well as Hollywood stars are gathering outside of the courthouse to declare solidarity and demand justice for the Standing Rock Sioux.
“In our land, it was never protected, it was just taken and they strategically placed the dams so that tribal lands would get flooded”, said David Archambault II, chairman of the tribe, speaking outside the courtroom in Washington yesterday.
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Isern, in a blog post he wrote on the subject, questions whether archaeologists hired by a pipeline company would be motivated to consult other sources.
