Share

Tiguas support Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

The 1,100-mile (1,770-km) pipeline is a $3.7-billion project which would be the first to transport crude oil from Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, to refineries in the US Gulf Coast. The Indian reservation in North Dakota is the site of the largest gathering of Native Americans in more than 100 years.

Advertisement

The builder – Energy Transfer Partners – secured the required permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and started construction on the pipeline, which is 60 percent complete.

Local pipeline protesters say the tribal fight, is just as important, as their own.

Monday, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe asked a federal judge to “formalize” a request by the federal government for a halt on the Dakota Access pipeline construction in North Dakota.

In North Dakota protests ended in arrests, with 22 people cuffed after two locked themselves to work equipment.

Approximately 150 people gathered in front of the Boulder County Courthouse on Tuesday to show solidarity with Dakota Access pipeline protesters in North Dakota.

Morton County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Rob Keller says the company reported that protesters vandalized the equipment.

“We always band together when it comes to mother Earth and things that threaten who we are as people”, says Carlos Hisa, the governor.

Holding signs and banners and chanting “Oil Kills”, protesters in Atlanta and other USA cities on Tuesday shouted support for Native American activists trying to stop construction of a North Dakota pipeline they say will desecrate sacred land and pollute water.

“We stand in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux peoples whose native lands and sacred sites are threatened with destruction if the pipeline is built”, Northcutt said. Concerns about water supplies in the region also prompted reconsideration for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, before the White House moved against the project on broader environmental grounds. “So we will continue to obey the rules and trust the process”, Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, wrote to employees, according to Associated Press.

“It doesn’t feel in any way like a protest”, said Finn, who’s a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Advertisement

It came the same day as a planned “day of action” in cities around the US and in other countries, including a rally that drew hundreds in Washington to hear Sen.

Joel Dyer Protesters march on Boulder Colorado's Pearl Street Mall in opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline