Miami Valley residents joined a national protest Tuesday in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to ask President Obama to permanently stop the Dakota Access pipeline. It also wades into delicate issues of how Native Americans have been treated by the federal government for years. The pipeline would transport about 470,000 to 570,000 barrels of crude oil per day, or about six to eight 100-car oil trains’ worth, according to owner Energy Transfer Partners. While Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein traveled to support protesters in North Dakota, neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton has taken a position on the pipeline.
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Crews work on installing the Dakota Access Pipeline near Williston, N.D., on Friday, July 29, 2016.
Sanders joined the hundreds of people who gathered in DC to voice their opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline, which is planned to move crude oil through four states from North Dakota to IL.
“We won’t stop until they stop”, wrote the Sacred Stone Camp, where the Standing Rock Sioux and allied Indigenous nations and supporters have gathered in protest of the pipeline’s construction. One can only hope that with the stern and persistent shutdown of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the current stalemate at the DAPL, and the president’s increasingly progressive attitudes on environmental issues, this fall meeting could be monumental for securing and upholding the rights of people who have for far too often received some of the most deplorable treatment in a country that was originally theirs. Numerous groups also fought the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration rejected in November.
Though the protest began quietly and focused on a specific issue, it came to represent a broad grievance: that for too long the concerns of Native Americans have been given little attention as the nation has approved major energy projects in or near areas where tribes live or consider sacred.
In a September 13 memo to employees, Kelcy Warren, chairman of Energy Transfer Partners, which is building the pipeline, declared, first, pride in the project as a safer and more efficient alternative for moving crude oil than the trucks and rails used now.
“The call of the Standing Rock Sioux has echoed across Turtle Island”.
Construction on a portion of the pipeline was halted Friday after the administration said it wouldn’t authorize work on federal land along the route while it reconsiders prior decisions to allow it.
Meanwhile, the company behind the pipeline released its first public statements Tuesday since the Corps, Department of Justice and Department of Interior paused construction on Corps land under and bordering Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River. “As a progressive labor union committed to anti-racist activism, CFA is disturbed by the clear violation rights of peaceful demonstrators and feel compelled to lend our voice”, said CFA President Jennifer Eagan.
Despite the complaint, Champion said she believes all involved in the event accomplished their goal of spreading awareness and relaying a message of being a “protector, not a protester”.
The Corps said it will move quickly to make a final determination about the portion of the project near the reservation.
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The Texas company that is building the pipeline says construction is nearly 60 percent complete and says concerns about the impact on water are unfounded.
