As many of us expected, President Trump has signed an executive order allowing work to resume on the Dakota Access Pipeline. Now, in the dead of winter, only a few hundred brave water protectors are on site to continue the struggle they began last year.
Screenshot of video shot at the Water Protectors camp in January, 2017.
This might be a good time to recall why we are fighting. First, as the Standing Rock Tribe has argued, the Army Corps of Engineers did not follow proper procedures in asking for tribal consultation. Theirs was a half- hearted effort, the Society of American Archaeologists made clear in a public letter opposing the pipeline:
After review of many documents associated with DAPL (see below), we conclude that there are unresolved questions regarding whether the USACE has fulfilled their Section 106 responsibilities in relation to the NHPA.
Second, the pipeline runs though land adjacent to the Standing Rock Reservation which was never ceded to the United States. As the historians Jeff Ostler and Nick Estes explained in their January 16th article in Indian Country Today,
There is no question about the accuracy of Standing Rock’s contention that the pipeline is being constructed across lands recognized as Sioux territory under the 1851 Treaty. That treaty stated that the northern boundary for Sioux territory was at the Heart River, north of the Dakota Access Pipeline route. At first glance, it may seem as though the Sioux ceded these lands under the 1868 Treaty. Article 2 of the 1868 Treaty established a “permanent reservation” for the Sioux with a northern boundary at the current border between the states of North and South Dakota, in other words, south of the Dakota Access Pipeline route. However, under Article 16 of the 1868 Treaty, lands north of the permanent reservation were designated as “unceded Indian territory.” According to the Indian Claims Commission (ICC), in a 1978 decision, the northern boundary of the unceded Article 16 lands was the Heart River—the same boundary recognized in the 1851 Treaty. http://www.indianz.com/News/2017/01/17/jeffrey-ostler-and-nick-estes-treaties-a.asp
In the current political climate, facts such as these may have little impact on the president’s position. They are, however, facts.
Moreover, the environmental dangers involved in tunneling under Lake Oahe, a source of drinking water, have never been fully addressed. Just this week in Iowa, nearly 140, 000 gallons of diesel fuel spewed from the Magellan Midstream Partners pipeline near Hanlontown. This follows a spill of some 250, 000 gallons of oil from the Colonial Pipeline in Shelby County, Alabama. For many observers, question still remain as to why part of the pipeline’s route was moved from its initial easement north of the city of Bismarck. If it is safe, and its environmental impact minimal, why further disturb the Missouri drainage?
Aerial view of Lake Oahe.
Finally, there are long-term questions concerning the necessity of further oil pipeline construction. Industry experts believe that most U.S, oil producing regions have “ample, if not excessive takeaway”—that is, there are more pipes than oil https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/energy-resources/us-er-greg-armstrong-north-american-midstream-sector.pdf).
Even though the President divested his investments in Energy Transfer Partners and Phillips 66, two companies involved in the pipeline’s construction, Energy Transfer Partners’ owner, Kelcy Warren, “gave $100,000 to Trump’s joint fundraising effort with the Republican Party” ( http://heavy.com/news/2017/01/trump-dakota-access-pipeline-executive-order-dapl-standing-rock-no-keystone-investment-energy-transfer-partners-kelcy-warren-donation/ ) Until he divested, the President is believed to have had a much as million dollars invested in the project’s sponsor companies.
This appearance of conflict of interest on the part of the President—when coupled with the legal and environmental problems surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline itself—ought to be enough reason for fair-minded Americans to urge their leaders to stand down construction for the time being. Although many politicians have raised the specter of job losses and have dangled the promise of better economic times for the people of North Dakota once the pipeline is completed, the oil industry’s own prognosis does not suggest there will be another boom anytime soon. To add insult to injury, the fracturing methods commonly used to release this kind of oil (and much of the natural gas in other pipelines) is already causing earthquakes in Oklahoma and Texas. Once again, the earthquakes, like the pipelines, are wreaking havoc on Native communities, while their non-Native neighbors reap the benefits of lower energy costs and freedom from worry that the spills and quakes will every occur in their own communities.
Damage in Oklahoma earthquake of 2015.
