It’s Not Over:

Fight Against Dakota Access Pipeline Enters New Phase

Published: December 16, 2016

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Source: Derrick Broze

In early December, a blizzard struck North Dakota, blanketing the Oceti Sakowin, Rosebud, and Sacred Stone water protector camps with heavy snow in below freezing temperatures. As the Standing Rock Sioux and allies battled the crippling cold, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) handed the native community a victory by denying the permit for the final construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The USACE said they will conduct an environmental impact assessment and consider possible alternative routes.

The decision came just one day before a planned forced removal of water protectors camped north of Highway 1806 from land that is technically the USACE’s. North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple had also issued an executive order calling for fines on civilians who brought supplies to the camps and blocking emergency services from entering. The plans for forced removal and blockades were eventually abandoned as the camps swelled to an estimated 10 to 20,000 people during the weekend of December 3rd and 4th. Among the thousands of supporters were veterans who had traveled from around the country to stand in solidarity and defense of the water protectors.

Although fireworks rang out above the camps following the Army Corps decision, there was also a sense of hesitation. Water protectors remained uncertain over whether the fight had really been won or if the decision was simply a ploy to delay an inevitable conclusion. It quickly became apparent that the fight was not over as word spread that the company behind the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, would continue with their plans to complete the project.

“The White House’s directive today to the Corps for further delay is just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency,” reads a statement from ETP.

“As stated all along, ETP and SXL (Sunoco Logistics Partners) are fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way.”

The Morton County Sheriff’s Office also suffered a setback as the Department of Justice denied a request for assistance from federal law enforcement. KFYR reports that Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said sending in border patrol and U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations could escalate tensions between protectors and police. Jonathan F. Thompson, the executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association, says his group has “asked, pleaded and nearly begged” for federal officers.

Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota responded to the DOJ’s action, stating, “The Obama administration again declined our request for both law enforcement personnel and funding to address the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.” Hoeven noted that he has “already reached out to the next administration” to help law enforcement “keep the peace, as well as to issue the easement so that construction can be completed.”

ETP has also filed a lawsuit in an attempt to force the Army Corp of Engineers to allow construction. “Citing losses of $20 million a week, David Debold, an attorney for pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners, said that without an expedited decision the matter could ‘drag out forever’ after construction was halted Sunday by the Obama administration,” USA Today reports. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg set a court hearing for February, a move that has water protectors concerned. By February, President-elect Trump will be in office and could potentially fast track approval for the final construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Trump has already shown he is friendly to the oil industry and until recently, was invested in Energy Transfer Partners. Trump nominated Rick Perry — former Texas Governor and current board member of both Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners — as the head of the Department of Energy. Perry quickly joined the boards of the oil companies only weeks after leaving office.

With all these legal and political developments, it is easy to forget about the battle being waged on the ground and the water protectors who remain at the camps. Following the Army Corps decision to block the permit, Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault II asked supporters to go home. Archambault said the fight was shifting to a legal battle and asked supporters not to put their lives at risk by traveling to the camps under such harsh weather conditions. On December 10, the Oceti Sakowin Camp posted on Facebook that they were putting out one of the Sacred Fires that had burned since the beginning of the fight:

“As we extinguish the Sacred Fire today, it is not a time of ending. People have come from all over the world- from many nations- from many traditions. Prayers in hundreds of languages were spoken around that fire. Dances that are hundreds of years old, passed from generation to generation, were danced around that fire, & as the last coal of this fire goes out, the smoke goes into the air, & swirls, & the heat that it warmed us with together in these days is now cold & has gone back deep into the Earth. This is not an end, but when another fire is lit, what happened here now will not be forgotten.”

The Sacred Stone Spirit Camp made their own post to clarify that some people were choosing to stay behind and continue the fight.

“The main fire at the Oceti Sakowin camp was put out today. This is the first fire you would see when entering the camp by the flag road… The horn (7 sacred fires) fire, Sacred Stone Camp fire, and others are still up and running. The elders were told in ceremony it was time to put out this specific fire because the prayers had been heard. This doesn’t mean that the fight is over, I personally believe that is the beginning of a new chapter.”

The Indigenous Environmental Network’s Dallas Goldtooth has also begun shifting his efforts away from recruiting for the camp towards building a movement to divest from the banks and companies that support the DAPL. Meanwhile, former congressional candidate and native organizer Chase Iron Eyes has stated that a new camp, Oceti Oyate, or people’s camp, has formed for those who want to continue the fight on the ground. According to the Bismarck Tribune, Dave Archambault asked Iron Eyes not to encourage the new camp. “I’m never going to give them a deadline or sweep it out. We just want to make sure people are safe. If they’re going to stay, they’re going to stay,” said Archambault.

As the fight against DAPL evolves, the water protectors have been given a harrowing reminder of what they are fighting against. On December 5, a pipeline leaked 176,000 thousands of crude oil only a couple hours away from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The leak was apparently contained within hours of its discovery, Wendy Owen, a spokeswoman for Casper, Wyoming-based True Cos., which operates the Belle Fourche pipeline, told CNBC. Interestingly enough, the Belle Fourche pipeline uses the same type of electronic safety equipment that is supposed to keep the DAPL from leaking. For the water protectors, the spill is just another in a long list of reasons why the Black Snake known as the Dakota Access Pipeline must not be completed.

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Source:  BlackListeNews.com

 

 

4,000 Native Americans in Bundy Ranch-Style Protest

as DHS Cuts Water Supply — Media Blackout

Published: August 24, 2016
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Source: Common Dreams

 

Cannon Ball, ND — Growing in number and spirit, the Standing Rock Sioux protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline is swiftly gaining strength ahead of a federal hearing on the controversial project. Support has spread across the country, and thousands have descended on the peaceful “prayer camps” in recent days, prompting state officials on Monday to remove the demonstrators’ drinking water supply.

North Dakota homeland security director Greg Wilz ordered the removal of state-owned trailers and water tanks from the protest encampment, despite the sweltering heat, because of alleged disorderly conduct, according to the Bismarck Tribune, including reports of laser pointers aimed at surveillance aircraft.

“People are getting overheated now already,” said Johnelle Leingang, the tribe’s emergency response coordinator, as temperatures hovered around 90º F on Monday. “It’s very hurtful.”

Tribal activists say the state’s response, which includes surveillance, road blockades with military checkpoints, and a state of emergency declaration, has been overly aggressive and manipulative.

“It is deeply ironic that the Governor would release emergency funds under the guise of public health and safety, but then remove the infrastructure that helps ensure health and safety in the camp,” said Tara Houska, national campaigns director for Honor the Earth.

The supplies were provided last week by the North Dakota Department of Health at the tribe’s request to support the roughly 2,500 people now gathered along the Standing Rock reservation’s border on the Cannonball River, near where the pipeline is slated to cross.

LaDonna Allard, director of one of the prayer camps, said, “The gathering here remains 100 percent peaceful and ceremonial, as it has from day one. We are standing together in prayer…Why is a gathering of Indians so inherently threatening and frightening to some people?”

“This is nothing but repression of our growing movement to protect our water and future generations,” Houska added.

Standing Rock spokesman Steven Sitting Bear said he’s received “notifications from tribes all over the country that have caravans in route, so it’s continuing to grow.”

On Wednesday, high profile activists and supporters are rallying in Washington D.C. outside the U.S. District Court, where members of the Standing Rock Sioux will argue that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted Energy Transfer Corporation approval for the 1,172-mile pipeline without tribal consent.

The tribe says that the pipeline—which will carry up to 570,000 barrels of fracked Bakken oil daily across four states to a market hub in Illinois—puts the sacred waters of the Missouri River at great risk.

Climate campaigner and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben penned an op-ed on Monday offering a vision of “what it might mean if the  if the Army Corps, or the Obama administration, simply said: ‘You know what, you’re right. We don’t need to build this pipeline.'”

“It would mean that after 525 years, someone had actually paid attention to the good sense that Native Americans have been offering almost from the start,” he continues:

One has the ominous sense of grim history about to be reenacted at Standing Rock. North Dakota authorities—who are in essence a subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry—have insisted that the Sioux are violent, that they have “pipe bombs.” There are rumors about calling in the National Guard. The possibility for renewed tragedy is very real.

But the possibility for a new outcome is there as well. The Army Corps of Engineers might back off. The president might decide, as he did with Keystone, that this pipeline would “exacerbate” climate change and hence should be reviewed more carefully. We might, after five centuries, actually listen to the only people who’ve ever successfully inhabited this continent for the long term.

Construction on the pipeline remains halted after developers paused the project last week in anticipation of the Wednesday hearing.

Meanwhile, a U.S. District Court hearing on whether a preliminary injunction should be issued against the protesters has been rescheduled from Thursday to Sept. 8, although a restraining order against the demonstrators has also been extended until then. Filing the order on Monday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland wrote that factions are ‘”strongly encouraged to meet and confer in good faith’ to try and resolve the dispute out of court,” the Tribune reported.

Updates are being shared on social media with the hashtags #NoDAPL and#RezpectOurWater.

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South Dakota drops teaching high schoolers about American revolution, founding documents

Published: September 1, 2015

 

    

Source: EAG News

North Dakota students may or may not learn about the first 100 years of America’s history. Important topics like the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War and the framing of the U.S. Constitution may simply be ignored by teachers under new history standards approved by the state’s board of education last Monday, the Argus Leader reports.
Current standards do not allow history teachers to delve into topics before the Civil War, so the new standards open up the door but don’t require teachers to cover early American history, as many would have preferred. The recently adopted history standards are set to take effect in 2016-17 school year and whittle the current standards from 117 pages to 44.
“Our current history standards do not even give an option as to whether it’s comprehensive or modern,” board president Don Kirkegaard told the news site. “It’s strictly modern.”
The board decision concludes a yearlong public hearing process plagued by parental protests over the history question as well as opposition to Common Core social studies and science standards.
As part of that process, numerous history processors from virtually all of the state’s large universities sent a letter to the school board explaining why they believe that not requiring students to learn early American history will be a serious problem, both for higher education and the state in general.
“Incoming freshmen arrive unprepared for history because they aren’t learning early American history at the high school level, according to the letter, which was signed by instructors from (Dakota State University,) University of South Dakota, South Dakota State University, Northern State University, Augustana College, Presentation College, the University of Sioux Falls and Black Hills State University,” the Argus Leader reports.
“And the problem isn’t just a matter of college freshmen being ready to discuss Thomas Paine at a university level. A sound understanding of history and civics can help them when they’re in the voting booth, watching the news and making life decisions,” according to Dakota State University dean Ben Jones.
“It’s disabling their citizenship,” he said.
Harrisburg School District Secondary Curriculum Director Michael Amolins seems to agree.
“I think progress helps our students prepare for the 21^st Century. So rather than just having them memorize a list of historical events on a time line, we’re trying to get them to use that information in context so that when they’re looking at current events they can make good informed decisions as citizens and voters,” he told KSFY.
Augustana history professor Michael Mullin told the site “history really isn’t about yesterday.
“History is really about understanding today. And I think they forgot that,” he said of the decision to make early American history optional. “They just want to think about today but without a context.”
The Argus Leader’s editorial board also chastised state board members for their vote, and urged them to “step back and take another look at this.”
From the news site’s Saturday editorial:
Ben Jones, dean and associate professor of history at Dakota State University, has said he and his colleagues are “astounded by the level of ignorance” of U.S. history that they see in freshmen.
But there are other important reasons to teach high school students about our nation’s early history.
Constitutional topics are common in today’s political debate and students without a solid understanding and who do not have the appropriate level of context for these discussions are at a disadvantage. As citizens, we need to understand our rights and duties as well as appreciate how they came to be.

The Constitution is referenced in nearly every important election campaign. The separation of church and state, religious and press freedoms, the 2nd Amendment and gun rights are all popular political topics of our time. But without an understanding and appreciation of the early debates on these matters, young citizens are not able to accurately assess Constitutional protections and threats. Rhetoric and misinformation can easily fill the void.

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