Imagine being forced to live in the most remote corners of the Upper Midwest because other people came and took your land for themselves. Then, imagine that those same people came back and wanted to take the last scraps of land you have left and dig a gas pipeline on what you consider sacred ground. They were going to dig up your land and contaminate your water; take the last of what was rightfully yours.
The Lakota people of Standing Rock Reservation, which is located approximately two hours south of Bismarck, ND, have faced this plight since early 2016 due to the scheduled completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The multi-year construction project, originally scheduled for completion on January 1, 2017, will culminate with the installation of a natural gas pipeline running from the Northwest corner of North Dakota to Patoka, a small town in Illinois. An original plan to route the pipeline through the Missouri River near Bismarck was rejected because it would run too close to the city’s municipal water supply. The alternate plan would reroute the pipeline through the southern part of the state, approximately a half-mile from Standing Rock, subsequently risking contamination of the water supply on the reservation.
In April, tribe elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard established a camp to organize spiritual resistance and protest the construction of the pipeline. Over the next three months, over 1,000 protesters flocked to the reservation to show their support and solidarity with the people of the reservation. The protests soon became a national storyline. Dave Archambault, the tribal chairman of Standing Rock, became a leading voice for the cause. He voiced concerns before the Department of Justice, shared updates from the camp on social media, and even sent email newsletters with the latest news. Some of these newsletters contained instructions on how to support the tribe’s cause from home by calling government offices. For example, one letter asked readers to call the Army Corps of Engineers and urge them to move forward immediately with their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the DAPL project.
Finally, on December 4, pressured by the 2,000-plus veteran volunteers who joined the protest that weekend, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blocked further construction of the pipeline under the Missouri River so that they could conduct the EIA test. The Standing Rock reservation seemed to have prevailed, if only temporarily.
Everything would change when Donald Trump was inaugurated just one month later. On his third day in office, President Trump signed an executive order that allowed construction to continue, overturning the Army Corps’ decision from December. Two weeks later, on February 7, Trump ended the EIA. The reversal is currently being contested in federal court, and there will surely be much more to this story before it is over, including a march on Washington and a three-day lobbying session in D.C. from March 7 to March 10.
Anyone interested in learning more about the protests, how to get involved, or receive newsletters can visit standwithstandingrock.net for more information.