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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStanding Rock is standing tall. After 525 years, it’s time to actually listen to Native Americans
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Standing Rock is standing tall
After 525 years, its time to actually listen to Native Americans
The center of the fight for our planets future shifts. But this week its on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation straddling the border between North Dakota and South Dakota. There, tribal members have been, well, standing like a rock in the way of the planned Dakota Access Pipeline, a huge hose for collecting oil out of the Bakken shale and carrying it off to the Midwest and the Gulf where it can be made into gasoline. The standoff has been picturesque and dramatic, featuring American Indians on horseback. But mostly its been brave and lonely, far from most journalists and up against the same forces that have made life hard for Indigenous Peoples for centuries.
The U.S. Army, for instance. Its the Army Corps of Engineers that last month granted Energy Transfer Corporation the permit necessary to start construction near the reservation, despite a petition signed by 150,000 people, and carriedon footby young people from the reservation all the way to Washington. That would be the same U.S. Army thatwell, google Wounded Knee. Or Custer. Washita River. Pine Ridge.
Thats not really ancient history, not any of it. Its the reason that Native Americans live confined to bleak reservations in vast stretches of the country that no one thought were good for much of anything else. But those areasironically enoughnow turn out to be essential for the production or transportation of the last great stocks of hydrocarbons, the ones whose combustion scientists tell us will take us over the edge of global warming. And if former generations of the U.S. Army made it possible to grab land from Native people, then this largely civilian era of the Army Corps is making it easy to pollute and spoil what little we left them. As the corporation said over the weekend, it was constructing this pipeline in accordance with applicable laws, and the local, state and federal permits and approvals we have received.
But its not constructing it in accordance with the laws of physics. July was the hottest month ever recorded on our planet, and likely, say scientists, the hottest month since the beginning of human civilization. And in any event, those applicable laws, permits, and approvals are merely the cover for the latest plunder. A spill from this pipeline would pollute the Missouri River, just as spills in recent years have done irreparable damage to the Kalamazoo and Yellowstone rivers. And that river is both the spiritual and economic lifeblood of the Standing Rock Reservation, one of the poorest census tracts in the entire country.
. . . . .
http://grist.org/justice/after-525-years-its-time-to-actually-listen-to-native-americans/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=climate-newsletter&utm_campaign=round-2-image
RapSoDee
(421 posts)k and r
pansypoo53219
(20,952 posts)Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)for truth
Jeffersons Ghost
(15,235 posts)suffragette
(12,232 posts)I could be there to stand with them. Since I can't, how can we show our support from a distance?
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 whove ever successfully inhabited this continent for the long term.
niyad
(113,049 posts)womanofthehills
(8,659 posts)Lakota Voice, Sacred Stone Camp - two I know of, but there are more.
I know tents and water are needed - where to send items or donate listed on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/lakotavoice/
https://www.facebook.com/CampoftheSacredStone/?fref=nf
niyad
(113,049 posts)niyad
(113,049 posts)Vattel
(9,289 posts)womanofthehills
(8,659 posts)He will now decide on Sept 9, so the rallies continue. If he does decide to let the project go through, you will see mega rallies. Boo hoo - all this delay is costing the developer mega bucks.
A federal judge will rule by Sept. 9 on the injunction filed by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe to stop construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, according to attorneys representing the tribe.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., decided Wednesday to take a couple of weeks to rule on whether to halt the pipeline's construction while the tribe pursues its lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, alleging violation of the National Historic Preservation Act during the pipeline permitting process.
Stephanie Tsosie of Earthjustice, co-counsel for the case, said Boasberg stated he wanted more time to look at the issues.
In the meantime, Dakota Access Pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners discontinued work at the site of tribal protests of the project in advance of this week's hearing. However, pipeline construction is continuing at other locations in North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, and the project is still expected to be completed by the end of the year.
http://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/federal-judge-to-rule-sept-on-dakota-access-injunction/article_9ee99b5d-8b72-516e-a12c-72195be3f75e.html
Vattel
(9,289 posts)Arazi
(6,829 posts)Mc Mike
(9,111 posts)niyad
(113,049 posts)Mc Mike
(9,111 posts)Seeing the treatment of them vs the bundy brigade is truly anger inducing.
niyad
(113,049 posts)Mc Mike
(9,111 posts)I never expected the repug government in that state to do anything but help the insane suicidal oil and energy companies kill everyone and everything, and attack the people who really should own everything and always get attacked. I hope they don't get away with their plans, I saw Winona LaDuke talk about how the same Dallas based outfit got stood off from rolling through her Minnesota res with the same pipeline.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/23/native_activist_winona_laduke_pipeline_company
Someone else here made the comparison between how the authorities treated bundy teahadis and how these people are getting treated on their own property.
niyad
(113,049 posts)du about the difference in treatment--wish I could say I was in the least bit surprised.
Mc Mike
(9,111 posts)because you can read quicker than the verbal pacing of the vid allows you to view it. Winona's knowledge and delivery are outstanding.
niyad
(113,049 posts)turbinetree
(24,683 posts)http://standingrock.org/
He can end this continued racism of the current use of Manifest Destiny and Doctrine of Discovery now, he can honor the treaties and demand the "Corp" to pull that permit
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I'd love to go to the protests but have a 2 year old and I've been told all the roads out there have been blocked off by police.
womanofthehills
(8,659 posts)Good to see the NYT not overtly siding with the energy companies but pointing out safety factors. However, the part about landowners making money - many landowners said they did not know they had a choice. Eminent domain was threatened - plus high pressure salesmen. Also, the reason the trains are blowing up is because old trains not meant to carry oil are being used - let's get that oil to market fast without environmental protections.
Energy companies and their federal overseer, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, promote the safety record of pipelines. Pipeline companies say it is far safer to move oil and natural gas in an underground pipe than in rail cars or trucks, which can crash and create huge fires.
But pipeline spills and ruptures occur regularly, sometimes in small leaks and sometimes in catastrophic gushers. In 2013, a Tesoro Logistics pipeline in North Dakota broke open and spilled 865,000 gallons of oil onto a farm. In 2010, an Enbridge Energy pipeline dumped more than 843,000 gallons of oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, resulting in a cleanup that lasted years and cost more than a billion dollars, according to Inside Climate News.
In a 2012 examination of pipeline safety, ProPublica reported that more than half of the countrys pipelines were at least 50 years old. Critics cited aging pipelines and scant federal oversight as factors that put public health and the environment at risk.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/us/north-dakota-oil-pipeline-battle-whos-fighting-and-why.html