Per reader request, here’s some info on the Standing Rock Sioux protest – apparently the biggest Native American protest in decades – and a thread to discuss it.
Bill McKibben offers a good backgrounder in The New Yorker:
This week, thousands of Native Americans, from more than a hundred tribes, have camped out on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, which straddles the border between the Dakotas, along the Missouri River. What began as a slow trickle of people a month ago is now an increasingly angry flood. They’re there to protest plans for a proposed oil pipeline that they say would contaminate the reservation’s water; in fact, they’re calling themselves protectors, not protesters.
Their foe, most directly, is the federal government, in particular the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has approved a path for the pipeline across the Missouri under a “fast track” option called Permit 12. That’s one reason the Dakota Access Pipeline, as it’s known, hasn’t received the attention that, say, the Keystone XL Pipeline did, even though the pipe is about the same length. Originally, the pipeline was supposed to cross the Missouri near Bismarck, but authorities worried that an oil spill there would have wrecked the state capital’s drinking water. So they moved the crossing to half a mile from the reservation, across land that was taken from the tribe in 1958, without their consent. The tribe says the government hasn’t done the required consultation with them—if it had, it would have learned that building the pipeline there would require digging up sacred spots and old burial grounds.
One protester told Democracy Now – which has been reporting from onsite for several days – that the construction company actually deliberately targeted a burial ground “miles away from where any construction was happening,” and stealthily and spitefully bulldozed it over the holiday weekend.
It’s also been reported–but not nearly widely enough, in my view–that the private security company hired by Energy Transfer Partners attacked the protesters not just with pepper spray, but with dogs, recalling for many the long sordid history of colonizers from Columbus onward doing the same. Many are wondering how these kinds of attacks can be legal, and why the Federal government isn’t stepping in.
Lots of info out there – what is everyone else hearing? BTW, Walter Kirn’s twitter feed from onsite is very good , and he’s reporting that the media is finally starting to show up.
NobodySpecial
Government to Indians: “Christ, you’re still here? Does fucking ethnic cleansing ever work anymore?”
Hillary Rettig
@NobodySpecial: pretty much. i can’t imagine how enraging it must be. get your land stolen, get stuck on land that everyone thinks is shitty/worthless, and then have *that land* stolen from you the minute someone sees some value on it. (Doesn’t even count the fact that they have to fight for the “privilege” of not having their water poisoned, especially given that the govt already acknowledged that risk by moving the pipeline away from Bismarck.)
Omnes Omnibus
The security company for Gogebic Taconite attacked protesters during the protests over a proposed open pot iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin. The mine would have poisoned the Bad River and fucked over the Bad River Band Of Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The mine did not happen.
These security companies seem a lot like the Pinkertons back in union organizing times.
Poopyman
@Omnes Omnibus:
The nature of thugs hasn’t changed in 150 years, if not millenia. And there are always suits willing to hire a mob of ’em to make a problem go away.
Same as it ever was.
Patricia Kayden
That’s a good question about the Federal government. Wonder what they’re doing about this, if anything.
piratedan
I would also recommend the take from Jim Wright over at Stonekettle Station
Ella in New Mexico
One thing that has me really puzzled in this situation is this story that even though three Federal agencies oppose the thing, one got to overrule them and have it proceed. Sounds like the EPA or BLM at the very least could sue the Army CoE
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/30082016/dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock-sioux-army-corps-engineers-approval-environment
rikyrah
the MSM blackout on this is pretty obvious.
Skerry
The North Dakota National Guard was deployed today – to protect the pipeline and workers.
Pogonip
I would like to mention this up top in hopes Cole sees it. I think he should look into one of those companies that specialize in ugly cleanups: hoarders, people who died alone last week or last month and nobody noticed, that sort of thing. Fleas, or other vermin, won’t stop them.
Hillary Rettig
@Skerry: bad news
Pogonip
Speaking of vermin, the suit-wearing kind in this case, I think the Indians should stand firm and fight them all the way to the Supreme court if they can.
Hillary Rettig
@Ella in New Mexico: interesting, esp. in view of McKibben’s fast track point.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: emails. Benghazi. Coughing. You know – *important* shit is going on and needs to be covered.
Actually, I’m kind of surprised my sister’s not there.
Pogonip
@srv: Do you mean Naked Capitalism or North Carolina?
SiubhanDuinne
@piratedan:
I pretty much always recommend pretty much every take on pretty much any topic from Jim Wright over at Stonekettle Station. Every now and then, his one-sentence-per-paragraph style irritates me, but only slightly and only momentarily. He has a wonderful clarity of insight and a no-fucks-to-give attitude that is very refreshing.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
Good luck with that :-)
inventor
@srv: They still have them. Do you still go to stadiums to pray for God to make Rick Perry President?
gene108
The Army Corp of Engineers is the enemy of nature. Their instinct is to dam, build, pave over, etc. any bit of nature that interferes with expanding human’s footprint in the USA.
I guess they get a say because they must maintain levies and/or dredge the Missouri River.
Starfish
Wow. Impressive. Thanks for pointing out that Twitter feed.
Elmo
My FB feed is chock full of this stuff, because an old friend from college is a big time enviro activist. The thing with the dogs is particularly disturbing.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: The idea of him bumbling around knee-deep in dog poop trying to set off flea bombs without blowing himself, and possibly the entire neighborhood, to Kingdom Come does not fill me with confidence. I’ll save him if I can.
Pogonip
@SiubhanDuinne: now that I think about it, does the Cole Effect spread? Is that what happened to Shawn? Was he collateral damage?
dexwood
From the article –
-It has stressed in the past that it has been “constructing this pipeline in accordance with applicable laws, and the local, state and federal permits and approvals we have received.-
That’s always been the way. Come in, take over, pass laws to protect the take over.
Starfish
@Elmo: On my Facebook, a couple of people in Oregon talk about this. And now a few more people are saying something, but it looks like most people are unaware.
raven
@Starfish: It’s been all over my Facebook.
Mnemosyne
I think the first time I saw this was on my Facebook — one of my Facebook friends now lives in Washington state, so I’m pretty sure it came from her. Really disturbing stuff.
And, yeah, the Army Corps of Engineers sucks pretty bad. If they can’t pave it over, they get really pissy.
Pogonip
@raven: I was unaware of it till I saw this article.
West of the Cascades
@Ella in New Mexico:
Looking at the complaint (good backgrounder from the Tribe and links to complaint at http://standingrock.org/data/upfiles/media/STANDING%20ROCK%20LITIGATION%20FAQ%20FINAL%20(1).pdf) indicates that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was the only defendant because it’s the only federal agency that has to authorize any permits for the pipeline — reading between the lines that suggests that the pipeline is entirely on private land (or land that now is in private hands) and no federal or tribal land is involved (or else part of the Department of the Interior – either Bureau of Land Management or Bureau of Indian Affairs – would have had to grant a right-of-way or easement). The Army Corps still has to grant a short easement over federal land it administers near Lake Oahe.
But the Army Corps is responsible for issuing Clean Water Act permits to fill and dredge in “waters of the United States,” of which many are affected by the pipeline route. In the course of doing so, the Army Corps has to comply with other federal statutes, like the National Historic Preservation Act (which requires consultation with Tribes and States over potentially affected cultural resources) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). It was in the course of public comment process on the NEPA analysis that BLM and EPA commented and opposed the pipeline — but the Army Corps had the ultimate authority to approve or deny the permits, and the other federal agencies don’t have any jurisdiction (and only in very, very rare cases does one federal agency sue another, for example EPA sued the Tennessee Valley Authority several years ago over coal fired power plants that TVA operates).
The complaint alleges that the Army Corps didn’t adequately consult with the Tribe about the burial sites and sacred sites and other cultural resources before it issued the permits to discharge fill into the waters of the U.S., that it abdicated compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act to private contractors, that it didn’t consider indirect impacts to sacred and historic sites, and that it violated NEPA and the CWA in half a dozen ways in issuing the permits.
Since the pipeline runs on private lands, the pipeline company seems to be asserting that its private security goons were acting lawfully in attacking protesters (the news reports have been very unclear about exactly where the attacks took place, not that it makes any difference morally).
gwangung
Being nonwhite, this stuff gets passed along to me fairly quickly….
Napoleon
Hillary you are fucking asshole with your fraud bullshit on the targeting burial ground lie Where do know nothing liens assholes like you come from
Mnemosyne
@Napoleon:
Try clicking on the link, dumbfuck. If you can’t read, there’s a video version.
justawriter
Pardon my language but fuck, this depresses me. Not because of what is going on now but that I am too old and burned out to be at that camp. 30 years ago I would have been there on the front lines. Today I am just tired.
Back then I wanted to change history. Today I tell other peoples’ stories. Talked to a Hidatsa man today. He teaches children his native language and culture and is also a well known powwow announcer who travels to events from from Saskatchewan to Iowa and Nebraska. He told me tonight he no longer feels welcome in South Dakota. The Three Affiliated Tribes – the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara – have benefited from the development of oil on their reservation in North Dakota (although not without a lot of internal dissension). My acquaintance told me that members of the three tribes are not welcome because they are viewed as sellouts. Yet many members of the three tribes are there protesting the pipeline.
My heart is with the protesters. But I see young families on Fort Berthold who can move into tribal apartment buildings built with oil money. They are independent for the first time, breaking a cycle of having three generations living in three bedroom homes. As I get old, things get complicated and I get more tired. So now I just tell the stories.
justawriter
I forgot to add that my acquaintance said he could not criticize the Sioux in South Dakota because they were offered a shitload of money to forgive M’urica from stealing the Black Hills, and turned it down.
joel hanes
@Hillary Rettig:
In the 50s and 60s, the BLM constructed a couple enormous reservoirs on the upper Missouri.
Much of the land flooded was reservation.
The fertile bottomlands along the river. Woods and ponds and backwaters. Where people would want to live.
The tribes had to move onto the sere, sunblasted uplands and former blufftops.
Their objections to this plan were deemed immaterial. Or something.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Dead thread but U.S. government seeks halt to North Dakota oil pipeline:
Cheers,
Scott.
KS in MA
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Good! Thanks for posting that.