For many months now, millions of people – Indigenous peoples and their accomplices, also know as water and earth protectors – have been directly challenging the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL).
Several camps have been installed at Standing Rock, in North Dakota. After a violent police assault took place on November 20th, leaving over 160 people wounded, the authorities (Army Corps of Engineers) have ordered DAPL opponents to leave their camps on December 5th, but DALP opponents planed to disregard this notice. And yesterday, Sunday, December 4, on the eve of this expulsion, the ederal government announced that they had rejected the route of the pipeline !
The “Dakota Acces” Pipeline (DAPL) is a $3.8B, 1,100 mile fracked-oil pipeline currently from the Bakken shale fields of North Dakota to Peoria, Illinois. DAPL was slated to cross Lakota Treaty Territory at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation where it would be laid underneath the Missouri River, the longest river on the continent. Construction of the DAPL would engender a renewed fracking frenzy in the Bakken shale region, as well as endanger a source of fresh water for the Standing Rock Sioux and 8 million people living downstream. DAPL would also impact many sites that are sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and other indigenous nations.
DAPL is mostly complete, except for a segment planned to run under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River. Even if this route has been eliminated, a new route will certainly be considered : the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not be granting the easement to cross Lake Oahe for the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, the Corps will be undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes.
It is a partial victory, the battle for Life and against pipelines and their world continue.
Those who are at the forefront of the DAPL struggle asked for our support, calling for sustained waves of action targeting the Army Corp of Engineers, investors, pipeline companies, security firms and elected officials who are behind this project. This is less than a month away! We need to hold these institutions, corporations and individuals accountable and put pressure on them to stop this pipeline : https://nodaplsolidarity.org/targets/
If you live on this earth, if you breathe the air and if you drink the water, this struggle is also your struggle.