RAW STORY
About 200 people rode on horseback to protest against pipeline
that encroaches on tribal lands and could pollute Missouri river: ‘We’re
looking out for all people’
Dozens of tribal members from several Native American nations took to
horseback on Friday to protest the proposed construction of an oil
pipeline which would cross the Missouri river just yards from tribal
lands in North Dakota.
The group of tribal members, which numbered around 200, according to a
tribal spokesman, said they were worried that the Dakota Access
Pipeline, proposed by a subsidiary of the Dallas, Texas-based Energy
Transfer Partners, would lead to contamination of the river. The
proposed route also passes through lands of historical significance to
the Standing Rock Lakota Sioux Nation, including burial grounds.
“They’re going under the river 500 yards from my son’s grave, my
father’s grave, my aunt who I buried last week,” said Ladonna Allard, a
member of the Standing Rock nation and the closest landowner to the
proposed pipeline. “I really love my land, and if that pipeline breaks
everything is gone.”
“We must fight every inch of our lives to protect the water,” Allard said.
A “spiritual camp” will be set up starting Saturday at the point
where the proposed pipeline would cross the river, and the tribal
members plan to stay and protest indefinitely.
The group is composed of members of the Standing Rock nation as well
as others from North and South Dakota nations, including the Cheyenne
River Lakota and the Rosebud Sioux. They joined together to ride, run
and walk from the Tribal Administration Building north to Cannonball,
North Dakota, on the reservation’s northern edge.
The Missouri river is the primary source of drinking water for the
tribal reservation, according to Doug Crow Ghost, a spokesperson for the
Standing Rock Sioux and the director of the tribe’s water office, who
joined the protest on Friday. Tribal members also fish in the river, he
said.
“Because we are going to be fighting this giant, all the rest of the
nations came on horseback to say ‘we support you’,” said Allard. “That
is why this horse ride is so important to us. Because we’re not alone in
this fight. All of our nations are coming to stand with us, and all our
allies and partners. This pipeline is illegal.”
The pipeline is currently waiting on a decision from a colonel in the
Army Corps of Engineers, who oversees such projects, on whether Dakota
Access will be granted a permit to proceed, according to Dallas
Goldtooth, a Keep It In The Ground campaign organizer for the Indigenous
Environmental Network. The tribes are petitioning for an environmental
impact study, which has not at this point been done, into the pipeline.
Goldtooth is optimistic about the tribe’s chances of stopping the
pipeline. “It infringes on the tribe’s water rights, which are
guaranteed by treaties, and the protocols associated with those rights
were not followed,” he said. “The tribes have a really strong
standing-point on this issue and we’re confident that we’ll see a whole
environmental impact study enacted.”
Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to a request for comment.
“Although we do live on a reservation, the land that [the Dakota
Access pipeline is] going to be crossing is on original land that was
given us by treaty,” said Dakota Kidder, a member of the Standing Rock
nation. “This is where it gets people fired up when you talk about
broken treaties.”
“Without water there is no life, and this is our main source,” Kidder
added. “It’s not just our issue. Everybody downriver of us is going to
be affected, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. We’re not just
looking out for ourselves; we’re looking out for all people.”..............
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