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Support the legal defense of warriors protecting land, water, and human rights. The Camp of the Sacred Stones is a spiritual and cultural camp on the Standing Rock Reservation resisting the Dakota Access oil pipeline thru non-violent direct action.
Pipe is already in the ground and the company is preparing to drill a tunnel 92 feet below the bed of the Missouri River, over a mile in length, to install the Dakota Access pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has filed a lawsuit and a request for a Temporary Restraining Order against the company after an illegal federal permitting process…but the courts have not filed the paperwork yet, and are allowing construction to begin. This must be stopped.
The Camp of the Sacred Stones was established April 1, 2016 as a center of spiritual and cultural opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline, and is determined to stop construction through prayer and nonviolent direct action until adequate tribal consultation and environmental review are conducted. The spirit camp is located in between the pipeline’s proposed crossing of the Missouri River and the water intake valves for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, just over a mile downstream. The camp has an active facebook page and a crowdfunding page for general operating costs, but urgently needs separate legal defense funds to support the warriors resisting active construction. Funds raised on this page will only be used for the legal support for those involved in non-violent direct action.
On Friday, August 5, 2016, a group of Oceti Sakowin youth from different Dakota and Lakota nations arrived in Washington DC after running ~2000 miles by relay, in spiritual opposition to the pipeline. The runners delivered 140,000 petition signatures to the US Army Corps of Engineers and rallied at the White House to ask President Obama to pressure them to repeal the water crossing permits. Meanwhile, relatives back home set up a tipi and held demonstrations in front of North Dakota’s State Capitol Building during a 3-day special legislative session.
The Dakota Access pipeline is proposed to carry 450,000 barrels of fracked crude oil per day, from the Bakken fields of North Dakota, 1,172 miles to Patoka, Illinois. Though originally planned to cross the Missouri River upstream of Bismarck, the crossing was relocated just upstream of the Standing Rock Reservation. The threats this pipeline poses to the environment, public health, and tribal and human rights are strikingly similar to those posed by the Keystone XL, but the project has seen a small fraction of the attention from media and major environmental groups.
On July 25, 2016, the company received its final water crossing permits from the US Army Corps of Engineers. The Cheyenne River, Rosebud, and Yankton Sioux Tribes are filing their own lawsuits to contest the permits and demand formal nation-to-nation consultation and a full Environmental Impact Statement.
A broad multi-state coalition of tribes, landowners and environmental groups issued a statement in support of the tribal lawsuits and speaking out against the project. The coalition called the USACE process “an egregious violation of the relevant federal environmental laws and the 1851 and 1868 treaties between the US and the L/D/Nakota Nations, which remain the supreme law of the land.”
We are not expendable. We have a right to live. Please stand with us as we protect our sacred lands. Water is life, mni wiconi.