Above Photo: Robyn Beck/ AFP/ Getty Images
On Friday, federal agencies halted work on the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project where it cuts close to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. The decision came after a long court battle and a wave of nonviolent direct actions led by indigenous organizations. While it remains to be seen whether the Army Corps of Engineers will ultimately allow construction to continue, Friday’s news marks an important milestone for a movement years in the making.
Four years ago, Elrae Mazakahomni made a commitment to come to traditional Sioux territory in the Dakotas and help stop the oil industry’s “black snake,” when and if local leaders put out a call for help. This summer, when direct action against the Dakota Access Pipeline began, she knew the moment had arrived.
“It was a no brainer,” Mazakahomni said of her decision to drive from her home in Sioux City, Iowa to the Standing Rock Reservation, where protests partially stopped construction of Dakota Access beginning in August. “I joined in taking a vow at a Moccasins on the Ground [nonviolent direct action training] camp in South Dakota that if our leaders needed us, we would be there.”
Mazakahomni is an enrolled member of the Spirit Lake Nation, with descendants from the Standing Rock Tribe. She is one of thousands of people, including members of over 120 Native American tribes, who have converged at what is known as Oceti Sakowin, a protest camp in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline just outside the Standing Rock Reservation.
For many climate activists the mass protests against Dakota Access, which is partly owned by oil infrastructure giant Enbridge Energy Partners, immediately bring to mind earlier nationwide efforts to oppose the Keystone XL tar sands project. In the wake of Keystone XL’s rejection last November, Dakota Access has replaced Keystone XL as perhaps the most high-profile pipeline fight in the United States. How it plays out will say much about the U.S. government’s attitude toward climate change and indigenous rights. The stakes could hardly be higher.
A wave of indigenous opposition
Dakota Access, which would connect fracked oil fields in North Dakota’s Bakken region to an existing pipeline in Illinois, may once have seemed to oil companies like an easier-to-build alternative to other pipelines in the Midwest. Unlike Keystone XL, Dakota Access would not cross the Canadian border or connect with the internationally notorious tar sands. Nor would it cut through ecologically fragile waterways in Minnesota, like the proposed Sandpiper Pipeline that Enbridge recently abandoned in the face of environmentalist opposition.
Still, Dakota Access was controversial enough from the start that its proposed route has been changed once already. The northern part of the pipeline was originally slated to pass through the Bismark area, where residents became concerned about the effects of a potential oil spill on local water supplies. Subsequently, the pipeline route was shifted away from predominantly white Bismark to a new path that threatens the Standing Rock Reservation’s water and cuts through culturally important lands.
This spring, protesters began gathering at the site of the new pipeline route just outside Standing Rock. In July, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approved the permit for the pipeline, after controversially deciding not to require a full Environmental Impact Statement and to rely instead on a less comprehensive Environmental Assessment. Construction began in Illinois, Iowa, and South Dakota, where large sections of the pipeline are now in the ground. As construction activity crept closer to Standing Rock, more people arrived at the protests.
In late July, youth from the Standing Rock Reservation launched a 2,000-mile run from the reservation to Washington, D.C. to present decision makers with 160,000 petition signatures opposing the pipeline. When construction near Standing Rock began in August, nonviolent protesters led by members of the Standing Rock Tribe chained themselves to pieces of equipment, managing to temporarily halt work on the pipeline. Images from the youth run, direct actions, and other protests exploded across social media with the hashtag #NoDAPL, getting the attention of climate organizers all over the world.
Meanwhile, the Standing Rock Tribe was fighting in court to challenge the Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of the project. Yet, even as litigation made its way through the court system and people on the frontlines halted construction with their bodies, the pipeline company destroyed sacred burial sites in the pipeline’s path. Some protesters believe the company purposefully rushed to destroy sites before a court injunction might have had time to stop them.