The Protectors of Life: The Protesters of the Dakota Pipeline

Author: Darrin C.

On June 25^th, 2014, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) had released a plan for a pipeline project heading through the Dakotas, Iowa, and ending in Illinois for the purpose of transporting oil across the country in the hopes of eventually selling out of country. They had called it a safer alternative to transporting oil by rail and that it would leave the railroads to those who need them such as grain transports. However, the route would travel through several important and sacred Native American ancestral lands. The problems surrounding this issue encompasses many aspects: greed, broken promises, and the continued disenfranchisement of an already disenfranchised people.

We’ll start with the idea of what the route actually would be. Originally, the route was supposed to have crossed near Bismarck’s water supply in North Dakota but was rejected because of the danger to the water supply. The eventual agreed upon route would be a merely 500 feet from the Standing Rock reservation, which started upstream from their own water supply. Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson described this as “environmental racism” which is described has happily endangering a minority group’s population and it was seen here as they were fine with endangering Standing Rock’s population, but not Bismarck’s. [1] The pipe also trampled over several cultural and historical sites of the Upper Sioux tribe, including graves. [2] These sites were eventually blocked from being built upon, but were approved later on, allowing the pipeline to further its construction. The pipeline was also delayed from Iowa farmers that were hostile towards the eminent domain of their land and had opened up lawsuits against the state. These both occurred in 2016. Eventually, the EPA, the Department of Interior, and the Advisory council on Historic Preservation all came to the conclusion that the pipeline had been built on Standing Rock Sioux land without learning about the risk and possible incidents that could happen along the pipeline, also mentioning that there had been no course of dialogue with the Native American tribes. They had asked the United States Army Corps of Engineers to start an Environmental Impact Assessment and give a statement before continuing any further. Unfortunately, within a month, the USACE had approved the permits.

This led David Archambault II, a former tribal chairman of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to invoke that the Fort Laramie Treaty was being breached declaring that the pipeline violates the Sioux’s national sovereignty. David brought up both the 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty as reasons for why the pipeline was supposedly voided because as detailed in the treaties, the U.S. Senate recognizes that the Sioux have a national sovereignty [3] [4]. The Fort Laramie Treaty was broken because of another case of exploitation with General Custer who led an expedition into the Black Hills area looking for gold. Once they found some, many miners moved into the area including Sioux hunting grounds. As such war between the Army and the Sioux broke out leading to much bloodshed and the government confiscated the land in 1877. As David’s words were falling on deaf ears, he turned to the UN Human Rights Council located in Geneva, Switzerland where he addressed them by citing both of the treaties. He told the council that “the oil companies and the government of the United States have failed to respect our sovereign rights." [5] As the treaties were horrifically broken thanks to General Custer, the Sioux couldn’t even use their own treaties which they had not broken to defend themselves. The United States basically broke its own treaty to allow itself to construct the pipeline. It’s a shameful display of diplomacy but to the United States, they didn’t see themselves working with a people or a state, but a bunch of rabble rousers and those rousers had none of the chips.

Since April 2017, the Dakota Pipeline has finished its construction, belligerently violating Sioux territory and taking away Iowan farmer lands which both parties say about the health problems should a pipeline burst and leak. The farmers worry for the soil quality and crop yield while the Sioux worry about their physical lives as they have to now worry about their water source being polluted. However, it was not the Dakota pipeline to first leak (yet), it was the Keystone XL pipeline that leaked out over 210,000 gallons of oil near Amherst, South Dakota [6]. The danger and pollution from the Dakota pipeline could be disastrous and do more harm than the Keystone XL pipeline can if the pipes aren’t regularly maintained if the Sioux couldn’t protest and attempt to get the state to dismantle the pipeline itself. With all the problems the Sioux face from rampant poverty to abuse from the government, the event of their water being polluted would be a travesty to the community and even could be used against them in the event of the water being purposefully polluted. That would be highly unlikely as other communities downstream would be affected as well but it all depends on how much they’d want the Sioux to disappear. All in all, the Sioux need the solidarity of all tribes, just as all tribes need the solidarity of the Sioux. Only together can these tribes bring representation to Native Americans, and hopefully indigenous peoples around the world.

Author Bio: Darrin C., student at IUPUI