Tag: Seventh Generation

Standing Rock: “A Change is Coming”

Curse lies on DAPL workers, Standing Rock speaks of Trump’s victory, the Dakota “Excess” Pipeline, and a return to native roots

By C.S. Hagen
CANNONBALL – Winds are changing, blowing from the south. Ants are returning early to their hives. The seasons are beginning to shift counter-clockwise, former Standing Rock historic preservation officer Tim Mentz Sr. said.

“Today with the elements, they’re changing,” Mentz said. He spoke during a Standing Rock testimonial hearing at Prairie Knights Casino on Wednesday. “Natural law is changing, and the change is coming now.

“If it goes south, devastation is going to come to us in a form we can never imagine.” There will be punishment for those who have committed crimes against the earth, he said during his speech.

“If you don’t get violent, these things will be taken care of,” Mentz said. Spirits within the earth, and the ground itself, will not tolerate the desecration. “The ones that tore up all that ground, they’re going to go nuts, they’re going to go crazy, because that’s what they’ve opened up. That’s what this spirit can do.”

Tim Metz Sr. speaks at Standing Rock hearing - photo by C.S. Hagen

Tim Mentz Sr. speaks at Standing Rock hearing – photo by C.S. Hagen

During the four-hour hearing, Mentz called upon the Seventh Generation or the youth at Standing Rock to return to native roots, to sit like stones and listen to repetition – the oral teachings of the Sioux tribe handed down for generations. A native of Standing Rock, Mentz was born in a two-room log house on the Missouri River’s banks, he grew up listening to the same lessons from his grandmother.

He slept on dirt. Ate dirt. Walked barefoot on the earth.

“When your feet touch the ground, you show honor to Mother Earth.”

The generation gap, Mentz said, is due to lack of proper teachings. He described how the Lakota, Nakota, and the Dakota pray, facing east to west, and how everything in nature has a heart that beats. Years ago two prophecies were made about black snakes. The first pertained to public highways, how the system would break up community, and destroy people’s relationship with nature. The second prophecy was reiterated in 2013, and refers to the Dakota Access Pipeline’s “black snake” Standing Rock and its supporters fight today.

In the past, he said, “spirit callers” could call the buffalo with their breath, from 200 miles away. Those days need to come back, he said. Many of the elders have left Oceti Sakowin, or the Seven Council Fires camp, because some of the younger generation won’t listen.

“Those are some of the things we don’t talk about, but yet today at that camp, we should be talking about,” Mentz said. “But guess what, the young individuals there say ‘nah, that is not important.’ They don’t want to talk about the environment there, they want to get up front and confront those people standing there with those guns. They want to confront authority, not the hazard that we are in.”

Oil, Mentz said, is the earth’s blood, and frakking is sucking this life force from the ground.

“How do we preserve what we have left?” Mentz said. “If you can’t bring the older people back into this, you will lose a lot. The power of prayer that was there, that is still there, we have to bring it back.”

Signs outside of Oceti Sakowin - photo by C.S. Hagen

Signs outside of Oceti Sakowin – photo by C.S. Hagen

The pressure to defend land and water is a real, everyday concern for all gathered at Oceti Sakowin, Dallas Goldtooth, campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network said. And now with Donald J. Trump as the president elect of the United States and an investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline, the battle mat only become more difficult.

“We always knew the cards were stacked against us, no matter who is in the White House,” Goldtooth said. “Look at what we were fighting against so far and this is with Obama. At least now we know where we stand. We know where he stands, and what his priorities are. At least we have that going for us.”

Some activists at Oceti Sakowin are nervous; others are becoming more active. At approximately 2 a.m. in Boone County, three activists climbed into pipes to be used on the DAPL route, according to Red Warrior Camp. “They are still in the pipes and will be occupying indefinitely, risking their lives to protect water for us all,” the Red Warrior Camp’s statement reported.

“I’m shocked,” Jordan Roberts from Denver said. Cell phone reception at the camps is difficult, at best, and he didn’t know Trump had won the election until late Wednesday morning. “It will definitely hurt the efforts here.”

James Hanika, of Mt. Vernon, Washington, wasn’t worried. “We’re in the best place in America today,” Hanika said of Oceti Sakowin.

“It appears to be just a way to calm investors’ concerns about this pipeline being stopped on the eve of the presidential election,” Goldtooth said. “They still don’t have the easement.”

“We have so much work to do,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II said. “In this time of uncertainty, President Obama still has the power to give our children hope. We believe halting the Dakota Access Pipeline presents a unique opportunity for President Obama to set a lasting and true legacy and respect the sovereignty and treaty rights of Standing Rock and tribal nations across America.”

Energy Transfer Partners, Dakota Access LLC’s parent company, and North Dakota’s politicians including Senator John Hoeven R-N.D., and Congressman Kevin Cramer R-N.D., have been applying pressure to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to authorize the easement needed to dig under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe.

Earlier this week, Energy Transfer Partners issued a statement saying in two weeks time the company will be drilling under the Missouri River. Already, horizontal drilling equipment is being hauled to the drill pad north of Oceti Sakowin, and less than a quarter mile from the river. Energy Transfer Partners also reprimanded the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers demanding it rescind its statement that Dakota Access Pipeline had agreed to halt construction.

On Thursday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers struck back, saying a winter camp for Standing Rock and its supporters will be provided. The Corps asked DAPL to voluntarily cease operations on November 4, but the company did not listen, the report stated.

“Our assessment is, after having visited these areas in North Dakota on multiple occasions, there are a lot of individuals who have been brought together and now find themselves under difficult conditions,” Colonel John W. Henderson said in the statement. “We again ask DAPL to voluntarily cease operations in this area as their absence will help reduce these tensions.”

Mentz wants the pipeline stopped, and said he is becoming involved again in the movement against DAPL, but he is also looking further down the road, stressing what the environmental impacts of DAPL will bring. Despite the desecration of sacred lands, and poisoning of the waters, the pipeline heralds a possible change that mankind may not come back from.

“When the animals turn white, that’s when major change to the environment is going to happen, and we are in that right now,” Mentz said. If the change is not rectified, finding their Sioux ancestors’ graves will become as difficult as chasing dirt in the wind.

Mentz was invited by nearby rancher Dave Meyer, who recently sold 20 parcels of Cannonball Ranch to Dakota Access Pipeline, to inspect lands in the pipeline’s path, he said in a September 2, 2016 lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He conducted a Class III survey along DAPL’s south side a length of two miles in early September and discovered 82 stone features and archaeological sites, with at least 27 of the sites burial grounds.

A survey conducted by the North Dakota archaeologists “yielded no evidence of human remains or significant sites,” according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department and the North Dakota State Historical Society.

“Based on my extensive experience evaluating sites on the National Register of Historic Places, it is my opinion that each of these sites unquestionably meets the criteria for inclusion in the National Register,” Mentz said in the lawsuit. One of the stone features he said is the Iyokaptan Tanka, or Big Dipper, which is rare in the Great Plains and a place where only an important chief can be buried.

Another stone effigy Mentz found was the Mato Wapiya, or Bear Medicine Healer, a sacred site where a medicine healer received his gifts, is only a few feet away from the DAPL corridor. Another site known as the Itancha, or Chiefs Dreaming Pair with Staffs, is less than one foot from the DAPL route and was a site marked for its significance of when a chief united his tribe.

Prayer circle at Oceti Sakowin - photo by C.S. Hagen

Prayer circle at Oceti Sakowin – photo by C.S. Hagen

Dakota Excess Pipeline

Winona Laduke, an economist, environmentalist, and two-time vice presidential candidate for Ralph Nader’s Green Party, said the Dakota Access Pipeline from an economic standpoint was a poor investment.

Winona Laduke, executive director of Honor the Earth, speaks at Standing Rock hearing - photo by C.S. Hagen

Winona Laduke, executive director of Honor the Earth, speaks at Standing Rock hearing – photo by C.S. Hagen

“The Dakota Excess Pipeline – not the Dakota Access Pipeline – we refer to it as the Dakota Excess Pipeline because present production in the Bakken is at 930,931 barrels per day of oil, that is presently being served by both pipelines and oil trains. Production is now at the bottom, this is called a bust, in economic cycles.”

Production in 2019 will not get any better, Laduke said, so she questioned the need for investment in such a pipeline funneling 570,000 barrels per day. Additionally, oil trains travel to destinations the pipeline does not plan to go, eventually to Nederland, Texas for refinement, which directly negates what DAPL has been saying all along that the pipeline will decrease the amount of current road and rail traffic hauling oil in North Dakota.

“There must be a full assessment of the environmental impact, that is known as a wells-to-wheels assessment,” Laduke said. “In other words, where did the oil come from? What is the environmental impact, carbon impact, the health impact, the radiation exposure impact, the oil discharge impact, the social impact of the Bakken oil itself? This has not been discussed at any point, either by Dakota Excess Pipeline Corporation, nor the state of North Dakota.”

Many in the Peace Garden State have been enriched by the Bakken oil boom, but not the Standing Rock Sioux, Laduke said. Instead, drugs, crime, sex trafficking have found ways to infiltrate native communities.

“It is a trauma that this tribe, which has never been a beneficiary of Bakken oil, has felt, as heroin moves toward this community, as meth moves toward this community in epidemic levels not seen prior to the progressive behavior in the Bakken oil fields.”

Mexican cartels are working in the Bakken, the Bismarck Tribune reported in 2015, and that crime rates jumped nearly 8 percent from 2011 to 2012. Crime rates have tripled since the Peace Garden State’s oil boom, especially in native lands, and due primarily to the sudden influx of highly-paid oil workers living in man camps, according to the Washington Post.

And the boom now begins to take its pound of flesh, Laduke said.

In the past five years, 5.9 million gallons of oil have been spilled in the Bakken, Laduke said. Since January 2016 alone, more than 100,900 gallons of crude oil, waste oil, biosolids, natural gas, and brine have been spilled in the Bakken and surrounding areas, according to North Dakota Department of Health records. Also, 11.8 million gallons of brine, an inorganic waste product the earth cannot absorb, have been spilled in the Bakken, Laduke said.

The carbon impact and catastrophic spills are not only confined to pumping stations, as DAPL suggests, but is also evident along all transportation routes, Laduke said. She pointed to the zip code 48217 in Michigan, a predominantly black community where Marathon Petroleum Corporation refines Bakken oil. The area is the single most polluted zip code in the USA, Laduke said. “The Marathon refinery is allowed to use the sewage system… in order to dispose of its toxins.” The vast majority of people in this neighborhood have health problems, she said, and no one has ever found redress under the federal system.

“From the front to the get, we have a problem with this pipeline on the community and on health,” Laduke said. “You cannot bring 570,000 through a pipeline with a vast amount of carbon, there is at present no way to remove that carbon from the environment.”

In essence, investment in DAPL is an unhealthy waste of money, Laduke said. “It’s like you spent your money on candy when you should have bought something nutritious.”

Nah-Tes Jackson, from California, who also spoke at Wednesday’s hearing, describes himself as a feeler. He worries about the people involved in recent clashes with law enforcement, and the rifts between the elderly and the youth that are developing in the camps.

“The damage they’re causing upon the lives right now, makes me pray,” Jackson said. “Hurt can fester, and eventually control and consume. We can become so lost in our hurt that we don’t know how to heal anymore,” Jackson said. “We are all tools in this life, and we can be used for good or for bad.”

No matter the differences inside the camps, healing, and prayer is still powerful there, he said.

Jackson broke down in tears when he recalled recent violent confrontations.

“Can you imagine a mother watching her children fight, and kill each other, and then their blood spilled on her?”

Vehicle at Oceti Sakowin - photo by C.S. Hagen

Vehicle at Oceti Sakowin – photo by C.S. Hagen

Water and Oil Do Not Mix

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe begins its fight against Dakota Access Pipeline, activists arrested, governor declares emergency state

By C.S. Hagen
CANNON BALL, ND – The Bakken Pipeline began quietly, leaving few footprints along its legal trail straight into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ lap. Shortly after the 1,172-mile project was green-lighted, protests erupted in western North Dakota. Arrests and lawsuits, calls for peace and threats of violence, followed.

On Friday, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple issued an emergency situation due to civil unrest, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department, and Morton County Commissioners extended the declaration on Monday.

The protest along the pipeline’s route less than one mile from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation of North Dakota and South Dakota, started on August 10 when tribesmen blocked an access point for Dakota Access, LLC construction crews, effectively forcing workers to leave the area. A total of thirteen arrests were made, but the activists’ war cry did not change – water and oil do not mix.

Within a week the activists’ numbers grew from 200 to more than 2,000 people coming from across the United States and Canada, activists said.

Dakota Access Pipeline - Spirit of Cherry Valley Horses 8-15-2016 1971

Dakota Access Pipeline activists on horseback, Spirit of Cherry Valley – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

On August 15, Dakota Access LLC moved equipment and employees back to the construction route. A hole was cut into a fence, allowing access to more than 50 activists, leading to accounts of broken machinery windows and an assault on a private security worker, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department.

Activists on horseback charged police, forcing them to retreat from their line, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. More arrests were made. As of Monday, a total of 29 activists, including Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, or the Hunkpapa Oyate, had been arrested, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. Of those arrested, 26 were charged for disorderly conduct, and three were charged with criminal trespass. All have since been released.

A standoff between activists and law enforcement ensued.

Police and Highway Patrol guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Law enforcement guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

Divergent movie series heroine Shailene Woodley during a protest in Bismarck, ND - courtesy of online sources

Divergent movie series heroine Shailene Woodley during a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline in Bismarck, ND – courtesy of online sources

The outcry against big oil attracted Hollywood movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio’s attention, and on August 11 brought Divergent movie series heroine Shailene Woodley to join the protesters.

“The spirits are there, the people are there,” activist Margaret Landin said. “They are empowering each other.”

Tensions are brewing. While Archambault calls demonstrators to peace, Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier fears for safety.

Black Land Rovers with tinted windows are parked nearby, watching, activists report. Authorities began investigating two incidents of laser strikes against aircraft conducting surveillance on the protesting encampment, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. The strikes allegedly occurred on August 17 and Sunday, temporarily blinding one pilot, and is considered a federal crime leading to a fine or imprisonment for up to five years or both if convicted.

Six miles south of Mandan, State Highway Patrol troopers closed Highway 1806 to traffic. Cellular phone services have been terminated to the area, activists report. Local parks, campgrounds, boat ramps, and fishing areas have been shut down. Work on the pipeline has been halted. Rumors that construction workers had discovered old Native American burial grounds were not verified.

“We’re trying to provide a line, a safe line for the pipeline people to enter and to go and do their legal work,” Kirchmeier said. “And they were preparing to throw pipe bombs at our line, M-80s, fireworks, things of that nature to disrupt us.

“That, in itself, makes it an unlawful protest. In that area people are compromising the private land down there, and they’re compromising the equipment that is down there.”

Online threats have also been made on social media against the lives of law enforcement officials in the area, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department. “We take these comments very seriously,” Kirchmeier said. “We have to take these comments very seriously to protect not only officers’ safety, but residents who live in the area along with those participating in the protest activities. The threats are very concerning.”

Dalrymple’s declaration of an emergency situation was also instituted by fear.

“The State of North Dakota remains committed to protecting citizens’ rights to lawfully assemble and protest, but the unfortunate fact remains that unlawful acts associated with the protest near Cannon Ball have led to serious public safety concerns and property damage,” Dalrymple said in a press release on Friday . “This emergency declaration simply allows us to bring greater resources to bear if needed to help local officials address any further public safety concerns.”

Declaring an emergency situation also allows for the coordinated and effective effort of “appropriate government departments” to minimize the impact of the emergency, according to the executive order issued by Dalrymple. Rumors the National Guard had been called in for support were not verified at press time.

Senator Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., stressed the importance of protecting the rights of all parties involved, and that she would continue to meet with anyone wanting to discuss the issues.

“As North Dakota continues to reduce its reliance on moving crude by rail, producers will keep looking to pipelines as an important part of our energy infrastructure – both for our state and the nation,” Heitkamp said.

“Just as with any infrastructure project, we need to make sure the Dakota Access Pipeline is thoroughly vetted, reviewed, and if approved has the proper safeguards in place. It’s critical that as federal agencies like the Army Corps of Engineers review energy infrastructure projects, they follow all applicable environmental requirements, and respect treaty rights and as well as the need for proper consultation with tribal nations.”

Activists and law enforcement - photos by Shane Balkowitsch

Cherry Creek singers with drum and law enforcement – Corey Carson of Elevate Studios, Bismarck

Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle was among the first people arrested at the encampment. She was released on bail. Jumping Eagle is a mother of three, and a pediatrician at a hospital in Standing Rock.

Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle

Dr. Sarah Jumping Eagle

“It’s very frustrating seeing the actions by the state, they’re the ones escalating this and spreading misinformation,” Jumping Eagle said. “They’re using falsehoods to find ways to escalate their own agenda.

“Historically, they would hype up in the newspaper, hype up the local people, hype up the police forces, so that basically the Army could come in. That’s the history of the United States. There is no incentive for them to take it down a notch, there’s a financial incentive to make it appear our camp is potentially violent or threatening.

“Yes, we are protesting and protecting the land,” Jumping Eagle said. “But people are doing that in the manner that is consistent with our beliefs.”

On Monday, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the International Indian Treaty Council appealed to the United Nations for assistance, according to media outlet Indian Country.

“We specifically request that the United States Government impose an immediate moratorium on all pipeline construction until the Treaty Rights and Human Rights of the Standing Rock Tribe can be ensured and their free, prior and informed consent is obtained,” Archambault and the Treaty Council said in their petition to the United Nations.

 

The Seventh Generation

Landin joins the protest traveling from her home in Bismarck every other day. Families with infants, the young and the elderly, Native Americans, and people from all races and cultures have gathered in the Dakota prairie. Citizens are donating food, sleeping bags, outdoor chairs, drinking and washing water, Landin said, and she has not seen or heard of pipe bombs or weapons, in fact, protest organizers do not allow weapons, drugs, or alcohol on to the encampment grounds, she said.

“It is an amazing thing to see,” Landin said. “I literally tear-ed up, there are so many people there to support, and it doesn’t even matter your race.”

No firearms, no alcohol, no cameras allowed, photographer and ambrotypist Shane Balkowitsch said. He traveled from Bismarck to photograph the encampment using the wet plate photography technique, a painstaking process where exposures must be quickly developed in a dark room on scene. Balkowitsch was one of the first to photographers on the scene, he said, and he joined the protest to support the friends he met during his recent work on a photography project for for the Historical Society of North Dakota called “Northern Plains Native Americans: A Modern Wet Plate Perspective.”

“I saw no weapons, no pushing,” Balkowitsch said. “It was a civil and peaceful protest. They are very adamant, very dedicated to this obviously, but being dedicated to something is not a bad thing.

“I was treated with hugs.”

Longtime activist Winona Laduke may ride horseback at Stanley Rock, where the thousands camped at Camp of the Sacred Stone are attracting more support every day. Since nearby highways have been blocked, activists are leading supporters into the area on foot. “They’re trying to put the squeeze on this tribe by blocking the highway to their casino and to the protest. And it has backfired on themselves,” Laduke said.

The ‘squeeze’ is not working.

As the executive director of the Native American environmental group Honor the Earth, and twice Ralph Nader’s Green Party vice presidential candidate, Laduke traveled from her home at White Earth Reservation in Minnesota and stayed two days at the encampment. Friday night during a rainstorm, more than 800 people ate dinner at the tribe’s Prairie Knights Casino, Laduke said. “It’s having a booming business. And this talk about pipe bombs is just not true. They’re using [smoking] pipes. I even brought my pipe down there. There are no bombs, no weapons.”

Activists at the Dakota Access Pipeline - by Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Speaker giving talk to activists, or protectors, at the Dakota Access Pipeline – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

Laduke spent her birthday at the encampment, among the rolling prairie hills where she could imagine the buffalo that once roamed freely. Nestled against the Missouri River – the mother river – Laduke said it was the best birthday present she could have hoped for.

Winona Laduke

Winona Laduke

“I picked sage, sat in my tipi, and joined in with about 40 people younger than me,” Laduke said. “That is a pretty good birthday present to myself.”

Landin noticed a difference in the protesters, a difference that invokes an ancient prophecy.

“It is the youth,” Landin said. “The youth are really standing up and speaking out. They are a different generation. They are the Seventh Generation.”

The Seventh Generation, descendants of those forced into reservations approximately 140 years ago, are supposed to set rights to wrongs, Landin said. The principle is more than legend or prophecy; it is recorded in the Iroquois Great Law of Peace.

Besides being involved in the protest, young activists, or protectors as activists call themselves, participated in a relay footrace from western North Dakota to Washington DC called “Run for Our Water” earlier in 2016, and then joined protests before the US Supreme Court and at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

 

The Pipeline

Despite Standing Rock Sioux objections, the Bakken Pipeline, officially known as the Dakota Access Pipeline, began in May 2016, and if finished will snake through the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, where it will join up with a second 774-mile pipeline to Nederland, Texas. More than 570,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil will pass through the pipeline per day after it is finished third quarter 2016, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Oil Pipeline - Grand Forks Herald

Oil Pipeline – Grand Forks Herald

The Dakota Access LLC pipeline, which is a joint venture between Enbridge Energy Partners LP and Marathon Petroleum Corporation, would also span 200 water crossings, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission, and in North Dakota alone would pass through 33 historical and archeological sites. Initially, the pipeline was to run north of Bismarck, but because it proved to be a potential threat to Bismarck’s wellhead source water protection areas, the route was cancelled and relocated to its current course, less than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

According to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers employee, who for the sake of his job wished to remain anonymous, a safe oil pipeline does not exist. Erosion by time, plate tectonics, natural disasters, shoddy workmanship or faulty parts, and cutting corners to fill big oil coffers are part of any pipeline recipe.

Since 2010, more than 3,300 incidents of crude oil and liquefied natural gas leaks or ruptures have occurred in pipelines within the United States, according to the Center for Effective Government. The incidents have killed 80 people, injured 389, and have created $2.8 billion in damages, not to mention the lingering effect on humans, and the release of toxic chemicals into soil, waterways, and air. Nearly one third of the spills since 2010 came from pipelines carrying crude oil, as the Dakota Access Pipeline plans to carry.

In 2010, the first year after the Keystone pipeline was completed, 35 leaks were discovered, according to Earthjustice, an environmental law organization.

Dave Archambault II

Dave Archambault II

In a statement from Archambault on August 16, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said the issue is not only a Lakota or Dakota issue, but it is a human issue.

“I am here to advise anyone that will listen that the Dakota Access Pipeline project is harmful,” Archambault said. “It will not be just harmful to my people but its intent and construction will harm the water in the Missouri River, which is one of the cleanest and safest river tributaries left in the Unit States. To poison the water is to poison the substance of life. Everything that moves must have water.

“How can we talk about and knowingly poison water?”

 

Legal Warriors

On July 27, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe represented by Earthjustice filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers claiming that the project violated the “National Historic Preservation Act” by endangering river waters and by authorizing the construction of the pipeline underneath Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River, approximately half a mile upstream from the tribe’s reservation. In the lawsuit, the tribe sought an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in addition to a full inspection of compliance, and a declaration that the corps’ authorizations for the pipeline were in violation of the reservation’s rights according to the two Treaties of Fort Laramie in 1851 and 1868.

Activists at the Dakota Access Pipeline - Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Gathering crowd at the Dakota Access Pipeline  – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

“The current proposed route across Lake Oahe a half of a mile upstream of the tribe’s reservation boundary, where any leak or spill from the pipeline would flow into the reservation,” the lawsuit said. “The tribe and its members have been deeply concerned about the potential impacts of the Lake Oahe crossing since its inception.”

The tribe, according to the lawsuit, relies on the lake for drinking water for thousands of people, and for irrigation, fishing, recreation, and for cultural and religious practices. “An oil spill from the pipeline into Lake Oahe would cause an economic, public health and welfare, and cultural crisis of the greatest magnitude,” according to lawsuit documents.

Fearing bodily injury to Dakota Access LLC employees and contractors, the oil company struck back, filing restraining orders on August 15 and seeking monetary damages against members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.

Meanwhile, other issues are piling up for Dakota Access LLC.

On July 20 Enbridge Energy Partners LLP was ordered by the Justice Department and the EPA to pay $177 million for its responsibility in the 2010 Michigan Tar Sands Spill. Enbridge spent six years and more than one billion dollars in cleanup efforts, but the area was not restored, according to media outlet Bold Nebraska.

After spending millions, and wasting years battling for approval of a Bakken crude oil pipeline across Minnesota, Enbridge Energy Partners LLP switched gears, joining with Marathon Petroleum Corporation to run a different pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, through North Dakota, a state that is far less strict on environmental issues than Minnesota. The Minnesota Sandpiper pipeline has been put on the back burner until 2019, according to Enbridge, and analysts predict the project will never be resurrected.

In Iowa where work on the pipeline is underway, three fires erupted causing heavy damage to equipment and causing an estimated $1 million in damages. Investigators suspect arson, according to Jasper County Sheriff John Halferty.

In October 2015, three Iowa farmers sued Dakota Access LLC and the Iowa Utilities Board in an attempt to prevent the use of eminent domain on their properties to construct the pipeline.

Dakota Access LLC personnel did not return telephone calls by press time.

 

More Dirty Blankets

Tribal leaders claim the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not discuss the pipeline project adequately.

“The tribe has never been able to participate meaningfully in assessing the significance of sites that are potentially affected by the project,” the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lawsuit stated.

The Standing Rock Tribal Historic Preservation Office received a generic letter from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seeking consultation on February 12, 2015 pertaining to bore hole testing, according to the lawsuit documents.

Tribal leaders objected, but received no response until September 16, 2015, when a second letter stated the consultation process ended on January 18, 2015, according to lawsuit documents. Again, tribal leaders objected, demanding joint consultation and a class III survey in conjunction with tribal archeologists.

Camp of the Sacred Stone at Cannon Ball, ND - Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Camp of the Sacred Stone at Cannon Ball, ND – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

Instead of addressing concerns, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ next step was to publish a draft environmental assessment that did not include a single mention of the potential impacts of the pipeline project to the tribe, according to lawsuit documents.

Not until February 2016 did the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Colonel John Henderson begin discussions with Standing Rock Sioux tribal leaders. Several visits were made, at which point tribal archeologists showed military personnel shards of bone and pottery that had been pushed from the ground by burrowing moles.

On April 22, 2016, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ response was to make the formal finding that “no historic properties were affected,” according to lawsuit documents.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers disagreed, stating that investigators followed procedure.

“The Corps conducted formal government-to-government consultation with tribal representative via meetings; site visits; distribution of pertinent information; conference calls, and emails in order to inform tribal governments and private members, and to better understand their concerns.

“All information received during the … process was considered during the Corps decision-making process. Ultimately, the District made a ‘No Historic Properties Affected’ determination.”

Historically, British and American governments have deceived Native Americans by many means, through trick, by trade, and according to some, with biological warfare.

In 1763, a British captain gave smallpox-infested blankets to Ottawa Native American warriors. The account is documented in the journal of William Trent, a local trader who had close dealings with British soldiers.

“Out of our regard for them, we gave them two blankets and a handkerchief out of the smallpox hospital. I hope it will have the desired effect,” Trent wrote in his journal on June 24, 1763.

Carl Waldman’s Atlas of North American Indian described the same instance, but in a different light. “… Captain Simeon Ecuyer had bought time by sending smallpox-infected blankets and handkerchiefs to the Indians surrounding the fort – which started an epidemic among them.”

Historians estimate three-quarters of the Native American population in the Ottawa area died from smallpox outbreaks after taking the blankets, according to media outlet Indian Country. Many agree that germs annihilated Native Americans, and not the “white man with guns.”

An unsubstantiated instance allegedly occurred in June 1837 when the U.S. Army began to dispense trade blankets to Mandan tribal people at Fort Clark along the Missouri River in North Dakota, according to the History News Network. The blankets were said to have come from a military smallpox infirmary in St. Louis, and brought upriver aboard the steamboat St. Peter’s. When the Native Americans showed symptoms of the disease, fort doctors allegedly told them to scatter and seek sanctuary with healthy relatives.

No matter how disease was introduced to the Mandan tribe in 1837, more than 100,000 Mandan Native Americans died from smallpox pandemic between 1836 and 1840, according to historians.

Closer to home, the events from Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota during 1890 and the 1970s have further exacerbated mistrust between the U.S. government and the Lakota people. In 1890, Sitting Bull, a holy man and leader of the Lakota, was killed during the Ghost Dance movement at Wounded Knee. Later that year the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded another band of Ghost Dancers slaughtering 150 Lakota tribesmen.

"The Grand River at Sitting Bull's Cabin" on Grand River, about 100 yards from where Sitting Bull was gunned down. The Grand River is a tributary of the Missouri River - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

“The Grand River at Sitting Bull’s Cabin” about 100 yards from where Sitting Bull was gunned down. The Grand River is a tributary of the Missouri River – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch taken on July 9, 2016 accompanied by Ernie LaPoint great grandson of Sitting Bull

In 1970, the American Indian Movement known as AIM occupied the Wounded Knee holy site, sparking a 71-day siege by federal agents. Two Native Americans were killed, and one federal officer was paralyzed during altercations. In 1975, AIM activists killed two FBI agents during the “Pine Ridge Shootout.”

Additionally, in 1944, the Pick-Sloan Plan for flood control of the Missouri River gave the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the authority to build 107 dams, effectively forcing the relocation of nearly 1,000 Native American families. Later in 1946, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction on the Fort Randall Dam in South Dakota, which in turn flooded 22,091 acres of Yankton Sioux land and forced 136 families to move elsewhere. According to online reports when the tribes affected informed the Department of Interior, government officials told them to start looking for new homes.

Again, in 1948, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the Oahe Dam, near to the demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline today. The project destroyed 90 percent of the timberland on the Standing Rock Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux reservations, and is known by some as the most destructive public works project in US history.

In 1959, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began work on the Big Bend Dam in South Dakota, on lands belonging to the Crow Creek Sioux and the Lower Brule Sioux. The project took away 21,026 acres of Sioux land, and flooded the town of Lower Brule. In 1960, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filed a condemnation suit against the Crow Creek Sioux and the Lower Brule Sioux to obtain the land. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was allowed to take title of the land.

For more than 130 years in the Black Hills, South Dakota, gold miners, and in recent history the Homestake Mine, poisoned river waters with sulfur, mercury, aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron, selenium, lead, and arsenic through Native American, private, state, and federal lands, according to a 2005 report filed by the United States Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management, United States Department of Interior, Fish and Wildlife Services, and the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. The aftereffects of a century of gold and lead mining are toxic to flora and fauna, according to the report. Starting in 2005, efforts were being made to restore the areas affected along the Whitewood Creek, the Belle Fourche, and the Cheyenne rivers, and the Homestake Mining Company of California, Inc. ceased mining and production in 2001.

Whitewood Creek flows into the Belle Fourche River, which flows into the Cheyenne River, which flows into the Missouri River at Oahe Reservoir, according to the report.

“Whitewood Creek is an example of gross environmental degradation tacitly condoned by public apathy…” the report stated. “Once pollutants were no longer discharged, the ecosystem repaired itself, a tribute to its resilience… this story has not reached its conclusion… and the potential for future problems with heavy toxicity are real.”

The poisoning, swallowing, and destruction of Native American lands not only forced tribesmen to move, it crippled their way of life, their hunting and fishing grounds, their chance to sow crops on once fertile soil, their spiritual practices pertaining to ancient burial grounds, and further impoverished those living on reservations, government reports and activists said.

With such a historical pattern of deception and at times brute force, it is little wonder why Native Americans distrust anything government officials say, activists said.

Dakota Access Pipeline activists - Police guarding their line at the Dakota Access Pipeline Police - photo by Shane Balkowitsch

Dakota Access Pipeline activists gathering – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

“Native people including the Lakota, have no experience with the United States keeping its word, or that of corporations keeping their words,” Laduke said. “It is time for people to start keeping their words. They have a treaty right to that water.

“Corporations have more rights than people and eco-systems,” Laduke said. “These corporations need to be challenged. I am not afraid of them, and we all should not be afraid of corporations. They need to be put in their place.”

Although Jumping Eagle has charges hovering over her head, she is not daunted.

Jumping Eagle, an Oglala Sioux who married into the Standing Rock tribe, lives and works there, and she did not plan on getting arrested. A court date has been set, but she is not daunted. Instead, she plans to create hand-washing stations at the encampment.

“This is not something I take lightly, I keep it in mind, but I want to be able to protect the land and water. This is a crucial time. For too long we’ve allowed corporations to be more important than people. The company and the police are protecting the interests of an oil company directly violating the rights of people. We’ve already suffered enough. The fact that they want to place the pipe just north of our community when we are already dealing with so many other issues that could threaten our drinking water, and put us into a situation like Flint, and people will have to buy water? Is not right.

Activists on horseback and along their line - photos by Shane Balkowitsch

Activists on horseback and along their line – Corey Carson of Elevate Studios, Bismarck

“They think they can do whatever they want,” Jumping Eagle said. Not only is she active against Dakota Access Pipeline, she has also worked on other environmental issues ranging from new North Dakota Health Council regulations permitting the increased storage of oilfield waste – radioactive materials and chemicals – to fighting local uranium mines. “They think we are expendable or without a voice, without a choice. Going across Standing Rock land is against the treaty. But people don’t want to think about it. People want to trust their officials. The arguments they make are just trying to reassure themselves.”

Despite the deck being heavily stacked against her and her family, her tribe, and anyone living near or depending on the Missouri River or its tributaries for sustenance, Jumping Eagle remains hopeful that one day, things will change.

“Our concerns are never going to change.”

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