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United Nations Denounces North Dakota State Government

Sweet crude oil preparing to flow through the Dakota Access Pipeline as work finishes, a look at the financials and Russian steel origins behind the pipeline

By C.S. Hagen
CANNON BALL – Bakken oil could be flowing through the Dakota Access Pipeline within a week, but Standing Rock still hopes for a legal miracle as the United Nations condemns what it calls widespread discrimination and North Dakota’s militarized responses.

As Standing Rock’s legal options diminish, an injunction filed by the Cheyenne River Tribe, part of the Great Sioux Nation, was once again turned down by federal judges on Tuesday. Previous injunctions filed by the tribe to stop pipeline construction have also been denied by US District Judge James E. Boasberg, citing the the tribe waited too long to bring up the claim under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz stated on Monday that Native Americans have the right to defy undue pressures by extractive projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline. In a scathing report, Tauli-Corpuz said the United Nations is concerned about the safety of indigenous peoples, their cultures, their sacred sites, and their human rights issues in the United States.

During her human rights mission for the United Nations, Tauli-Corpuz said she discovered widespread discrimination at local and national levels. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was not consulted as a sovereign nation.

“In the context of the Dakota Access Pipeline, the potentially affected tribes were denied access to information and excluded from consultations at the planning stage of the project,” Tauli-Corpuz said. “Furthermore, in a show of disregard for treaties in the federal cross responsibility, the Army Corps approved a draft environmental assessment regarding the pipeline that ignored the interests of the tribe.

“The draft made no attempt of proximity to the reservation or the fact that the pipeline would cross historic treaty lands of a number of tribal nations. In doing so the draft environmental assessment treated the tribe’s interest as nonexistent, demonstrating the flawed current process.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continually dismissed risks and did not conduct an adequate cultural assessment before authorizing the pipeline to cross Lake Oahe or authorized the dumping of materials and waste into waters on Indian reservations, Tauli-Corpuz said. The Army Corps utilized a loophole in environmental assessment laws by fast tracking permits, and after the agency approved an environmental assessment study earlier this year, it backtracked and issued the final easement permit.

Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak has stated that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was contacted from the beginning of the pipeline planning stages.

The problem is not contained only to Standing Rock, but widespread throughout the USA, Rauli-Corpuz said.

In addition to local and federal government dismissiveness, Native Americans face the full force of negative health impacts from extraction, with rising levels of heavy metals in water and contamination in livestock from spills, faulty well construction, and the effects of frakking, or toxic and non-biodegradable discharges into surface waters. The oil boom has also enticed thousands of oil and gas workers creating an “incredible increase” of human trafficking, drugs, and sex crimes, Tauli-Corpuz said.

Highway 1806 – photo by C.S. Hagen

“The trauma accumulated as a result of a the largely discriminatory policies of the government toward Indian tribes and individuals since first contact and today, still results in distrust of government initiatives and poor health outcomes for Indian individuals,” Tauli-Corpuz said.

Her research showed that government, rather than people, have the final say in matters related to Native Americans, and “it is imperative the federal government properly consult before encroaching on indigenous lands,” Tauli-Corpuz said.

With few legal options left to halt Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access, LLC, Standing Rock and supporters are preparing to march in Washington DC on March 10 at the Native Nations Rise campaign.

Activists preparing to leave pause on the Cannon Ball Bridge on Highway 1806 – photo by C.S. Hagen

“They want us to believe that the fight is over,” Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a press release. “But we can still win this. We can unite in peaceful, prayerful resistance against this illegal pipeline.”

Officials plan to reopen the tribe’s main artery, Highway 1806, by March 13 if there is “no identifiable threat from protesters to block the highway,” the North Dakota Joint Information Center reported.

Boom

The North Dakota political machine has been repeatedly rated one of the worst in the United States for transparency by political watchdogs such as The Center for Public Integrity, and its reactions toward the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy have been scrutinized by press from around the world.

Before pipeline construction began, a 78-page assessment report was compiled by Iowa-based Strategic Economics Group, Inc., written by Harvey Siegelman, Mike Lipsman, and Dan Otto, for Energy Transfer Partners.

The pipeline companies promised jobs, growth, and stability, according to the November 12, 2014 report entitled Assessment of the Economic and Fiscal Impacts of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois.

The report states that the pipeline project would create approximately 32,721 job-years – amount of work done by one person for one year. An average salary per worker was listed as $57,000 a year. “The increase in employment will generate a $1.9 billion increase in labor income, and a nearly $5 billion increase in production and sales in the region,” the report stated.

After the pipeline is finished, 160 ongoing jobs will be added to the economy in North Dakota, generating $11 million in labor income and more than $23 million in new production and sales per year, the report promised.

The pipeline was planned to cost Dakota Access, LLC $1.4 billion in North Dakota, of that amount an estimated $655.9 million, or 47 percent totaling $397 million, was planned to result in direct and indirect purchases in North Dakota.

The total impact of the pipeline project in North Dakota was expected to add nearly 7,700 job-years of employment, generate more than $450 million in labor income, and add about $1.05 billion to the production and sales within the state, according to the report. Additionally, the state was to benefit by receiving revenues of approximately $32.9 million in taxes, of which $1.7 was for local governments, and $5.9 million from individual income taxes. During the first year of operation the state is slated to receive $13.1 million in new property taxes for local governments.

The construction state of the pipeline was expected to generate $9.6 billion in total output nationally, but only half of that, $4.96 billion in output, or production and sales, would be captured in the four-state area. “That is because many of the manufacturers of products that will ultimately be purchased for this project are located outside of this region,” the report states.

More than two years after the report was written, one of the authors, Lipsman, said he felt that the report will prove accurate, but that at least two more years were needed for government agencies to compile all the necessary information.

“Obviously there’s been a lot more spent by Dakota Access because of all the slowdown,” Lipsman said. “Initially, we thought the construction would take two years, and then we came back and they said it would take one year, but with all the delays it’s now in the second year.”

Crews moved from state to state, Lipsman said, and although the actual number of people on the job might be less than what Strategic Economics Group, Inc. reported, he calculated job hours, and not actual personnel numbers.

“Especially since they were doing this so fast a lot of people got significant overtime, Lipsman said. “When we did ours in job years, the actual number of people who were on the project might be less than what we forecasted, but that was because we assume a 40-hour week, but if someone is working 15 to 20 hours of overtime you have less bodies but still as much labor going in.”

The Dakota Access Pipeline used less than 57 percent American-made steel, according to the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, an industry group lobbying for completion of the pipeline. Despite President Trump’s executive order demanding pipes to be made from American-manufactured steel, most if not all of the steel pipes planned for the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL projects have already been purchased. Piles of steel tubes are scattered throughout the Midwest.

Dakota Access, LLC pipes – online sources

“Much of the steel for the Dakota Access project appears to have been manufactured in Canada by EVRAZ North America, a subsidiary of the Russian steel giant Evraz,” according to DeSmog, a news outlet focused on global warming misinformation campaigns.

EVRAZ is owned in part by Roman Abramovich, a Russian multi-billionaire who assisted President Vladimir Putin into office in the late 1990s, according to DeSmog. The company’s management team is nearly all Russian nationals and former government workers, which should send red flags up with all American companies.

For the 2013-2014 fiscal year, Abramovich reported a record profit of £18 million, according to media outlet Journal Star.

Bakken oil production saw its “largest decline ever in North Dakota production” in September 2016, pumping out 895,330 barrels per day, according to media outlet Oil Price. Production of oil rebounded to 942,455 barrels in December 2016. The price of North Dakota sweet crude was up slightly in January to $40.75, and in February up again to $42.50 per barrel, which is a far cry from the all-time high in 2008 of $136.29 per barrel, according to Oil Price.

Winona LaDuke, a longtime activist and founder of Honor the Earth, disagrees with the math behind Bakken oil. She was part of the fight that shut down Enbridge’s Keystone Pipeline, and says that since Enbridge is an approximately 28 percent investor in the Dakota Access Pipeline, or as she says the Dakota Excess Pipeline, Enbridge should also be responsible for 28 percent of the injuries that occurred outside of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.

LaDuke says the Bakken oil patch is busted, and the state should be focused more on infrastructure on people rather than for companies. More people today are employed in solar energy facilities than in oil patches, LaDuke said, and the future does not rest with fossil fuels.

Government projections estimate 900,000 barrels of oil will be hauled out of the Bakken per day until 2019. “What I’m trying to figure out is where’s the oil for the 570,000 barrels a day pipeline you are shoving down our throats? All the oil going out of there now, is the same that will be going out of there in two years.”

The workforce and mineral rights

On the ground reporting, live streaming videos, and reports from activists in the field rarely reported seeing local license plates on Dakota Access Pipeline vehicles, semis, or trucks. And while the state has been quite content bringing in outside companies, supplies, and an out-of-state workforce for the project, its response has shown contempt against all outside activists fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The North Dakota Joint Information Center frequently posts updates on arrests, identifying repeatedly that out of the 761 people arrested, 94 percent were not from North Dakota.

Former main entrance to Oceti Sakowin blockaded against police advance – photo by C.S. Hagen

On the construction side of the pipeline, Pam Link, director of governmental relations and new business development for the Laborer’s International Union of North America Local #563, said business couldn’t be better. In 2016, Local #563 had from 400 to 600 union members working on the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“A vast majority of them were North Dakotans,” Link said. Most of the jobs were short term, but members are already back at work across the state, she said. Her union currently has approximately a dozen workers involved at the drill pad crossing the Missouri River. “We have massive work going on, starting right now, it’s unbelievable, how busy we will be, it’s unbelievable how much work we have.”

Link wouldn’t say if the work load increase was due to changes made by Trump’s Administration, but said in 2016 her union was focused primarily on the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Local #49 of the International Union of Operating Engineers, Laborer’s International Union of North America Local 300, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, among others, also had members working on the pipeline, according Link. None replied to telephone calls for comment.

“A larger percentage of positions in the earlier phases of oil development are shorter term or transient in nature, but as more wells are added, more people will be needed to service and maintain those wells,” Tessa Sandstrom, the director of communications for the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said.

Not including transportation and construction jobs, the Bakken workforce has increased from 5,000 jobs in 2005 to 81,500 in 2013, Sandstrom reported. Numbers began to decline in 2015, but “they will still be a pretty big chunk of North Dakota’s total workforce,” Sandstorm said.

“The petroleum industry will continue to provide economic, tax, employment, and energy security benefits well into the future of North Dakota,” Sandstorm said. “The Dakota Access Pipeline will play a large part in that because it will make transporting North Dakota crude more economic which means we will get a better price for the barrel.”

Pipeline oil will decrease the cost of transportation per barrel, allowing the state to accumulate at least $100 million or more per year if total oil prices do not sink lower than $50 per barrel, Sandstrom said. While the pipeline controversy cost the state more than $38.2 million taxpayer dollars, according to information released Tuesday by the North Dakota Joint Information Center, the state could easily see its investment paid back through pipeline taxes.

“It’s easy for detractors to immediately jump to this as being only a benefit for the oil companies, but it, in fact, is a boon to the state and mineral owners as well. Mineral owners would stand to gain between $100 to $120 million per year because of this pipeline”

“In terms of businesses benefitting from oil and gas development, it is not a few local drillers who benefit from the work here,” Sandstorm said.

North Dakota has more than 400 individuals and 115 companies or independent contractors who are involved in the drilling and well production processes in the Bakken, Sandstorm said. There are also 117 certified native-owned companies that provide oil and gas development services. According to a 2014 study made public by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, more than 876 business in North Dakota are part of the larger oil and natural gas supply chain.

“These aren’t just the stereotypical roughnecks or roustabouts either,” Sandstorm said. “These positions, businesses, and contractors range from the skilled trades, such as electricians, to engineers and from human resources professionals to legal and environmental consultants.”

Exact numbers of people employed or those who are benefitting from the Dakota Access Pipeline, such as mineral rights owners, are at best difficult to pin down. At the height of the state’s most recent oil “boom” from 2010 until 2014, the state’s population increased by 66,000, according to the North Dakota Census Office.

Gary Preszler, chairman for National Host Production Deduction Committee and former commissioner for North Dakota Land Management, also owns a large mineral interest in Billings County, from which he said the royalty payments have put his children through college.

“The average mineral owner is not going to get wealthy from their checks, because wells deplete and start producing less and less,” Preszler said. “The average mineral owner is not going to have any life-changing windfall. They might improve their lifestyle a little bit.”

The average mineral rights owner is a retired elderly person receiving $50 a month, he said.

The history of mineral rights in North Dakota is confusing even to oil company accountants, and many mistakes have been made in the past, Preszler said. The puzzle dates back to the 1930s Great Depression when many farmers and ranchers sold their mineral rights to survive.

At the beginning, the state kept five percent of the mineral rights giving 95 percent to purchasers, then in the late 1940s, the state began keeping 50 percent, then 100 percent in the 1960s, Meszler said. Farm credit service banks and the state-owned Bank of North Dakota also own mineral rights in western North Dakota’s oil-rich lands from foreclosures, and typically keep 50 percent mineral rights when land is resold. Professional oil workers and oil companies also have purchased mineral rights directly from landowners.

Today, third generation cousins scattered across the United States and oblivious to their ownership titles also are heirs to mineral rights, Preszler said.

“When you’re a mineral owner, it’s not all the sudden the money pours in,” he said. Oil price swings, production tapering, and mechanical failures fluctuate royalty checks. Sometimes, “You go that mailbox for the month and there’s nothing there,” Preszler said.

The Minerals Management Division of the Department of North Dakota Trust Lands manages 2.567 million mineral acres throughout the state, of which 1.215 million mineral acres are in the oil and gas producing counties, and another 1.352 million acres are in non-producing counties. Schools and other trusts own 1.84 million acres, and foreclosed properties formerly managed by the Bank of North Dakota and Sovereign Lands make up the remaining 728,000 mineral acres.

The state of North Dakota covers 45,250,560 acres, according to North Dakota Studies, of which, including some acreage in South Dakota, 4,689,920 acres are on Native American reservations. The Bakken oil patch, in its entirety, spans approximately 15,360,000 acres.

While some in the Peace Garden State may be profiting from Bakken oil and the Dakota Access Pipeline, few think about the long term environmental and sociological effects, the reason behind Standing Rock’s resistance against the pipeline. Additionally, the United Nations wants the state to pay more attention to those who are to a large degree not profiting from the oil “boom.”

“The United States government should fully realize the rights of indigenous peoples as enshrined in the UN declaration and the rights of indigenous peoples, and i strongly recommend that the United States government continue to improve on its policies to develop stronger government and government relations with the tribes,” Tauli-Corpuz said.

No Rest for Police and Standing Rock on Veterans Day

November 11, 2016 / CSHagen / 0 Comments

Standing Rock activists march on Veterans Day, halt DAPL construction, 33 arrested, total arrested nears 450

By C.S. Hagen
CANNONBALL – Standing Rock activists marched on three locations early Friday morning Veterans Day, shutting down highways and rural roads, law enforcement report. A fourth march shut down Highway 6 north of St. Anthony Friday afternoon.

Approximately 30 activists were arrested, North Dakota Highway Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson said. Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported a total of 33 arrested. Work along the Dakota Access Pipeline was halted.

Law enforcement responded to reports at Backwater Bridge, where two burned-out DAPL trucks remain blocking Highway 1806, to a second location where the pipeline crosses Highway 6 south of Mandan, and to a barricade at the intersection of county roads 135 and 81, Iverson said.

“There’s a lot of things going on today,” Iverson said. “To be honest, I don’t know why they chose today, other than the fact that they do these things quite often. I do think it is quite embarrassing for them to do such things on Veterans Day, and quite frankly, they are criminal acts today, a slap in the face to all veterans. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

Iverson reported six law enforcement vehicle tires were slashed, Dakota Access Pipeline equipment was vandalized – windows were smashed, engine lines cut, graffiti was spray-painted.

DAPL equipment spray-painted – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

“Protesters also attempted to attack an officer with a stake, slashed tires on law enforcement vehicles, and caused damage to construction equipment,” Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported. Highway 6 was closed, 12 vehicles belonging to activists and law enforcement were towed.

“One man, wearing goggles, approached officers in a threatening manner,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said in a press release. “The individual had a stake and started to swing it at an officer. The officer responded using pepper spray to keep the individual from the police line. That individual was arrested.”

A November 1, 2016 report made public by the United Nations Chief Edward John, an expert member of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, says the situation is quickly resembling a war zone.

“The United States, as a demonstration of its recent commitments to protect against human rights violations, must live up to its international human rights commitments with respect to indigenous peoples and swiftly reverse its current approach of criminalizing indigenous human rights defenders – those standing up for their solemn treaty rights to lands, territories and resources and their inalienable human rights,” the report stated.

“The US must fulfill its trust responsibility and fiduciary obligations. The United States has a legal obligation and “has charged itself with moral obligations of the highest responsibility and trust’ toward Indian tribes in the United States, including the Standing Rock Sioux… especially when their lives and their cultural integrity is at stake.

“Clearly, US laws and international instruments recognize and must assure their survival as indigenous peoples and their dignity and well-being. No one should ignore, be indifferent nor run roughshod over these.”

Cut wires on DAPL equipment – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

Most of the arrests stemmed from a blockade created at the intersection of county roads 135 and 81, Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported. “Officers believe this roadblock was set up to prevent law enforcement’s response to Highway 6. Officers ordered the individuals to remove the barricade, they refused, and approximately 30 people were arrested.”

“Some people need to look up the word peaceful in the dictionary,” Iverson said. “You can’t break the law and engage in criminal acts and claim it’s peaceful.”

DAPL workers were spotted covering up pipeline already laid east of Highway 6 early Friday morning, according to the Indigenous Environmental Network. Approximately 100 activists hurried to the scene and stopped two backhoes before the rest of the workers retreated east, toward Highway 1806, along the pipeline route.

Sheriff’s vehicles slashed tires – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

“It’s just stopping them, stalling them, when they’ve already been asked by the Obama Administration, by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and they’re just disregarding everything,” the Indigenous Environmental Network reported.

One DAPL backhoe spun circles as activists approached from Highway 6, video footage revealed. A radio tuned into the DAPL workers frequency caught snippets of conversation between the pipeline employees.

“They ain’t shuttin’ me down, somebody is fixing to get hurt,” a DAPL worker said.

“We need to go up there and slash every one of them damn tires up there,” another DAPL employee said.

“We’re just trying to put Mother Earth back.”

“They don’t care about that.”

“Those dumb sh*ts are trying to jump on a moving tractor.”

“Let ‘em do it, let ‘em do it.”

Backwater Bridge and two burned out DAPL trucks – photo by C.S. Hagen

The marches came days after Energy Transfer Partners was requested by President Obama’s Administration, and by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cease construction. The Dakota Access Pipeline, nearly finished, lacks an easement to cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe.

Recently, Energy Transfer Partners, Dakota Access LLC’s parent company, and North Dakota’s politicians whose campaigns have been supported by Bakken oil interested parties, 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, now approximately 10 days, the company will be drilling under the Missouri River. Already, horizontal drilling equipment is being hauled to the drill pad north of Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires camp, less than a quarter mile from the river. Energy Transfer Partners also reprimanded the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers demanding it rescind a 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 a second time to voluntarily cease operations, but the company did not listen, the report stated.

As the numbers of arrested activists defending Standing Rock, its lands, and its waters, nears 450 in total, politicians, the military, and tribal leaders are attempting to find a solution. Last week, President Obama said a reroute of the pipeline should be on the table for discussion.

Most of Friday’s arrested were charged with obstruction of a government function, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department. The situation on Highway 6 was reported as ongoing late Friday afternoon.

Activists at Cantapeta Creek – photo by C.S. Hagen

Trapped at Cantapeta Creek

November 3, 2016 / CSHagen / 0 Comments

Standing Rock and supporters march on Dakota Access, turned back by law enforcement

By C.S. Hagen
CANTAPETA CREEK – Activists defending water fought from inside a near-freezing creek Wednesday in a three-pronged attempt to gain access to Dakota Access Pipeline drill pad.

Early Wednesday morning, activists built a makeshift bridge to span a sixty-foot section of the creek, but law enforcement destroyed it, sparking another standoff.

Long shot at Cantapeta Creek – photo by C.S. Hagen

“Protesters are trying to gain access onto private property also known as the Cannon Ball Ranch,” Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported in a press release. “Law enforcement witnessed a group of protesters building a hand-made, wooden pedestrian bridge across Cantapeta Creek. Officers responded and ordered protesters to remove themselves from the bridge and notified them that if they cross the bridge they would be arrested.

Activist plunging into the creek – photo by C.S. Hagen

Activists chose to swim across, some standing in the chill waters for hours. Canoes paddled people back and forth. They formed a line along the creek’s bank, many with hands in the air, wrapped in space blankets for warmth, as law enforcement sprayed mace and pepper spray. Guns rose when anyone attempted to climb the muddy banks. The creek turned to a milky color from the amount of toxic sprays used to disperse the activists.

Activists at Oceti Sakowin, or the Seven Council Fires, are trapped; any access to the Dakota Access Pipeline has been blocked. Highway 1806 remains shut down. The police barricade and two DAPL truck skeletons block the highway on the north side of Backwater Bridge. While hundreds of activists attempted to cross Cantapeta Creek, more than 100 others faced off with police along Highway 1806.

The Cantapeta Creek, a tributary to the Missouri River, separates activists from the pipeline route. According to drone video footage, the 1,172-mile-long Dakota Access Pipeline has already reached the Missouri River banks, the United State’s longest waterway.

Activist at Highway 1806 barricade – photo by C.S. Hagen

Tristan Hartwell, an Arapaho from the Arapaho Red River Indian Reservation, said the water felt frozen. She emerged from the creek shaking. “The creator had an eye on me, and I’m doing this for all the people,” Hartwell said.

“Corporations have no right, we have the right to peacefully protest,” a Kansas schoolteacher named Lynne Hunter said. Sitting in a folding chair, umbrella in hand, she lectured law enforcement from the native side of the creek, “This is America. This is not Russia. You can back down.”

Activists doused bandanas with apple cider vinegar to ward off some of the sting from mace. Medics ushered in bottles of a milk of magnesia mix to help those hurting from the pepper spray and mace. Emergency vehicles responded to the standoff as well.

The air was pregnant with burning sage from smudging; pepper spray at times turned acrid on the tongue, leaving lips dry. Drums beat. Activists sang songs, cheering when someone volunteered to enter the cold creek. Some sat in the mud, hands folded in prayer. A third group attempted to draw law enforcement away by staging another action around the creek’s bend. One police officer fainted halfway through the standoff.

Andy Kader warming up – photo by C.S. Hagen

Andy Kader was given a hero’s ovation when he stumbled from the creek after staying in the water for more than an hour. He helped swimmers back and forth, made sure logs from the activists’ floating bridge didn’t impede progress.

Shaking wildly, wrapped in a space blanket near a roaring fire, medics reported he had a light case of hypothermia.

“I didn’t feel the cold because of the drums and the prayers of the people kept me going,” Kader said. One foot from the water, however, he couldn’t walk. Activists assisted him to a fire. Kader is a Mohawk, from the “People of the Flint” tribe. A large man, tattooed arms, he spoke quietly as he tried to sip water. His hands shook, making the sips difficult.

“Our water is so badly polluted from where I come from,” Kader said. “It’s already beyond repair. If I could do my little part to help my brothers and sisters from having their waters polluted as ours, it is the least I could do.”

As law enforcement began pepper spraying the activists in earnest, Pete Red Bear knelt along the native side and began a song on an elk flute. He didn’t play traditional songs, he played how the spirits led him, he said.

Pete Red Bear on elk flute – photo by C.S. Hagen

“They are very brave,” Red Bear said. “We’re all here to protect the water for all life.”

Adam Karls traveled from Sweden to assist Standing Rock. “For me this is like science fiction. This is another world for me, another planet.

“Here in this country they’re still talking about the history – make America great again, but for us, America was never great. You have to deal with your history. I have many white friends in the US, and they don’t care about this. They’re only talking about the drunk Indian, the lazy Indians, because they don’t know the history.

“They’re part of an organized structure that wants to divide everybody,” Karls said. “This is environmental racism.” Before his trip to the Peace Garden State, his friends said he was about to travel to the “Mississippi of the North,” he said.

Trump’s recall for the American Dream he sees as a joke. Many European nations are dealing with their racist pasts, for instance Germany, he said. “The American Dream works best for white rich people. I am so pissed off at my white American friends because they don’t care about this. They get angry when I talk about the past, the dirty past of the US.”

Kansas native Lynne Hunter lecturing law enforcement – photo by C.S. Hagen

The director general for the National Association for the Advancement of Indigenous People, United Nations Human Right IPO, Tushka Humoc, said he can only sit and wait for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supporters to “do the right thing.

“We actually came out here to hopefully provide some remedy to this situation in an international venue,” Humoc said. For now, he can only take pictures; conduct interviews, and report back to the United Nations.

“The UN can’t do anything, because they’re US citizens by law,” Humoc said. “The moment they remove themselves from being US citizens by law, then the UN can step in and do something, because the UN has to protect the foreign nationals, whose lands are being occupied by the United States. As long as the United States has these people under BIA, they’re adhesion by Congress, so the federal government controls every aspect of their lives.”

He’s calling out for a deliberate change among indigenous people in the United States.

“They should immediately within 72 hours develop a new trust, submit it to BIA, nothing changes except the power. And now we can move these people [law enforcement] off these lands, it’s really that simple.”

Police sprayed mace and pepper spray intermittently at activists in Cantapeta Creek – photo by C.S. Hagen

Former Oklahoma Senator Enoch Kelly Haney, full-blooded Seminole and the only Native American to serve on Oklahoma Legislature, said Standing Rock’s stand against big oil has the potential to become “very dangerous.”

As an artist, he crafted a four-foot-tall bronze statue for the tribe, naming it “Standing His Ground,” and is based off the native Dog Soldier’s custom of “pinning” themselves off with sacred arrows when making a final stand, usually against greater odds.

Medics battle hypothermia and hurry to warm activist – photo by C.S. Hagen

“This is their last stand,” Haney said. “And I do hope this does start some kind of precedent in law.”

President Obama this week announced his administration was watching the Dakota Access Pipeline situation, but wanted it to “play out for several more weeks,” he said, but also stated future plans might include a reroute.

“Given the recent escalation of violence by protesters, letting the situation ‘play out’ is quite literally putting lives in danger,” Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported.

Some activists, frustrated by being trapped, said that perhaps lives is what it may take to stop the pipeline. An argument erupted among the younger generation activists after elders recalled the activists from the Cantapeta Creek.

Elderly native woman sprayed by mace, at medics – photo by C.S. Hagen

“Our warriors need to buck up,” an activist said.

“Are you scared to die?” another activist asked.

“No, I am not scared to die.”

“If they start killing innocent people you really think that the US is going to let them build that pipeline?”

“What’s your plan?”

“Let’s all go up there, let’s all go back up there.”

A bystander intervened. “If you don’t know what’s going on, go back to camp. We’re keeping them from working when we stand our ground. Let people do what they feel is right in their heart. Don’t have all this warriors fighting each other; that’s what they want. We have to keep the unity strong.”

Activist warming up after coming out of Cantapeta Creek – photo by C.S. Hagen

The Red Warrior Camp posted in an official statement said they are putting their bodies and lives on the line.

Activist praying at Cantapeta Creek – photo by C.S. Hagen

“If you live on this land, breathe the air and drink water, this is your fight too,” the Red Warriors Camp reported. The services date for the Dakota Access Pipeline is January 1, they reported.

“We are calling for two months of sustained waves of action targeting the Army Corps of Engineers, investors, pipeline companies, security firms, and elected officials who are behind this project. We need to hold these institutions, corporations, and individuals accountable and put pressure on them to stop this pipeline.

“Additionally, recognizing that we are being charged with illegal activities for simply protecting the water, we are taking back our power and charging the pipeline companies, banks, and individuals behind this project with crimes against humanity and crimes against Mother Earth. The Dakota Access Pipeline is in direct violation of the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights, most especially in regards to the right to security of person, the right to not be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.”