Tag: Cannon Ball

Standing Rock Leaders Acquitted 

Hundreds initially charged during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, dozens, so far, found not guilty or cases dropped

By C.S. Hagen
MANDAN
– Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II and Councilman Dana Yellow Fat were found not guilty Wednesday in a jury trial on charges of disorderly conduct.

Dave Archambault at police line August 2016

The charges stemmed from an August 12, 2016 incident near the Cannonball Ranch, where Archambault was filmed pushing his way through a police line, and Yellow Fat grabbed a police officer’s arm. The video was definitive proof of guilt to many critics, but not to Bismarck attorney Erica Shively, of Elsberry & Shively, P.C., who defended Archambault and Yellow Fat.  

“I also knew that police officers got in the way of my two clients headed down a public road that they had every right to travel down unrestricted by law enforcement,” Shively said. 

Mclean County State’s Attorney Ladd Erickson prosecuted the case for Morton County. The jury spent 10 minutes in deliberation before unanimously announcing a not guilty verdict, according to Shively. 

Yellow Fat was unsure of the outcome when he entered the courtroom, he said. 

“Anytime you leave a major decision in the hands of others, no matter how confident you are, there is always that agonizing little voice saying, ‘I hope they get it right,’” Yellow Fat said. 

“I really believe that justice is being served in many of the cases,” Yellow Fat said. “You can’t trample over people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and free speech without negative ramifications. Even if those ramifications are in the court of public opinion. The world watched as this unfolded, and now the world continues to watch it unfold in the court system. 

“These small victories in the court system are a definite positive for our constitutional rights.”

“The State has charged out many cases for which there is no where near adequate evidence to convict folks who were simply exercising their First Amendment rights,” Shively said. “I believe that the state is relying on its belief that the media has sufficiently tainted both the juries and judges in these matters to a point where they will get convictions on bad cases. Thankfully, we are seeing that both the judges and juries, while many may disagree with the position of protesters, they are not letting that affect their duty to deliver justice.”

“It’s really good to hear that Morton County justices are administering the law in this saga,” Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney who also faces felony charges incurred during the Dakota Access controversy, said. “Archambault as well as Councilman Dana Yellow Fat led the early stages of the No DAPL resistance. I fully support the adequate and zealous defense of over 800 people criminally charged in this historic battle.”

Iron Eyes, who ran for Congress in North Dakota last year, said the verdict gives him encouragement. No trial date has been set for his case yet. 

A total of 761 people were charged with crimes during the ten-month controversy, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department. The movement drew more than 20,000 people from across the world to Standing Rock, and ran the state a bill in excess of $38 million, bringing in police from five different states, the National Sheriff’s Association, the mercenary outfit TigerSwan, and criticism from the United Nations. 

Dozens of activists’ cases stemming from the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy have been dismissed, with only a few being found guilty. On May 25, three felony and misdemeanor charges related to piloting a drone against Aaron Sean Turgeon, also known as ‘Prolific the Rapper,’ were dismissed after Surrogate Judge Allan L. Schmalenberger, a former North Dakota Supreme Court Justice, reviewed the case. Shively also defended Turgeon, she said. 

“Of course I knew I was not guilty, but proving it in court is an entirely different thing, and that’s what we did,” Turgeon said in a video outside of the Morton County Courthouse. He said friends and activists surrounded him when police attempted to confiscated his drone. Without their support, he would not have had the video evidence he needed to prove his innocence. 

“A lot of times what you’re being shown by police officers is not true, and I knew it, but it’s not about knowing it, it’s about proving it.” 

“The police officers were clearly coached by the State’s Attorney to fabricate evidence contrary to the facts by falsifying affidavits on their reports in support of their preliminary hearings,” cooperating attorney Danny Sheehan said. 

Aaron Sean Turgeon ‘Prolific the Rapper’ (right) – Facebook page

“Aside from the fact that we had a very thorough and fair judge in this case which made a huge difference, a lot of the basis for the success in the case today was the support of the water protectors and our client Sean’s video evidence that exposed the falsehoods in the state’s case,” cooperating attorney Doug Parr from Oklahoma City said. “One of my concerns is that the charges in this case appear to have been fabricated to justify the no-fly zone that was imposed in late October of last year.”

Ten cases were dismissed by the Morton County State’s Attorney office on May 9, and two other cases were also dismissed on March 30, according to the Water Protector Legal Collective. 

“Oil may be flowing under Lake Oahe, but the arc of the moral universe still bends toward justice,” The Water Protector Legal Collective stated in a press release. “Water protectors are winning the fight against the head of the “black snake” in the courts, and this Movement has inspired so many to continue this fight elsewhere. These are still sacred times.”

On May 18, the United States District Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Dakota Access, LLC against Archambault, Yellowfat, and other activists. The pipeline company filed a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) lawsuit, after activists blocked the pipeline’s path in 2016. Dakota Access, LLP claimed it incurred damages of up to $75,000, but Judge Daniel Hovland found that DAPL could not prove its case, thus, the federal court had no jurisdiction.

While Standing Rock activists’ cases are being dismissed, the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline has already sprung two leaks, according to the Williston Herald, the Associated Press, and media outlet Business Insider.

Dana Yellow Fat – Facebook page

On March 3, 84 gallons spilled from a leak where two sections of the pipeline connect in Watford City, and then two days later a smaller leak of 20 gallons occurred in Mercer County, according to Business Insider

Yellow Fat is relieved to have the experience behind him, he said. 

“After 10 months, having my trial continued several times, and feeling the stress of deciding to testify or not, it’s a good feeling to put this behind us. My family has been totally supportive, and I appreciate everything they have done in spite of me having to face these charges. 

“To the hundreds still awaiting their day in court, stay positive, keep the faith, stay in prayer. Have faith in the system.” 

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.

“The Wiindigo Comes in the Winter”

Rumors threaten Standing Rock and activist unity against the Dakota Access Pipeline

By C.S. Hagen 
CANNON BALL – Rumors, like the Wiindigo, are never full. They prey on the weak, devouring their kill, always hungry, gluttonous yet emaciated. 

The legendary, cannibalistic being strikes mainly during lonely winters. According to Algonquian lore it stalks the northern forests around the Great Lakes. Like rumors, the Wiindigo is difficult to kill, as its powers rise with every victim it devours. 

The rumors surrounding Standing Rock’s fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline are not unlike the Wiindigo legends, Winona Laduke, a long time activist said. Laduke is an economist, and two-time vice presidential candidate for Ralph Nader’s Green Party. She is also the executive director for Honor the Earth, a non-profit advocate for indigenous environmental support.

“The winter of the North Country is unforgiving, and here on my own Round Lake, the Winndigo once came and ate a man and his family,” Laduke said. “That man became the Wiindigo. That is the time now, crazy actions occur. A man on my reservation starves his three horses to death, despite many friends. At the Oceti Sakowin Camp, a woman ties her dementia plagued mother onto a chair, and leaves her, without help. It is a time when we do things we regret.” 

No excuses for such strange behaviors, Laduke said, but part of being human is to be weak. 

“In the midst of this there is no question that there is chaos, there is no question that some people are infiltrators and some are profiting off the backs of this on the front line. And who is best served by all this? The answer: North Dakota’s energy empire, the Trump Administration, and, of course, Energy Transfer Partners.”

“Not afraid to look” sculpture overlooking Oceti Sakowin by Charles Rencountre (with Charles Rencountre and LaDonna Allard)- photo provided by Winona Laduke

From the beginning of Standing Rock’s fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, much emphasis has been given to remaining peaceful. Those arrested for civil disobedience such as disobeying police orders or trespassing, are forms of free speech, activists say. Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault encouraged civil disobedience from the beginning, and was himself arrested after trespassing on August 12, 2016. 

While the majority of activists have been peacefully protesting, even while under constant threat from Morton County’s militarized police force armed with pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets, concussion grenades, some have fought back using taunts, razor wire, stones, and fire, according to authorities. Supporters attribute violent actions to agitators and federal infiltrators; the authorities use the violence as propaganda and make more arrests.

“When you are standing up against a billion dollar corporation, this is how they work,” LaDonna Tamakawastewin Allard, who owns land the Sacred Stone Camp is on, said in an interview with The Young Turks. “They go into the communities and spread gossip and rumor. That’s what I am worried about. For me I will stand with anybody who stands with the water.”

Since early August, tens of thousands of people from across the world have travelled to Standing Rock, and a total of 696 arrests have been made. 

Some of the rumors include monies donated to Standing Rock’s fight. Others have used isolated actions by people inside the camps, such as the case of Kathleen Bennett, who allegedly restrained and abused her 82-year-old mother at Oceti Sakowin, as a reflection on the movement and the tribe as a whole. 

“For years, the dearth of infrastructure and poverty of Standing Rock have made it a poster child for what’s messed up in the US,” Laduke said. More than 80 percent of people in Standing Rock live below the poverty level, she said. 

“Every year it seems, people freeze to death on Standing Rock, and frankly no one noticed until now.” 

As of January 25, 2017, more than 300 GoFundMe accounts raised a total of $8,061,614 for activists and the camps. Suspicions have been raised by Morton County Sheriff’s Department on how the monies have been spent. State and county officials have made threats in the past saying those donating funds are supporting terrorist causes. 

Standing Rock issued a statement late December 2016 saying that monies it received have gone toward funding legal fees, camp infrastructure, waste management, and outdoor restrooms. 

Standing Rock supporters point to approximately $6 million donated to the tribe that is unaccountable, and are demanding that all expenditures need to be documented and made public so not to tarnish the movement. 

“The stench of malfeasance doesn’t smell any better just because it emanates from an ally,” activist Joshua Smith, from Iowa, said. “I do have to say they are still on the forefront of the legal battle challenging DAPL in court. Lateral violence is when two different factions within a given movement criticize the other in a manner which creates division and also provides those opposed to the movement reasoning to criticize us.” 

Monies have been used to bail people out, and with nearly 700 arrested, “that’s a lot of cash bail,” Laduke said. “There were drones purchased, each time the police shot down a drone, we purchased another one because someone has to keep an eye from the air. 

“A lot of people had to be fed.” 

Unity

Competing narratives exist now at what remains of the camps at Standing Rock. Archambault has asked activists to leave since shortly after December 4, 2016, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ordered Energy Transfer Partners to halt work on the Dakota Access Pipeline, concurrently ordering an environmental impact statement to be done along parts of the pipeline’s route. 

Some say the Standing Rock Tribal Council sold the activists, or water protectors, out. Others say Archambault is looking out for the safety of his tribe. Either way, Archambault’s tone has changed since the warmer, summer months. The fight is no longer at Standing Rock, but in Washington D.C., he says.

“This pipeline is not going to kill our nation, this pipeline is not going to destroy America,” Archambault said recently on The Rock Report. “This one pipeline where people refuse to leave is not going to be detrimental to our nation.”

Water protectors’ job at Standing Rock is done, he said. The tribe has stopped supporting activists camped near the reservation, along the north side of the Cannon Ball River near to the Missouri River where the Dakota Access Pipeline plans to dig under Lake Oahe. 

“I’m not asking it to end, I’m saying that the fight is not here.” 

On February 2, Archambault posted to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Facebook page, saying that he had met with Governor Doug Burgum, whose stance against the tribe is much different than his predecessor, Jack Dalrymple. 

“There is great contrast to the previous state leaderships, these visits show that he is willing to work for all citizens of North Dakota, including tribal communities. I commend the governor for his efforts and look forward to finding solutions with him.” 

“You are a betrayer of your people,” a netizen said said on the tribe’s Facebook page. “Hang your head low. We all know you sold yourself out for money. May the demise of clean water haunt your conscience.” 

The fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline is just one of many fights across the nation and Canada, Archambault said. The DAPL controversy became high profile for a simple reason. 

“Standing Rock. Water is Life. Taglines. It’s easy. We can have all the water in the world and we’re not creating a better future for our kids. Water is a source of life. It is not life.” 

Allard feels betrayed, she said on her Facebook page. She said that she is not a leader, but began her fight against the pipeline because her son, Philip Levon, is buried near the Dakota Access Pipeline. 

“It has been a hard night. All I can say is we must pray hard. How do we find that unity again? How do we stand together against the Black Snake? We must stand together. I don’t have the answers. All I have is prayer.” 

Allard has been suffering from ill health, and on the day police officers and agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs entered her land at the Sacred Stone Camp, along the south side of Cannon Ball River, she was en route to a hospital with her husband, also in poor health. 

News that agents entered her land on February 2, after she denied them entry, surprised her, she said in an interview with The Young Turks. Allard and family own more than 300 acres on the south side of Cannon Ball River, where her Sacred Stone Camp is still set up. She heard rumors that Archambault authorized the federal incursion onto her lands because he said he also is a land owner there. 

“At no time did Chairman Archambault own any portion of this land,” Allard said. “What are they talking about, the Archambaults own land here? They do not.” Archambault’s wife, Nicole, is Allard’s cousin, who owns land to graze horses nearby, but not on the Sacred Stone Camp.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe disagreed. “There are two tracts of land: Army Corps of Engineers holds title to one, and the Tribe holds majority ownership of the other. Sacred Stone Camp leaders were made aware of the need for an assessment earlier this week and agreed to a site visit.” 

Allard went home and rifled through land leases, of which she personally owns three acres. The rest of the land is owned by family members, and a tribal trust – held in trust by the United States government. 

“The Archambaults hold no trust here. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe holds trust here, that does not mean the Archambaults hold land here.” Without warrants, Archambault had no right to authorize the “raid” into Sacred Stone Camp, she said. 

“The chairman did not become Trump, and Trump still does not understand his position. I am still trying to figure out how to make peace with this. There should have never been the tribe against the water protectors. We should be standing together in a unified front. What we have is gossip and rumor dividing the people. It’s like when the fur traders were here, and the fur traders again started to gossip and rumor to divide the people. And that is where we are again.” 

She sleeps little at night, stays up worrying and praying.

Another rumor circulating around Sacred Stone Camp include a pending threat of forced removal by federal officers.

The fight is growing, Allard said, and it is not only about water or sacred lands any longer. North Dakota politicians have submitted legislation to give state government more control over reservation land and mineral rights, to run over protesters on public roads, to lessen the responsibilities of corporations to report oil spills, and to criminalize ski masks in public places. 

“I will stand, and I will not back down.” 

This summer, Allard plans to start a summer camp for youth to teach history, how to live responsibly, and how to heal. 

“I don’t need any people to come and defend me, I need people to come and defend the water. I also need people to support the tribe hoping the tribe makes better decisions, and that the tribe will stand in a unified fashion with the people.

“I must stand because my son stands with me. I have no choice.” 

Last Child’s Camp 

When attorney Chase Iron Eyes moved with approximately 80 people to a western hill forming Last Child’s Camp, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Morton County condemned the group as rogue. He was arrested along with 76 others, and was released on February 3. 

He was charged with a Class C felony, inciting a riot, and his legal team is looking into the validity of the charge. Iron Eyes came out of the Morton County Correctional Facility looking tired; months at the camps and it’s apparent he has lost weight. 

“It’s no secret that Morton County, that the North Dakota law enforcement, National Guard, North Dakota media, even the governor of North Dakota, going back to Mr. Dalrymple to Burgum, and the North Dakota legislature, are colluding to villainize, dehumanize, and present the narrative that the water protectors are unlawfully camped in the area north of the Cannon Ball River, and that we are violent, that we are unruly, and indeed they are charging me with inciting a riot. But it’s clear to America, I feel, that Donald Trump is inciting a riot.” 

“Last night, a group of campers moved materials onto private land,” the Standing Rock Tribal Council said. “This group’s actions do not represent the tribe nor the original intent of the water protectors.” 

The tribe still leads the fight, but their opposition has widened to include water rights, hunting, land rights, treaty rights, not just for Standing Rock, but for all tribes, the council said. 

“It is this tribe, the Standing Rock Sioux, whose land is most at risk,” Archambault said. “It is also our court case at risk, but in reality, all our treaty rights are at risk. If we want to be treated as nations then we must behave as such. In the past few weeks at camp, I see no reflection of our earlier unity, and without unity we lose.” 

Last Child’s Camp was cleared; its tipis handed over to Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. 

“We will fight these charges,” Iron Eyes said. “We will hold accountable Morton County and all who have brutally violated our rights. This is an SOS. Vets, warriors, and others who can stand with us in peace and dignity to exercise our inherent, treaty, constitutional, and other birthrights. Come stand with us.” 

Veterans, once again, are hearing the call. VeteransRespond, an organizer and advocator of healing to communities impacted by social injustice, is planning to return to Standing Rock. 

“VeteransRespond is in the process of organizing a return mission to Standing Rock at the wishes of LaDonna Brave Bull Allard,” the group’s GoFundMe page said. “All funds will go directly towards a rental van to transport Texas and Colorado veterans to Standing Rock to help with cleanup efforts as well as serve as a de-escalation and medical response force if needed.” 

VeteransStand also created a second GoFundMe account, and plans to return. 

“In the past two weeks the turmoil and uncertainty at Standing Rock has increased significantly,” the group said on its Facebook page. “We have had thousands of volunteers reconfirm their dedication to the cause, and readiness to help. The success of our fundraising campaign will ultimately dictate our overall potential for a boots-on-the-ground presence, but our learnings from the first mission in December have allowed us to create the right infrastructure to move quickly.” 

The time of the Wiindigo creates confusion, difficult to keep eyes on the more important issues of Native American treaty rights and stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline, Laduke said. 

Signs in the snow outside of the Standing Rock camps – photo by C.S. Hagen

“In the time of the Wiindigo, confusion, and fear prey on us all,” Laduke said. “We forget who are the enemies and who are our friends and families. Let us pray for clear minds. I plan to live through the time of the Wiindigo, and when I look back at the time of Standing Rock, I want to remember the unity, the courage, the outpouring of love for our Mother Earth, our Mni Wiconi, and how we faced the enemy.” 

Dakota Access Pipeline – No More Huckleberries

The continuing story in the  fight spearheaded by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against Big Oil to save water and sacred indigenous lands in North Dakota

By C.S. Hagen
BIG CAMP, ND – Centuries before the discovery of oil, a hungry bear lumbered into a forest and began gorging on all the huckleberries it could find, according to ancient Native American legends. The forest animals took notice, and held council, for without huckleberries a vital part of the forest would surely be lost.

After reaching a decision the forest animals timidly approached the bear and warned it to stop before the damage was irreparable; a price had to be paid. The bear needed to give something back for the carnage it created.

“But all I have is my fur and my claws,” the bear said.

“You must give up your eyesight,” the animals said.

The bear agreed, and to this day the tender, versatile fruit has an eye on every berry, and bears have never regained the eyesight they once had.

Told late at night in Big Camp, short hikes from the Camp of the Sacred Stone and Red Warriors Camp outside of Cannon Ball, the legend is the difference between life and death to the largest gathering of Native American tribes in 140 years. Not since the Battle of the Greasy Grass or Custer’s Last Stand, have the Great Sioux Nation’s Seven Council Fires, or the Oceti Sakowin, been united.

Activist weilding a rifle used during the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Custer's Last Stand). When asked to give up the weapon, the activist did without question. - photo by C.S. Hagen

Activist wielding a rifle used during the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Custer’s Last Stand). When asked to give up the weapon, the activist did without question. – photo by C.S. Hagen

In addition, more than 200 tribes, 100 social groups and associations, at times exceeding 5,000 people of all nationalities, are not only protecting water, now they’re protecting land. Smaller camps have been established along rural roads; scouts are tirelessly on the lookout for Dakota Access activity.

On September 3, activists say Dakota Access Pipeline orchestrated a “sneak attack” that desecrated two miles of Native American burial grounds. Allegedly, an Ohio-based dog breeding and training company, known by netizens as Frost Kennels, attempted to ward off the protesters – men, women, and children – with mace and trained attack dogs. Mercenaries, activists called them. Altercations ensued, Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported, but activists say only after security personnel allegedly pushed attack dogs into the crowds. At least six activists, including a young woman bit on the breast and one child who broke out in a rash after being hit in the face with mace, sought medical help, activists said.

Activists forced security personnel to retreat after the attacks ensued. Frost Kennels admitted their personnel were at the Dakota Access Pipeline area on Facebook.

Dakota Access Pipeline private security - online sources

Dakota Access Pipeline private security – online sources

“They provoked everything that happened,” Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said. “We are not violent, but when you have companies provoking, it is hard to keep going. It’s time to stop infringing on indigenous rights.”

Law enforcement watched from a nearby hill, activists said.

“They didn’t try to deescalate either side,” Dale “Happi” Americanhorse Jr. said. “What happened on Saturday, it was hateful.”

The day after the altercation, Standing Rock Sioux tribe asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to grant a temporary restraining order against Dakota Access, which was partially granted by U.S. Judge James Boasberg. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, on whose land the altercation took place, did not oppose the issuance of the restraining order.

“This is a peace and prayer camp, we’re not here to start World War III,” Greg Cournoyer Jr., a councilman for the Yankton Sioux tribe said. The Yankton Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit in federal court on September 8, according to Native News. With Cournoyer stood a fifth generation descendant of Colonel George Armstrong Custer, Whitney Custer, who has Cheyenne blood. From Kansas, she could not stay at the camp long as sixth generation Custers waited for her at home.

Whitney Custer, fifth generation descendant of Colonel George Custer - photo by C.S. Hagen

Whitney Custer, fifth generation descendant of Colonel George Custer – photo by C.S. Hagen

Although 140 years ago the Sioux soundly defeated and killed her cavalier ancestor, Custer felt nothing but acceptance from the Native Americans at Big Camp.

“I have been welcomed with happiness,” Custer said. “They’ve treated me like family, I feel very welcome.”

As soon as she stopped speaking, a mosquito-like buzz filled the air. Everyone looked up and pointed toward a circling drone. Sightings of helicopters and airplanes are commonplace, but activists now face the U.S. military. In preparation for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia decision on an injunction filed by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to stop work along the pipeline, Governor Jack Dalrymple called in the North Dakota National Guard. Boasberg’s long-awaited decision on Friday favored the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the company was legally allowed to continue work.

“It is now clear and obvious the fight needs to be moved from Morton County to a courtroom in Washington, D.C.,” Morton County Commissioner Cody Schulz said.

US Presidential Candidate Jill Stein spray painting "I support this message" on Dakota Access equipment - photo provided by Morton County Sheriff's Department

US Presidential Candidate Dr. Jill Stein spray painting “I approve this message” on Dakota Access equipment – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

Near Cannon Ball, however, local and state law enforcement officials have had their hands full, arresting 68 activists since the protests began, and have issued warrants for presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, and her running mate, Ajamu Baraka.

On Friday, Stein posted on her Twitter account, “Why is an arrest warrant out for me and @ajamubaraka, instead of Big Oil and the state of North Dakota?”

To ease some of law enforcement’s pressures along Highway 1806, on September 8 Dalrymple called in the military to act in a limited capacity, bolstering traffic checks and assisting law enforcement. The road is now open to the public, Archambault said, but the military presence did not disturb nor dismay him.

The day of the attack dogs photograph, activists defending themselves - photo provided by Morton County Sheriff's Department

The day of the attack dogs, activists defending themselves – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

“The National Guard is not going to come here to the camps,” Archambault said. “The governor is trying to alleviate some of the pressures on local law enforcement.”

“Our mission is, and in this situation is the right approach, is to have guardsmen in support of law enforcement, and let law enforcement deals with those who break the law,” Major General Alan Dohrmann of the North Dakota National Guard said during a press conference.

Not long after the news of Standing Rock’s failed petition for an injunction against Dakota Access, President Obama’s Administration and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surprised both sides by issuing a statement that they no longer allowed Dakota Access to work on the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ lands, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.

“Important issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations and their members regarding the Dakota Access pipeline specifically, and pipeline-related decision-making generally, remain. Therefore, the Department of the Army, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Interior will take the following steps.”

No authorization will be given to Dakota Access on land bordering or under Lake Oahe, a distance of 20 miles in all directions, until determinations can be made whether reconsiderations of previous decisions should be made.

“Construction on the pipeline on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe will not go forward at this time.”

Additionally, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has “highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects.” All tribes were invited for government-to-government consultations this upcoming fall, according to the U.S. Department of Justice news release.

“It is now incumbent on all of us to develop a path forward that serves the broadest public interest,” the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stated.

Congressman Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., called the Obama Administration’s move unfair and confusing and that the issue “deserved peaceful resolution that honors rights of lawful commerce,” in his weekly message. Senator Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said the move was painful and disappointing, and offered “no light at the end of the tunnel for North Dakotans.”

In response to the alleged dog attacks, the State of North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board has also began investigating complaints made against the private security company involved, its use of attack dogs, and if the company was authorized to work in North Dakota, counsel for the State of North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board Monte Rogneby said.

Fargo City Commissioner John Strand spent the day after the dog attacks at Big Camp, he said, and attended ritual services performed by Native Americans there. He traveled to the area for personal reasons, and in the capacity of a Native American Commissioner, of which he has been a member for nearly three years.

“I think there have been mistakes made on both sides,” Strand said. “And that’s not necessarily surprising. On the state side we’ve done some things that have exacerbated the situation.”

Strand understands the skepticism many Native Americans have toward state and federal governments, he said.

“Don’t live in the past, or we will jaundice our views, but if we do look at the past, we need to look all the way back. Let’s meet each other, eye to eye, every chance we can. Let’s understand each other every chance we can.”

Spending time at the camps was an experience Strand will never forget, and he encouraged anyone interested to travel to Cannon Ball area to learn about what is happening.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II - photo by C.S. Hagen

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II – photo by C.S. Hagen

Colorful tents, horses, vehicles, and people spanned the plains behind Archambault as he addressed media representatives from national news agencies and talk shows. Flags from more than 180 tribes snapped briskly under the prairie wind. Volunteers chopped firewood, manned kitchens. Loudspeakers announced the arrival of a new tribe supporting the cause. Along the Missouri River’s banks, canoes filled with Native Americans from Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and elsewhere docked.

Thousands, fists raised, cheered.

“There is a spirit awakening,” Archambault said.

The spirits of eagles, which have been seen flying over the camp, or the buffalo, which roam nearby, and even the spirit of thunder bringing rain on September 7, dampening the ground and halting pipeline construction workers, Angela Bibens, the camp volunteer attorney said.

“What they did, is a crime scene,” Bibens said. “Genocidal violence. They knew what they were doing, it was a sneak attack, and this is a profound expression of sovereignty here.”

Activist "Joanne" giving a speech - photo by C.S. Hagen

Activist Joanne Spotted Bear giving a speech – photo by C.S. Hagen

Sovereignty. The legal battles that have gone nearly unnoticed by many for hundreds of years, Archambault said. Too many times federal agencies have violated the U.S. Constitution, Article VI, activist Seven Thunders from Cheyenne River said. The U.S. Constitution article states all treaties made under the authority of the United States are the supreme law of the land, which would include the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 giving indigenous peoples permanent rights to defined territories. The altercation took place on the U.S. Corps of Engineers land, taken from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in the 1940s during dam construction projects.

The “black snake,” as activists call the Dakota Access Pipeline, its Wall Street and government investors, its oil drillers, and pipe layers, have taken too much from the earth, and are not heeding the warnings to give something back, Archambault said.

“Energy Transfer, who has zero human rights policies, made the decision to dig up sacred land,” Achambault said. “But if the judge rules in our favor, it’s ok. If the judge rules in their favor, it’s not the end.” He plans, through the tribe’s law firm Earthjustice, an environmental law organization, to appeal the decision.

Morton Count Sheriff’s Department sees the weeks’ events, including the altercation led by attack dogs, as a serious danger.

“A group of protesters launched a march from their camp located on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land to where construction was taking place on the Dakota Access Pipeline, on private property,” the Morton County Sheriff’s Department stated in a news release. “They stampeded into the construction area with horses, dogs, and vehicles.”

Four security personnel were assaulted; one was take to a Bismarck hospital. Two security K-9s were also treated for injuries.

“This was more like a riot than a protest,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle L. Kirchmeier said in a press release.

“There is a legal analysis that we are squatting,” Bibens said. “But when we are forcibly removed from our lands it’s like cutting off our own umbilical chords.”

“The state is trying to get us to stoop to their level,” Cody Two Bears, a Standing Rock councilman said. “And if we do that, then we are no better than they are.”

Ronald and Eric Day from Washington hailing departing canoes along the Missouri River - photo by C.S. Hagen

Ronald and Eric Day from Washington hailing departing canoes along the Missouri River – photo by C.S. Hagen

Dakota Access LLC has removed equipment from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land, officials said, but not far enough away to satisfy activists. On Tuesday morning, approximately 50 law enforcement officers from Morton County Sheriff’s Department, the North Dakota Highway Patrol, and other law enforcement agencies, arrested 22 activists north of I-94 at exit 20 near Mandan, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Department press release. Twenty activists were charged with criminal trespass and two were found bound to equipment, charged with disorderly conduct, and hindering law enforcement, according to the press release.

Eight more activists were arrested Wednesday, two men were charged with reckless endangerment, a felony, and could face up to give years and or a USD 10,000 fine, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department.

Sough of 1-94 near Mandan where 22 activists were arrested Tuesday, September 13, 2016 - photo provided by Morton County Sheriff's Department

South of 1-94 near Mandan where 22 activists were arrested Tuesday, September 13, 2016 – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

“Drunk Indian is Dead”

Americanhorse, known by friends as Happi, doesn’t see himself as the local hero he has become in online headlines and print media. He’s well spoken, peaceful in presence, commanding a quiet authority with his six-foot tall, 250-pound frame. Like many his age, he doesn’t know his native language, but intends to learn.

On August 31, the 26-year-old Sicangu-Oglala Lakota warrior pushed aside his fears, and leapt onto an excavator, forcing the driver to shut down the engine – in accordance with OSHA regulations. Fortunately for Americanhorse, the driver walked away, saying he got paid whether he worked or not. Wrapping his arms around a part of the machinery, he chained himself with a plastic pipe smothered in tar. For six hours, law enforcement tried hacksaws, crane lifts, pondered how to disassemble the machinery before he was freed.

And then he was arrested.

Dale "Happi" Americanhorse at Shane Balkowitsch studio posing for a wet plate - photo by C.S. Hagen

Dale “Happi” Americanhorse Jr. wearing the same clothes and bandana he wore after chaining himself to Dakota Access machinery. Photo taken at Shane Balkowitsch Studio while he was posing for a wet plate. – photo by C.S. Hagen

Most netizens applauded his bravery. A few made comments to cut off his arms, or use a bone saw.

To Americanhorse, the pending court date is a small price to pay to protect water and land. “My main focus is this fight, and it’s all over the continent, in fact it’s all over the world,” he said. “When we’re done with this fight, and we’re going to win this fight, I am going to go look for allies that came here who have their own problems and I want to be able to sit there with them and fight those fights, whatever it is they’re fighting just in solidarity for them doing the same with me.”

American horse while chained to a Dakota Access excavator - online sources

Americanhorse while chained to a Dakota Access excavator – online sources

Not in seven generations have Native Americans come together in such strength, he said. Old grudges have been cast aside. Daily, tribal leaders stretching from one coast of North America to the other stand to speak before the hundreds, sometimes thousands gathered. One of the most historical moments was when the Crow tribe, one of the Sioux’s oldest enemies, arrived at camp in a show of support.

Historically, the US government has tried to eradicate Native American culture, Carina Miller, a councilwoman from the Warm Springs Tribe in Oregon, said. She heeded the call to rise at 5 a.m.

“Get up. They’re back,” someone in the darkness called out. “Get up. They’re back.”

She jumped into her “pony,” a 2010 Chevy Cobalt, with friends and drove to the site, but company workers could not proceed; the ground was too wet.

Miller grew up on a reservation, the local school district did not allow her to learn her own language, and she feels the government tried to erase her and her tribe.

Activists after taking control of excavation equipment - photo provided by Morton County Sheriff's Department

Activists after taking control of excavation equipment – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department

“They pit us against each other, breaking treaties, trying to wipe us out,” Miller said. “People need to understand history.” Today, her tribe fights Nestle over water bottling rights on Native American land in Oregon, she said. The gathering of so many indigenous nations has brought her hope for her homeland.

“It’s a really strong and powerful presence,” Americanhorse said. “It feels like it is going to be a lot easier for us to work together. If we can establish a way we can work together here, then in the future when another issue comes up, something threatening another indigenous tribe, we can get together.”

The road to becomming involved in the fight to protect water and sacred lands wasn’t easy, but in the end, the decision to give up his old life was. All roads pointed to Sacred Stone Camp. As a child in the public school system in Colorado, Americanhorse was shunned both by white people and other indigenous tribes, like the Utes and the Navajo, he said. He learned to shy away from outsider help, grew up with violence and chaos. Drank on the weekends.

In town, he has to constantly stay on the lookout for out-of-town pickup trucks. Where there are work trucks, man camps cannot be far away in western North Dakota. Where there are man camps, there are the cartels. And where there are cartels, sex trafficking, methamphetamine dealers, not to mention frustrated men with too much money, are in abundance.

“They prey on the indigenous women,” he said. “It’s not talked about, because they’re up here in North Dakota where everyone is supposed to be making all this money, but nobody really cares.”

He said indigenous towns such as Cannon Ball, have monstrous problems with teenage suicide, methamphetamine use, and a desperation that can be known only to the downtrodden.

“It’s weird when it comes to race,” he said. “The race issue for me was a pretty big thing. I thought all white people were racists.”

Americanhorse’s mother was the one who offered a helping hand, slyly roping him into fighting pipelines, he said. She introduced him to horses, and then to the KXL pipeline fight.

“At first I didn’t want to be there, I didn’t want to help. But that was the first step, going to the pipeline and to that fight was my first step in the right direction.”

But after the KXL pipeline project was defeated, he returned home. Went back to his normal jobs, sometimes as an assistant manager at Dominoes, at other times a casino in Colorado.

“I was walking in a world and a reality where I was worried about a certain image of me. I didn’t really think of where things came from or how they were made, and I didn’t think of the environment that much.”

His second step, he said, came when he watched a Sundance – a Native American spiritual ceremony where participants pierce their flesh with roped hooks tied to a tree. They perform ritual dances around the tree until the hooks fall out.

“You cannot bring negative thoughts to a Sundance,” he said. The experience changed his thoughts on his lifestyle, and led him to horses.

“My mother roped me in again,” he said. “I kept meeting people active against pipelines.”

She introduced him to a horse whisperer, not far from the Sacred Stone Camp. There, he learned how to approach a horse, how to groom them, how to saddle a horse, and how to ride. He now owns a two-year-old Blue Roan named Guardian, part Dakota, part Choctaw. It was after learning about horses that he decided to become involved in his second pipeline fight, the Dakota Access Pipeline. What was supposed to be a short visit has become a struggle he will not leave until it is finished.

At first, no more than fifteen people lived at the Sacred Stone Camp. With only USD 3,000 in support, they watched the excavators push aside what was once their tribe’s soil. “We couldn’t do anything at first,” he said. “We didn’t have the numbers.”

American horse simulating oil in his hands at Shane Balkowitsch studios in Bismarck - photo by C.S. Hagen

Americanhorse simulating oil in his hands at Shane Balkowitsch Studio in Bismarck – photo by C.S. Hagen

Sometimes Americanhorse went for two days without sleep. Camp life is hard, especially as their numbers grew quickly through the popularity of social media. Daily, he and others ensure activists have shelter, warmth, food, proper tents, firewood, and clean water. A school for children has been setup, a library as well. Medical crews are on constant standby to help the elderly or the sick. The Dakota prairie is mostly barren of vegetables and trees, so he gathers driftwood for fuel, and depends on donations to survive.

Smaller camps along the so-called front lines have been setup. Before sunrise, September 8, activists wearing bandanas over their faces returned from scouting maneuvers along the pipeline’s planned route. Some activists burned braided sweetgrass and waved the smoke over themselves before missions; for the company was watching them, just as they were watching the company, activists said.

They’re organized, committed, and prepared to be arrested.

Rope stretched across the highway was used to slow traffic. Any fence knocked down was quickly rebuilt. Trash was collected in buckets. Porta-potties, food, and much needed coffee were brought from Big Camp to keep the front-liners as refreshed as possible. During the quieter times, some along the front line nap, or read books. Others warm themselves around a fire sipping hot drinks and discussing recent events. Any time a two-way radio growled to life, they become instantly alert, listening for action.

Despite the hardships of camp life, or perhaps more appropriately because of it, Americanhorse found his calling.

“Being out here made me want to be more involved in this life. I want to bring our culture back to the people, our ways of life in modern day.”

Squash drying by Winona Kasto - photo by C.S. Hagen

Squash drying by Winona Kasto – photo by C.S. Hagen

He has also learned that not all white people are racists. In addition to the thousands of Native Americans, others from all walks of life have begun committing their time, money, and for some, their personal freedoms to protect water, and now indigenous land. “It has been through fighting pipelines that I learned to be more open minded to everything.”

Like all Native Americans, Americanhorse understands oil is important to modern society. He knows that oil also must go from point A to point B, to be refined, and then shipped across the globe. But Bakken crude will never travel under the Missouri River, where Dakota Access plans the pipe to run. More monies and research needs to be poured into alternative forms of research pertaining to solar and wind powers, he said,  instead of bolstering a dangerous addiction to fossil fuels with a pipeline that will one day leak.

“You cannot ignore this many nations coming together,” Americanhorse said. “You can’t see that and challenge it. This billion-dollar industry has never seen anything like this before.” Losing this fight, for Americanhorse, is not an option.

“There are more people involved in this fight than you know, and this pipeline is affecting a lot of people.”

Some of the activists are weekend warriors. Some are drifters, traveling by car, by bus, by hitching rides. Others like Richard Fisher, half African American and half Native American, gave up his 19-dollar-an-hour job in Sisseton, South Dakota to volunteer in the camp’s kitchen.

Richard Fisher, a volunteer cook from South Dakota preparing evening meal - photo by C.S. Hagen

Richard Fisher, a volunteer cook from South Dakota preparing evening meal – photo by C.S. Hagen

“I was born for this,” Fisher said. He stirred a cauldron of chili for the camp’s evening meal. “My dad was a Black Panther and my mother was with AIM.”

One of the camp’s head chefs and a traditional cook, Winona Kasto, is in charge of feeding any hungry mouth that comes her way. “It’s never ending, but it’s not tiring,” she said. “I came here because of the need to feed the people.” Usually, Kasto cooks wojapi, or a berry pudding, prepares dried squash, dried corn, stews, traditional native food, and in her spare time, if she can find any, holds classes for the youth to learn old indigenous recipes.

Americanhorse has given up his old way of life as well and returned to one much older. When there are no more pipelines or other issues to fight, he plans to raise horses, help his mother on her ranch where she owns breeds whose bloodlines can be traced to Sitting Bull’s herd.

Everywhere in the camp people are smiling, introducing themselves. Children play cops and robbers, volleyball, basketball to pass the calmer moments. Native American drummers sing traditional songs from all corners. At night, dozens gather around the fire at the Sacred Circle to pray and dance, a tradition that was once banned inside the United States.

Cooks at Big Camp, Winona Kasto, traditional cook, at right - photo by C.S. Hagen

Cooks at Big Camp, Winona Kasto, traditional cook, at right – photo by C.S. Hagen

“The drunk Indian is dead,” Americanhorse said. “There are a lot more people going in the cultural ways. I see the healing. I look forward to seeing other cultures come up and bring their structures up, and that way witness other cultural presences from every other nation.”

Americanhorse’s story is endemic among many Native Americans gathered outside of Cannon Ball. Far too many appear to come from troubled childhoods, addictions, and are searching for identity. Like confessions, their stories are told nightly around the Sacred Fire. They are returning to their roots and ancestral traditions, and discovering for the first time a peace they’ve never known before, while at the same time learning to accept all cultures.

One canoe rower spoke to a crowd of onlookers before pulling into the Missouri River.

“When you pull an oar you dig deep. It hurts, but it is supposed to.” The repetitive movement, not unlike meditation and prayer, helped him heal from a troubled childhood, he said.

“This is a very historical event, foretold by our elders that the Seventh Generation would rise up,” Layha Spoonhunter, an eastern Shoshone said. “We are seeing that here, and in many ways, we’ve already won. We’re going to win with the prayers and the songs that have been offered here, that is our strength and that will take us to victory.”

 

Oil Profiteers

Seventeen worldwide banks and financial institutions are backing Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access LLP, according to the Food and Water Watch. The banks include: Citibank, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo, Credit Suisse, DNB Capital, Royal Bank of Canada, US Bank, BNP Paribus, Royal Bank of Scotland, TD Securities, ABN AMRO, Philadelphia’s DNB First Bank, ICBC London, SMBC Nico Securities, and Societe Generale, and they’ve extended a USD 3.75 billion credit line. More than thirty other banks are provided general financing for Sunoco Logistics Partners LP and Energy Transfer Partners.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe flag with ever-present helicopter in distance - photo by C.S. Hagen

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe flag with ever-present helicopter in distance – photo by C.S. Hagen

Dakota Access LLC is a joint venture between Phillips 66 and Energy Transfer Partners LP, and recently Sunoco Logistics Partners LP, Enbridge, and Marathon Oil purchased up to 37 percent stake in the pipeline.

“I think it is important to see the forces behind this particular pipeline as the same forces behind numerous other pipelines across the country, both to support fracking for tight oil as well as fracking for shell gas all toward maximizing production of oil and gas, when the science is clear we need to maximize what we keep in the ground,” Hugh MacMillan, a senior researcher for Food and Water Watch said.

“If you ask Morgan Stanley, they said a year ago that the oil producers are getting into ‘prison shape,’ and without irony,” MacMillan said the company reported in 2015. “So, you know, this is a long-term, these are long-term investments from the banks. They fully expect the United States to maximize its production of oil and gas through widespread fracking.”

Investors do not only include banks. Politicians are also involved.

Senator John Hoeven, R-N.D., a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has invested in companies involved in the Bakken oil patch, including Energy Transfer Partners and the San Antonio-based independent petroleum refining company Valero Energy Corporation, both for up to USD 250,000, and not less than USD 100,001, according to the United States Senate. Hoeven has also invested up to USD 100,000 in Kinder Morgan Inc., an energy infrastructure company, and up to USD 1,000 in Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan. Additionally, investments of up to USD 250,000 were made with Union Pacific Corp., a crude rail transporter, and up to USD 250,000 in CSX Corp, which is a North Dakota crude rail carrier, according to the U.S. Senate. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested by Hoeven into oil wells owned by Whiting Petroleum Corporation and ExxonMobil, and both companies have donated to Hoeven’s 2016 senate campaign, according to Open Secrets.org, Center for Responsive Politics.

Hoeven, who was known for his support of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and supports building the Dakota Access Pipeline, also has personally invested in 68 different oil-producing wells in North Dakota listed under the 2012-company Mainstream Investors, LLC, according to the United States Senate financial disclosure form. Continental Resources, Inc., the company which is ran by its CEO, Harold Hamm, a campaign energy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, owns 17 of the wells.

Additionally, in 2016, Continental Resources, Inc. contributed USD 10,200 to Hoeven’s campaign, and since 2010 Hamm with his former wife Sue contributed USD 8,000 to Hoeven, according to Oil Change International’s Dirty Energy Money database. ExxonMobil contributed USD 10,000, and Whiting Petroleum Corporation has contributed USD 2,750 to Hoeven’s 2016 senate campaign.

“It is certainly a confluence of interests,” MacMillan said. “They would argue it is not a conflict of interest because it’s all in the public interest. He’s obviously up there talking about what a wonderful thing all this fracking is in North Dakota. Has an attitude of ‘get off my back, we’re doing a good job,’ but when coupled with investing in these wells, it doesn’t look so good.”

Hoeven said he sold his shares in Energy Transfer in 2015, but owns other shares in other energy companies. He does not see his investments as a conflict of interest and has “always been a strong supporter of energy development in our state and across the country.

“We need to build infrastructure to move energy safely and efficiently and modern pipelines continue to be the safest way to move oil and gas around the country,” Hoeven said.

North Dakota’s “wild west” oil boom kept the state afloat during recent economic downturns, but the real national and state costs are only beginning to show, researchers report.

Native American activist, or water protector, during rally - photo by C.S. Hagen

Native American activist, or water protector, during rally – photo by C.S. Hagen

An April 27, 2016 study released by Duke University, funded by the National Science Foundation, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and published in the Environmental Science & Technology magazine shows that accidental wastewater spills from “unconventional oil production in North Dakota have caused widespread water and soil contamination.” More than 9,700 wells have been drilled in the Bakken region of North Dakota in the past decade, which led to more than 3,900 brine spills, primarily from faulty pipes, the report states.

The water studied in some spill sites was unsafe to drink, the study reported.

High levels of ammonium, selenium, lead, and salts have been found in the soil; streams have been polluted by wastewater, which contain contaminants, according to the study. Soil along spill sites has also been contaminated with radium, a radioactive element.

“Many smaller spills have also occurred on tribal lands, and as far as we know, no one is monitoring them,” Avner Vengosh, a researcher and a professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Duke University said. “People who live on the reservations are being left to wonder how it might affect their land, water, health and way of life.”

The spills are primarily coming from pipelines in the Bakken area, he said. The spill areas have not affected reservoirs for human drinking water, but some are close. Everyone shudders when news of an oil spill breaks headlines; brine spills are far more frightening, he said.

“Nature cannot heal from inorganic brine spills,” Vengosh said. “The contaminants are going to stay. You can dilute and over time this will help, but the actual concentration will remain.”

In other words, areas where the brine spills have occurred in the Bakken region must be completely removed and disposed of. Radiation, which could spread by wild animals, is another concern that is difficult to control.

“And the more wells you drill, the more spill you have,” Vengosh said.

In 2014, one of North Dakota’s largest spills sent approximately one million gallons of brine into Bear Den Bay on the Fort Berthold Reservation, a quarter mile upstream from a drinking water intake on Lake Sakakawea, according to the report.

More recently in 2015, CSX Corp train carrying hazardous materials derailed in Kentucky, and in 2014 a CSX Corp train hauling North Dakota crude derailed, bursting into flames in West Virginia, spilling more than 800 barrels into the James River.

Transporting crude oil by rail or by truck is in decline, analysts say, primarily due to costs. Pipelines are cheaper. Since 2010, however, 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.

Researchers say more money and attention needs to focus on alternative energy sources, and not bolstering old methods for burning fossil fuels.

“The solutions are there, not just for producing renewable energy, but for conservation and efficiency,” MacMillan said. “It’s just a matter of building it out. We don’t have the commitments from state and federal governments or private sectors to sink the money to make that happen.”

Native American canoe rowing toward Camp of the Sacred Rock on Missouri River - photo by C.S. Hagen

Native American canoe rowing toward Camp of the Sacred Rock on Missouri River – photo by C.S. Hagen

The main force behind the Dakota Access Pipeline is the founder of Energy Transfer Partners, Kelcy Warren, worth USD 7.3 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Warren’s fortunes have come from transporting crude oil others pull from underground, according to Bloomberg. His mansion, a 23,000-square-foot home on 10 acres of land in north Dallas features 13 bathrooms, a chip-and-putt green, a pole-vault pit, a four-lane bowling alley, and a 200-seat theater. On his ranch near Austin, he raises giraffes, javelinas, and Asian oxen. He also ranches in eastern Texas and southwest Colorado, has a house on Lake Tahoe, and an island off the coast of Honduras.

“To be where we are today, it’s like a dream,” Warren said in the May 18, 2015 Bloomberg article. “I swear to God, I almost think we did it without anybody noticing.”

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 if it is finished third quarter 2016, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The upside-down flag symbolizes distress, yet some activists are calling for the flag to be turned upright. - photo by C.S. Hagen

The upside-down flag symbolizes distress, yet some activists are calling for the flag to be turned upright. – 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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