Protests against Dakota Access Pipeline heighten

The construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline will destroy religious sites of Native Americans.

Isabelle Kozubowski, Staff Writer|November 29, 2016

When the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) was approved by the Army Corps of Engineers in July of 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Native American Tribe immediately fired back with a lawsuit.  The Tribe argued that if the 1,172 mile long pipeline were to break, the discharge would negatively harm the surrounding environment and could potentially contaminate drinking water for thousands of people in the four states it will cross.  The pipeline would also be built over land that is currently held by the Standing Rock Tribe and is used as a sacred burial ground and religious site.  The construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline would do more harm than good, leaving Native Americans without a place to grieve or worship, all in the name of domestic oil.

According to Energy Transfer Partners, the company that is facilitating and maintaining the construction of DAPL, the pipeline would better the economy by creating 8,000-12,000 local jobs and decrease the United States’ extreme dependency on oil from places like Saudi Arabia and Russia.  While these statements sound promising, they will be coming at the expense of the Standing Rock Tribe, the group that currently has burial and prayer sites in the way of the construction path.

David Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, told CNN, “Whenever there’s a benefit, whether it’s energy independence … whether it’s economic development, tribes pay the cost.  And what we see now are tribes from all over sharing the same concern that we have, saying, ‘It’s enough now. Stop doing this to indigenous people. Stop doing this to our indigenous lands.’ ”  Thousands of people across the nation, from presidential candidates Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders to actor Mark Ruffalo, have agreed with Archambault that the pipeline should never be constructed and have been showing their support by tweeting with the hashtag #NoDAPL.

In South Dakota, protests against the construction of DAPL have been going on for months, and they are only getting worse.  While these demonstrations are generally peaceful, they have led to the use of pepper spray and other forms of police force against civilians.  Protests have led to the arrests of at least 141 people, including prominent actress and self-proclaimed environmentalist, Shailene Woodley.

Both Energy Transfer Partners and the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now ensure that the pipeline will be among the safest in the world, but Archambault has told CNN that Americans should find other ways to produce cleaner and safer energy instead of trampling over ancient religious sites to find cheaper oil within our own continent.[/pullquote] The decision on this enormous pipeline is an urgent matter that every American-whether directly affected by DAPL or not-should be concerned with in regards to the environmental and emotional consequences that the construction, or rather destruction, entails.