CANNON BALL, N.D. – As opponents of the Dakota Access (aka Bakken) Pipeline traveled to the U.S. capital for a judge’s Aug. 24 decision on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s petition to bar construction of the 1,172-mile project, support of the tribe’s position skyrocketed.
Delegations from near and far poured into the Red Warrior Camp and Sacred Stone Spirit Camp in Cannon Ball, to take part in prayer ceremonies and direct actions aimed at preventing pipeline companies from building the oil transport route across the Missouri River.
The North Dakota Transportation Department closed Highway 1806 and set up a control point on Highway 6, alleging heavy pedestrian and other traffic related to the resistance.
North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple declared a state of emergency to requisition public money for law enforcement to protect the pipeline companies from the activists after a federal court approved Dakota Access LLC’s request for a temporary restraining order against Standing Rock Tribal Chair David Archambault II and activists.
The companies, Houston-based Energy Transfer Partners, Phillips 66, and Enbridge Inc., have obtained most of the permits to begin building the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, across the Great Plains, the Missouri River, its tributaries, and wetlands in its watershed.
The route would carry oil from Canada and the Bakken Formation centered at the Mandan Hidatsa & Arikara Nation in North Dakota. After passing through South Dakota and Iowa, the DAPL would continue to Illinois, where it would transfer its load to another nearly completed line carrying the hazardous material to the Gulf of Mexico refineries and export facilities in Texas.
Representatives of all the Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation were together in unity at the spirit camps on Aug. 20, when estimates are that at least 4,000 pipeline resisters participated in the resistance here.
They gathered near the proposed site of the DAPL river crossing, a half-mile from the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation, to form a flotilla of watercraft on the Cannon Ball River at its entrance to the Missouri’s Oahe Reservoir and raise awareness about the project’s threat to water supplies.
READ MORE at Native Sun News
Copyright permission Native Sun News
