Everything you need to know about the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy
Macy Ricketts
Despite months of protest, construction, and legislation, the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline continues to make headlines. The $3.8 billion, 1,200-mile long underground pipeline is being built to deliver crude oil from the Bakken to Patoka, Illinois. Originally slated to cross underneath the Missouri River near Bismarck, North Dakota, the petroleum company Energy Transfer Partners rewrote blueprints for the pipeline to instead cross the Missouri near the Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservation. The pipeline, if completed, would have the potential to transport 470,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
Despite months of protest, construction, and legislation, the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline continues to make headlines. The $3.8 billion, 1,200-mile long underground pipeline is being built to deliver crude oil from the Bakken to Patoka, Illinois. Originally slated to cross underneath the Missouri River near Bismarck, North Dakota, the petroleum company Energy Transfer Partners rewrote blueprints for the pipeline to instead cross the Missouri near the Standing Rock Sioux Indian reservation. The pipeline, if completed, would have the potential to transport 470,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
While the pipeline does not enter the reservation itself, the Standing Rock Sioux oppose the pipeline’s construction on the grounds that it threatens their public health and welfare, water supply and cultural resources. One of the Sioux’s slogans during recent protests has been “Water is Life,” claiming that the pipeline, if it were to break, would contaminate the tribe’s water source—the Missouri River. Over the past few months, a protest encampment of over 1,000 people has sprung up near the pipeline construction site. Now called the Sacred Stone Camp, the protest camp has been the site of numerous antagonistic face offs between protesters and the petroleum company.
In July, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe filed a lawsuit in federal court asking for a preliminary injunction stopping construction of the pipeline. The tribe cited the pipeline, which is slated to pass 90 feet under the Missouri River one half mile upstream of the Standing Rock reservation boundary, poses a threat to water sources and culturally significant lands, should a spill occur. Oil pipelines, historically, are a much safer way to transport crude oil as compared to train or truck transport, but when a pipeline ruptures, much more damage is done. In fact, the pipeline’s original location was moved south, adjacent to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation over concerns that an oil spill in Bismarck would wreck the state capital’s drinking water.
Although the Obama administration called for the company to voluntarily pause work for 20 miles on either side of Lake Oahe, construction in all other areas has continued, as the majority of work being done is on private land.
The majority of protesting has been peaceful, with Native Americans from around the country coming together to pray and participate in traditional rituals. However, some arrests were made when a group of protestors broke through a fence to engage with construction workers digging the pipeline, trespassing on private property and creating risk around the heavy machinery. In addition, controversy arose when protesters were caught trespassing on local private ranch land.
The controversy has also come to represent a battleground over larger cultural and philosophical issues. In an article for NPR, one protester said, “It’s about our rights as native people to this land. It’s about our rights to worship. It’s about our rights to be able to call a place home, and it’s our rights to water.”
In July, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe filed a lawsuit in federal court asking for a preliminary injunction stopping construction of the pipeline. The tribe cited the pipeline, which is slated to pass 90 feet under the Missouri River one half mile upstream of the Standing Rock reservation boundary, poses a threat to water sources and culturally significant lands, should a spill occur. Oil pipelines, historically, are a much safer way to transport crude oil as compared to train or truck transport, but when a pipeline ruptures, much more damage is done. In fact, the pipeline’s original location was moved south, adjacent to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation over concerns that an oil spill in Bismarck would wreck the state capital’s drinking water.
Although the Obama administration called for the company to voluntarily pause work for 20 miles on either side of Lake Oahe, construction in all other areas has continued, as the majority of work being done is on private land.
The majority of protesting has been peaceful, with Native Americans from around the country coming together to pray and participate in traditional rituals. However, some arrests were made when a group of protestors broke through a fence to engage with construction workers digging the pipeline, trespassing on private property and creating risk around the heavy machinery. In addition, controversy arose when protesters were caught trespassing on local private ranch land.
The controversy has also come to represent a battleground over larger cultural and philosophical issues. In an article for NPR, one protester said, “It’s about our rights as native people to this land. It’s about our rights to worship. It’s about our rights to be able to call a place home, and it’s our rights to water.”