The American frontier saw some of its most controversial moments in the greater Dakota region. Custer’s last stand, the massacre at Wounded Knee, and now a clash over the building of a pipeline through tribal territory. Perhaps no people in American history have suffered more than the Native Americans. Like any other still existing tribe in this country, the Sioux have managed to survive despite almost everything being taken from them. They have lost much of their culture, their land, and now their water. The current conflict involving the Sioux nation of the Dakota region began two years ago when the Dakota Access oil company proposed to build a pipeline. The line will stretch over 1,100 miles from North Dakota down to central Illinois. It also happens to run through Sioux burial grounds as well as crossing their only viable water source, the Missouri river.
While the proposed pipeline will run over lands that are not technically part of the Sioux reservation, they are in fact ancestral lands. The Dakota Access oil company submitted plans to the federal government which were approved. However, the developers purposefully omitted the tribal location on the maps that were submitted, which is a major violation of the US environmental justice policies. Federal law dictates that tribal consent to build on these lands be given. The Sioux have not consented, and yet the construction was still approved. Imagine if an oil company planned to build through Arlington cemetery or the Alamo, and still the government approved said construction. Naturally the Sioux object to their own cemetery being desecrated.
But this isn’t merely a matter of sacred ground being industrialized. The people living on the reservation are terrified that oil leakage will contaminate their only water source. On August 15th, the Standing Rock Sioux nation chairman, Dave Archambault II, gave a press statement where he noted that the United States will be using the Army to build through Sioux land and that the operation poses serious danger to the public. “It will not just be 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 tributary left in the United States. We have been told by the officials that there will be breaches in the pipeline, but they claim that these situations are generally never very bad. This is unacceptable.”
The tribe’s fears are well founded. According to the Michael Brune, the Executive Director of the environmentalist organization called the Sierra Club, “It's not a question if a pipeline will malfunction, but rather a question of when”.
Not only have the Sioux NOT consented to the construction, but they’ve formally complained to the United States Government. The tribe went through every legal channel available to them. They spoke with every top official in Washington to no avail.
The most recent conflict happened on August 12th in North Dakota when Over 250 protesters challenged by the Police stood in opposition of the Dakota Access workers clearing sacred land. Young native men in war paint emulating the braves of their tribe’s history made quite a scene. The braves, while making war cries, rode on horseback right up the police. At least 28 people have been arrested including Dave Archambault II himself.
So, the injustice going on in Dakota can be broken down into two parts. First, the developers never mentioned in their drafts that their pipeline would jeopardize the safety and health of thousands of lives. Second, as if being forced to live in a resource deprived reservation wasn’t enough, they have just had the right to honor their dead loved ones taken away. What’s happening in in North Dakota is nothing short of a massive mistreatment of all that’s left of our country's forgotten minority.
