Tag Archives: pipeline protests

At Dakota pipeline protest, activists gird for fight ahead

Veterans gathering for Pipeline protest

By Ernest Scheyder and Terray Sylvester

CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) – Thousands of protesters in North Dakota celebrated the federal government’s ruling against a controversial pipeline but girded for a protracted struggle as President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team said on Monday it supports the project and would review it after he takes office.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault said in an interview with Reuters on Monday that he hopes to speak with Trump about the Dakota Access Pipeline.

He said non-Sioux protesters could go home because no action was likely until late January after Trump takes office.

“Nothing will happen this winter,” Archambault said. “The current administration did the right thing and we need to educate the incoming administration and help them understand the right decision was made.”

The company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, said late on Sunday that it had no plans to reroute the line, and expected to complete the project.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Sunday it rejected an application for the pipeline to tunnel under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River.

Native Americans and activists protesting the project have argued that the 1,172-mile (1,885-km) Dakota Access Pipeline would damage sacred lands and could contaminate the tribe’s water source.

Late on Sunday, Energy Transfer Partners said in a joint statement with its partner Sunoco Logistics Partners that it does not intend to reroute the line and called the Obama administration’s decision a “political action.”

Protesters at the Oceti Sakowin camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, were upbeat after the Army Corps of Engineers announcement but expressed trepidation that the celebration would be short-lived.

“This is a temporary celebration. I think this is just a rest,” Charlotte Bad Cob, 30, of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, said on Sunday. “With a new government it could turn and we could be at it again.”

Hundreds of U.S. veterans have joined the protesters. Several veterans at the camp told Reuters they thought Sunday’s decision was a tactic to get protesters to leave. They said they had no plans to leave because they anticipate heated opposition from Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and the incoming administration.

The pipeline is complete except for a 1-mile (1.61 km)segment that was to run under Lake Oahe, which required permission from federal authorities.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it would analyze possible alternate routes, but any other route is likely to cross the Missouri River.

Tom Goldtooth, a member of the Lakota people from Minnesota and co-founder of Indigenous Environmental Network, said he expected Trump to try to reverse the decision.

“I think we’re going to be in this for the long haul. That’s what my fear is,” he said.

The chief executive of ETP, Kelcy Warren, donated to Trump’s campaign, while the president-elect has investments in ETP and Phillips 66, another partner in the project.

As of Trump’s mid-2016 financial disclosure form, his stake in ETP was between $15,000 and $50,000, down from between $500,000 and $1 million in mid-2015. He had between $100,000 and $250,000 in shares of Phillips, according to federal forms.

(Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Alan Crosby)

Pipeline fight hangs over Tribal Nations Conference in Washington

U.S. President Obama holds a baby as he poses with children at Cannon Ball Flag Day Celebration in Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will convene his eighth and final Tribal Nations Conference on Monday and Tuesday, assembling leaders of more than 560 Native American tribes to discuss the environment and a range of other issues, even as one of the largest Native American protests in decades continues in North Dakota.

Thousands of Native Americans, along with environmentalists, are encamped on the North Dakota prairie to demonstrate against a $3.7 billion oil pipeline they say threatens the water supply and sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux.

Tribal leaders will be eager to hear at the conference from Obama. It was not clear if he would directly address the 1,100-mile (1,886-km) Dakota Access pipeline, being developed by Energy Transfer Partners LP. He is scheduled to speak at the conference near the White House on Monday afternoon.

He has not publicly commented on the pipeline since the Justice Department, Interior Department and the U.S. Army made a surprise move on Sept. 9 to temporarily block construction of the pipeline. At that time, the administration called for “a serious discussion” about how the tribes are consulted by the government in decisions on major infrastructure projects.

The uproar over the Dakota Access pipeline has sparked a resurgence in Native American activism.

After the conference, the Army, Interior and Justice will hold a listening session on the shortcomings of the present consultation process on Oct. 11 and formal tribal discussions in six regions of the country from Oct. 25 through Nov. 21.

The deadline for written input will be Nov. 30, the agencies announced.

On Thursday, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault told a Democratic House of Representatives panel there was no “meaningful consultation” before permits were issued to bring the pipeline through his tribe’s territory.

Archambault is scheduled to speak on Monday evening after the conference at a rally of pipeline opponents.

Obama, who will leave office in January, before he goes likely wants to fix the flawed consultation system and improve relations between the federal government and Native Americans.

“This year’s conference will continue to build upon the president’s commitment to strengthen the government-to-government relationship with Indian Country and to improve the lives of American Indians and Alaska Natives,” said a White House advisory on the summit.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, who chairs the White House Council on Native American Affairs, will also participate in tribal-led discussions on environment, infrastructure, economic development, health care and education.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Matthew Lewis)

Protesters slam North Dakota pipeline but company ‘committed’

Protesters demonstrate against the Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, in Los Angeles

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Holding signs and banners and chanting “Oil Kills,” protesters in Atlanta and other U.S. cities on Tuesday shouted support for Native American activists trying to stop construction of a North Dakota pipeline they say will desecrate sacred land and pollute water.

The protests against the Dakota Access pipeline have drawn international attention, sparking a renewal of Native American activism and prompting the U.S. government to block its construction on federal land, even as the company building the line expressed its commitment to the project on Tuesday.

“We were all moved by the spirit to be here,” said Linda James Thomas, 59, who attended the Atlanta rally in support of the Georgia State Tribe of the Cherokee.

When fully connected to existing lines, the 1,100-mile (1,770 km), $3.7 billion pipeline would be the first to carry crude oil from the Bakken shale directly to the U.S. Gulf.

Protests were scheduled throughout the day in Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and numerous other cities. Previous demonstrations have drawn celebrities including actresses Shailene Woodley and Susan Sarandon, and on Tuesday U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, a former Democratic U.S. presidential candidate, spoke at a rally in the nation’s capital.

“We cannot allow our drinking water to be poisoned so that a handful of fossil fuel companies can make even more in profits,” Sanders, flanked by activists in tribal dress and business suits, told the cheering crowd in Washington, D.C.

Protesters demonstrate against the Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, in Los Angeles

Protesters demonstrate against the Energy Transfer Partners’ Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, in Los Angeles, California, September 12, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

In Ohio, about 100 people gathered at a Cleveland intersection, some clutching bunches of sage and beating drums.

Tracey Hill, 46, a Cleveland resident who is one-eighth Cherokee, said she went last week to protest at the site of the pipeline project in North Dakota. “People are sick of being run roughshod over by corporations,” Hill said.

Activists took to social media to dub Tuesday’s rallies a national “Day of Action” against the pipeline. Many used the hashtag #NoDAPL to show their opposition.

Outside the United States, activists said on social media they planned protests in countries including Britain, Spain, South Korea and New Zealand.

Last week, the Obama administration, responding to the issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux, whose land runs about a half-mile south of the pipeline’s route, said it would temporarily halt construction on federal land. Acting moments after a federal judge denied the tribe’s request for a halt to construction, the administration asked the company building it to refrain from construction on private land as well.

On Tuesday, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, whose Dakota Access subsidiary is building the pipeline, said in a letter to employees it was committed to the project.

The letter did not address the federal request for a temporary halt of construction. But company officials said they would meet with government administrators.

“We are committed to completing construction and safely operating the Dakota Access Pipeline within the confines of the law,” Kelcy Warren, Energy Transfer Partners’ chairman and chief executive officer, said in the letter.

He dismissed as “unfounded” worries that oil would contaminate water in the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers, and said the pipeline would address safety concerns connected with vehicle transport of oil.

“We have designed the state-of-the-art Dakota Access pipeline as a safer and more efficient method of transporting crude oil than the alternatives being used today, namely rail and truck,” he said.

In 2013, a runaway oil train in Canada crashed, killing 47 people, and in June 2016 a train carrying crude oil derailed and burst into flames in Oregon.

In coming weeks, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will review its initial decision to permit the pipeline and decide whether it correctly followed federal environmental law in granting permits.

Later this fall, the federal government will meet with Native American leaders to decide whether to reform its process for building infrastructure projects that will affect tribal lands.

In North Dakota, protesters have vowed to remain until the project is halted.

(Additional reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland, Catherine Ngai in New York, Valerie Volcovici and Ruthy Munoz in Washington, and Olga Grigoryants in Los Angeles)