Stand with Standing Rock: Rally in Asheville focuses on Dakota Access Pipeline

A tribe at the center of the fight over the Dakota Access oil pipeline vows legal action after Trump administration maneuvers over final construction hurdle. A spokesperson for Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, said in a statement that construction continued immediately after the Army granted the final easement to complete the project on Tuesday.

The project had been put on hold under the administration of former Democratic President Barack Obama, but new President Donald Trump, a Republican, helped put it back on track.

Some members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been at the center of the debate for almost a year, urged “emergency actions” via social media.

Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline, who had camped for months on the banks of the Missouri River – in sometimes extreme conditions – celebrated the news December 5 with victory dances and drum circles that lasted into the night.

Council members said the church pledges to “continue to support the action and leadership of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation as the salt and light of the nation in its unwavering support of the sacredness of water, land, and other resources and reminding us all of the sacred calling to faithfulness”.

On February 8, several hundred sober but determined environmental justice activists joined with Native American leaders from Standing Rock, North Dakota, in Washington, D.C., to protest the approval to build the final section of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The project will deliver almost 500,000 barrels of Bakken oil per day to IL from North Dakota.

A veterans group opposed to construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline said it will “redeploy” volunteers to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation due to increased “turmoil and uncertainty”.

Protesters aiming to stop the pipeline for fear of water contamination and destruction of sacred ground have been in the camp since August.

At a North Dakota encampment that has been the focus of the pipeline battle for months, the mood was tense, with a few dozen people milling about on a frigid morning and refusing to talk about their plans. While one media report quoted a police officer saying, “As bad as it sounds, we’re looking for people that may have died and could be wrapped up in a canvas or a tarp or tent”, Wood and Braun both said they know of no fatalities.

Following the start of construction underneath Lake Oahe, the pipeline could be operational in just 60 to 80 days, the Washington Post reported. Wednesday’s easement from the Corps allows work to continue, including drilling underneath the Missouri River, bypassing an environmental review of the project.

“We do try to look at every case individually”, he said. Since it’s unlikely that oil companies will just quit drilling, the oil that is produced will have to be transported somehow.

Standing Rock Sioux, the tribe opposing the multi-state pipeline, is seeking a last ditch effort to block the $3.8 billion line.