Pipeline company seeks federal court OK to proceed with plan

Truthdig’s Donald Kaufman, who was in North Dakota at the time of this event, corroborated the report.

Following protests by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters, the Obama administration halted construction on the pipeline in September to review the permits for part of the pipeline that passes under Lake Oahe, a sacred site for the tribe.

“If this pipeline breaks, that’s going to cause, it’s going to have a frightful outcome”, said Olsen.

About 50 people protested in Stevens Point Tuesday night over the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Joan Ellefson, a Standing Rock Sioux Tribe member who lives in Billings, said the media continues to disregard the situation with a lack of coverage.

“If you’re human and you drink water and you care how other human beings are being treated, then you belong here and we’re looking for you and we need you to help”, Jackson said.

Meanwhile, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) – the owner of the pipeline – and its subsidiary, Sunoco Logistics Partners, who have filed petition in the United States district court in Washington, seeking to “end the Administration’s political interference in the Dakota Access Pipeline review process”, has said the project is legal and need no further government approvals. The Standing Rock Sioux believes the 1,200-mile pipeline that’s to carry North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to IL could harm drinking water.

Haws said he looks at the Pipeline from a unique perspective.

History here, just like the river itself, runs deep.

Somehow, through all of this, nearly all of the protestors remained peaceful, calling out to each other “Stand in your prayer”, and holding their ground.

“While the tribes have some serious concerns about this route, it does not cross tribal land”.

But over generations, that land was slowly stripped away.

The 1,200-mile pipeline from North Dakota to IL is largely complete outside of the river crossing. But in Yakima, Sierman said she chose Wells Fargo because it’s one of the banks funding the
$3.7 billion pipeline.

An early draft for the pipeline had it pass north of Bismarck, a city of 67,000. Activists were also calling for demonstrations at Army Corps of Engineers offices and the offices of the banks financing the pipeline construction.

Standing Rock is the reservation straddling the border between North Dakota and South Dakota where the movement started.

Construction of the behemoth 1,172-mile pipeline is about 85 percent complete, Phillips 66, one of the pipeline’s investors, said last week. Further review was needed in consultation with the tribe, the federal agency said.

“I think it’s far safer to put it 92 feet below the river which is what this pipeline will be”, she said.

“We have a chance, as a nation and as a world, to learn about what actually happened at this founding place we all have a privilege to call home”, Inglish said.