Feds considers new route, but water protectors aren’t packing up — DAPL Dispatch

North Dakota Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer described the move as a “chilling signal to others who want to build infrastructure”. The segment of pipeline is the last major sticking point for the four-state, NZ$5.3 billion project.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced December 4 that it will not be granting the easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe. Her full decision doesn’t rule out that it could cross under the reservoir or north of Bismarck.

On Monday, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II made a statement that it was time for those supporters to leave the camps and go home; on Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of campers left. During this period of deescalated conflict, we will remain watchful of Energy Transfer Partners and the Army Corps of Engineers’ environmental impact study and fully expect to challenge any action the Trump administration aims to take in approving the final phase of DAPL construction.

Jan Hasselman, a lawyer for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said that the pipeline company lacked a “strong argument” and that the filing was a “distraction”.

Today (Monday) is the day the federal government has ordered those camping at the main encampment, which is on Corps land, to leave.

As the news spread Sunday, cheers and cheers and chants of “mni wichoni” – “water is life” in Lakota Sioux – broke out among the protesters. There are – there is still a contingent that is staying that say, we are committed to being here until we have an absolute guarantee that this pipeline will not go through.

“The whole world is watching”, Allard added. I can’t think of another occasion that saw so many men and women of our Armed Forces make the choice, sans any order, to deploy themselves and protect the American People. Woodson, an Army veteran who served in the first Iraq War, said he views the goal of the burgeoning veteran protest movement in America as being able to “stand up to the elites and the 1 percent”.

Law enforcement tactics, particularly the use of water cannons, against the protesters had been considered extreme by some. “The thing I hear is that the campers are going nowhere [either]”.

Although Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II has encouraged water protectors to head home for the winter after the win, many have made a decision to stay at the resistance camps, bracing for more battles against the contentious project, which could be reapproved on an alternate route.

Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, whose department has done much of the policing for the protests, said that “local law enforcement does not have an opinion” on the easement and that his department will continue to “enforce the law”.

The process of preparing an environmental impact statement is expected to delay the pipeline’s construction by at least another several months. When he first visited in October he said there close to 2,000 demonstrators, now he guesses there are more than 12,000. “We have a long history of not trusting”, she stated.

A couple pages later, in the same newspaper, was a story about veterans protesting the pipeline. “And we’ve come to say that we are sorry, we are at your service, and we beg for your forgiveness”.

“This seems like a distraction to me from the real issues”.

Thompson witnessed 1,000 women take the front lines at Standing Rock one night when he was there. Then a blizzard sent veterans flocking to the casino, where they slept as many as 10 to a room, as well as inside the auditorium. “People genuinely care about the well-being of others there”, Frazier said.

“You know I signed up to serve and I didn’t sign up for that to happen”.

Iron Eyes said protesters need to stand up for other tribes and treaty rights.

That decision, says Sierra Club attorney Doug Hayes, did not actually indicate that the Army Corps has denied the easement, contrary to widespread media reports.

As severe winter storms batter sections of the northern United States, the Prairie Knights Casino And Resort in North Dakota has reportedly been turned into an unlikely refuge for those who had been protesting against the construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Should we get our oil from the Middle East again?