Oil Pipeline-Protest-Quotes story

“On Dakota Access and every other pipeline: If he tries to build it, we will come”.

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers announced in November that the federally owned land on which the Oceti Sakowin camp is built would be closed December 5.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has refused to grant permission for the Dakota Access oil pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota.

Yet the full impact of the Army Corps announcement is not yet clear.

After months of protest, demonstrators in North Dakota are celebrating the US Army Corps of Engineers decision to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and reroute it away from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The current proposed pipeline route would cross Lake Oahe, an Army Corps of Engineers project on the Missouri River.

“The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing”, Jo-Ellen Darcy, the U.S. Army’s assistant secretary for civil works, said in a statement.

The 1,885km Dakota Access Pipeline, owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, had been complete except for a segment planned to run under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River.

The Obama administration blocked the Dakota Access pipeline on Sunday, at least temporarily, but supporters said Monday they expect the pipeline’s backers to reapply for the same route under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

Monday was a federal government-set deadline for the people to leave the camp that’s on federal land, though authorities have said they won’t forcibly remove anyone. The order includes the sprawling encampment called Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires camp, that’s a living protest against the $3.8 billion pipeline. Some in the crowd banged drums.

Skip Sandman also voiced his opinion at the meeting, saying: “It’s not a question of if that pipeline breaks but when, and it won’t just affect the Standing Rock Sioux but everyone downstream”.

“I’m asking them to go”, Mr. Archambault told Reuters news agency.

Carla Youngbear of the Meskwaki Potawatomi tribe made her third trip from central Kansas to be at the protest site.

His grandfather, Dennis Rodgers, has been at Standing Rock for about a week, he said.

Attorneys for Dakota Access argue the Corps approved the crossing with its July 25, 2016, final environmental assessment but is “bowing to political pressure and the lawless acts of numerous protesters”.

Dallas Goldtooth, a lead organizer at Standing Rock and the Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a Facebook statement that this is a tremendous victory for the tribe and for everyone who supported Standing Rock. He had between $100,000 and $250,000 in shares of Phillips, according to federal forms. “We’ve been picking up the trash, finding firewood, unloading trucks, whatever it is that needs to be done”, he said. Treaties are paramount law and must be respected, and we welcome dialogue on how to continue to honor that moving forward. “We will back off and we will de-escalate”, but warned that protesters should stay off the bridge for safety reasons.

Trump supports the pipeline, spokesman Jason Miller said Monday, though he declined to say whether the president-elect would heed the American Petroleum Institute’s call for him to reverse the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision.

The announcement on Sunday ended a tense situation between the USA government and several thousand people. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Archambault’s suggestion that non-Sioux protesters should leave the camp.

Liz Ratcliff’s father Dan Conner said, “I think they are determined to all ends and they really do believe water is sacred and that they are against this endless pollution”. “I’ve never seen it. It’s just simple. We are the water”, he said.

As a veteran himself, LaFountaine said he would still be in North Dakota right now if it weren’t for a heart attack he had a few days ago. “But we need all the help we can get out here”.

Some veterans will take part in a prayer ceremony Monday, during which they’ll apologize for historical detrimental conduct by the military toward Native Americans and ask for forgiveness, Clark said.