Protests Shift along Pipeline Route

[Donkees]

A Dakota Access Pipeline protest organizer says it’s reasonable to assume that protest actions 80 miles away from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation will continue further up the route as protesters attempt a “death by delay” outcome, among other strategies.

Dallas Goldtooth, spokesman for the Indigenous Environmental Network, said many protesters intend to stop the pipeline overall, not just where it crosses the Missouri River-Lake Oahe near the reservation boundary.

“Our opposition is not just to the river crossing, but to the very premise of this pipeline,” said Goldtooth, who wouldn't comment on specific plans.




Protest action this week shifted away from the reservation nexus where it’s been focused since mid-August into rural areas of construction near Interstate 94 northwest of Almont. Police arrested 28 people Tuesday and Wednesday after five people locked themselves to equipment and others reportedly trespassed onto the locations. Twenty-two were arrested Tuesday and eight were arrested Wednesday, at locations about 1 mile apart.

Both actions were staged slightly northwest of Exit 120, where the pipeline approaches the interstate. Wednesday’s protest was less than one-quarter mile from an occupied farmstead.

A total of 69 people have been arrested to date since protest action started Aug. 10, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Rob Keller.

He said law enforcement isn’t privy to where actions are planned and depends on tips from the public, landowners and pipeline operators and direct calls for assistance.




Last week, law enforcement swapped in the National Guard to man a Highway 1806 checkpoint en route to the reservation in order to put more patrol officers in the rural Morton County area.

Until now, the six-week stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline had been primarily centered near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Tribal members and others occupying a large encampment of about 2,000 people have focused on stopping the pipeline from crossing the river for fear it will contaminate the water and harm what they call sacred lands just north of the reservation boundary. For now, construction is officially stopped at the crossing by order of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers while it examines the tribe’s claims and past reviews.




Cody Hall, a leader of the Red Warrior Camp who Monday pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor trespass charges from earlier actions, said the actions further up the pipeline are intended to “prevent it from being built.”

Hall said the tactics of locking humans to the equipment and interrupting construction cause delays and hit the project in the pocketbook. The $3.8 billion project will transport 500,000 barrels of Bakken crude daily from near Williston through four states to Illinois.

“We’re getting word from our legal team that investors are dropping out. That’s how it’s effective,” Hall said.

Whether investors are leaving the $3.8 billion project isn’t clear, but the company’s stock value was down to $36.47 a share Wednesday, compared to $42.53 on Aug. 3.


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