While you might not know too much about it, you have most likely heard about the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline will be a 1,172 mile, 30 inch diameter pipeline, connecting areas in North Dakota and Illinois, and would transport approximately 470,000 barrels of oil per day (374.3 million gallons of gasoline per day). CNN calls the pipeline a “$3.7 billion project that would cross four states and change the landscape of U.S. crude oil supply.”
While supporters credit the project as positive and beneficial in the sense that it will allow the United States to focus on domestic oil production and self-sufficiency, as well as create a multitude of jobs, there is also a great deal of opposition.
I spoke with Matt Forgues, an activist against the pipeline who has been at the front lines of the protest, standing in unity with those affected and in opposition.
Her Campus: Can you give us a general background of what’s being proposed?
Matt Forgues: There is a Texas oil based company called Energy Transfer that wants to transport fracked oil from North Dakota to Illinois. It’s roughly 1,100 miles long and will run under/through the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
HC: Why has the opposition been so strong and why do people have issues with the pipeline?
MF: From an environmental standpoint, the biggest opposition comes from the fact that they’re running this pipeline through water. The Missouri river supplies drinking water to 17+ million people and it will eventually break. There are no indestructible pipelines and if you look up the pipeline breaks just this year in North Dakota, there are hundreds. From a legal standpoint, they’re running part of the pipeline through land that technically belongs to the Oceti Sakowin and Standing Rock Sioux Indian Tribe through the 1851 treaty of Fort Laramie. The company is claiming this is private property that belongs to the Army and they’re claiming eminent domain. So basically they’re just plowing through people’s properties and claiming eminent domain, and even arresting people on their own land who stand in the way of construction.
HC: What has been your involvement with the protests? And how did your interest in the issue begin?
MF: I have lived in Standing Rock for the past couple of years teaching, and knowing that this is going to directly affect my students, friends and family, I refuse to be silent about it. Future generations will have to buy all their water, and even someone with a teaching salary of $30,000 a year in South Dakota might not be able to afford that. Water is a human right and people shouldn’t have to pay for it just to meet their basic needs.
Peaceful protesters have been jailed, and things such as pepper spray and attack dogs have been used against them. Multiple celebrities have joined in support with the protestors, including Leonardo Dicaprio, Mark Ruffalo and Shailene Woodley, most notably as Woodley was arrested for trespassing on pipeline construction sites. Ordinary citizens have attempted to help from afar, using Facebook’s location services to check-in at Standing Rock.
The reasoning behind this is that the Morton County Sherriff’s Department has been using Facebook check-ins to find out who is at Standing Rock in order to target them in attempts to disrupt the prayer camps. Water Protectors are calling on everyone to check in at Standing Rock, ND to overwhelm and confuse them. While this action appears to not have as great an effect as the protestors hoped, it still provides an act of solidarity and support against the pipeline and what it represents.
The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie was enacted in the attempt to establish peace between various tribes as a way for settlers to traverse across the land without fear. The treaty defined specific territory for the different tribes, as decided through collaboration with the U.S. government. The Sioux tribe finds the pipeline project to be trespassing on their land, but the builders and the Army have disagreed. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed permits for the allowance of the pipeline project, which caused the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to sue the Corps. The tribe stated that the pipeline “threatens the Tribe’s environmental and economic well-being, and would damage and destroy sites of great historic, religious, and cultural significance to the Tribe.”
In September the Obama administration temporarily stopped work on the pipeline, asking the company to halt construction within a 20 mile radius of Lake Oahe. However, Energy Transfers Partners ignored this request, leading for protesters call for Obama to take away the building permits of the company, which has not yet occurred.
However, with Donald Trump as our new president-elect, it will be interesting to see how the pipeline project proceeds. Chief Executive Officer of Energy Transfers Partners Kelcy Warren donated $103,000 to Trump’s presidential campaign, and Trump holds stock in Warren’s company. Warren believes under the Trump administration that the pipeline will definitely be completed, although Trump has not commented on it (however, Trump did claim, “We’re going to allow the Keystone Pipeline and so many other things to move forward”).
The pipeline threatens cultural and environmental aspects of American life. Native Americans are concerned that sacred sites will be affected by the pipeline, and that their water supply will be contaminated. In the words of one protester: “It’s about our rights as native people to this land. It’s about our rights to worship. It’s about our rights to be able to call a place home, and it’s our rights to water.”