The construction equipment is covered in ice and snow but it is still in position, waiting for the Trump administration to give the Dakota Access Pipeline project the green light to finish their $3.8 billion, 1100 mile long project. The mainstream media remains largely silent about the water protectors camped out at Standing Rock and when they say anything at all, they try to give the impression that the camps have dispersed and the construction project has been stopped.
There are three camps, mostly populated by young members of First Nation tribes, who have resolved to brave the dangers of a harsh North Dakota winter and stay encamped on land given to the Sioux in the Treaty of Fort Laramie, signed on April 29, 1868. Between two and three thousand brave Native Americans remain in the camps. It is difficult to describe how painful the cold and wind can be to those of us who are unaccustomed to this frigid plains weather.
I have been trying to deliver a truck load of cold weather gear from our church in Springfield, Missouri to the Sioux for the past two days. The white out conditions from blowing snow in the Christmas blizzard has made travel nearly impossible. High winds have overturned teepees and tents at the camps and knocked out electricity and water to the Sioux Reservation. I and my traveling companion, Dan Goodwin, have taken shelter in a fishing lodge in Webster, SD after covering only a hundred miles in driving slowly through the blizzard today. Of course, going to the camp in winter is not the most practical way to support the camps. The biggest need on a daily basis for the water protectors is food and firewood. We can all donate on line to help with these basic needs at www.generosity.com/…
Nearly a million gallons of crude oil have been spilled in North Dakota in pipeline failures over the past five years. The concern for the safety of the water flowing through the Missouri River is very real. Still, the water is not the only issue in this protest. Treaties with America’s First Nations grant sovereignty to the tribes over their land but their sovereignty is never respected. We cannot, after all, declare immanent domain to grab land from Canada or Mexico without their sovereign governments’ permission but we do it to American Indian Reservations without their consent. The protests at Standing Rock are uniting members of our First Nations in a new civil rights movement to demand that our state and federal governments begin to honor the treaties we have made with America’s Indigenous peoples. The violence used by both law enforcement and the private security hired by the pipeline company have repeatedly demonstrated how badly needed this civil rights movement is needed, even now, in the 21st century. America has yet to come to terms with our history of abuse of American Indian tribes but this protest gives us an opportunity to begin to change.