Dakota Access Pipeline Continues Legal Push as Frontline Hit by Assaults in North Dakota
Authorities in North Dakota continued their violent crackdown on the #NoDAPL movement as the wealthy backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline were back in federal court, vowing to finish the controversial project despite lacking a critical easement.
Upwards of 300 people were injured on Sunday in what Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier described as a "riot." Acting under his command, authorities used water cannons, tear gas, stinger grenades, rubber bullets and other less lethal weapons on a night when the average temperature dropped below the freezing point.
"All I can say is why? We are asking for clean water, we are asking for the right to live, we are asking for our children to live," said LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the founder of the Sacred Stone Camp, the original #NoDAPL encampment. "Instead they attack us, because they protect oil. Morton County and DAPL security are inhuman -- what is wrong with their hearts?"
Photographer Rob Wilson, whose work has provided the world with a close view of the struggle, was among those who was hurt. In a post on Facebook, he said he was "encased in ice, tear gassed, hit by both rubber bullets and a bean bag, and a stinger grenade" as he watched another man repeatedly shot by authorities even after falling to the ground.
Other injuries were reported to be severe. In a post on Facebook, Dallas Goldtooth, who is Mdewakanton Dakota and Navajo, said a woman from Minnesota has been hospitalized and is facing amputation of her arm after being struck by a grenade.
"Projectiles in the form of tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades led to numerous blunt force traumas including head wounds, lacerations, serious orthopedic injuries, eye trauma, and internal bleeding," the Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council, which responded to the incident, said in a press release.
The assault occurred as Dakota Access once again told a federal judge that it has the right to complete the pipeline despite lacking approval to drill under the Missouri River. The filing, lodged on Sunday, repeated the firm's claim that the easement has already been "signed" but is being delayed due to "political interference" from the highest levels of the Obama administration.
And in an investor call on Monday, executives from Energy Transfer Partners voiced confidence in their ability to secure the document they say already exists at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The firm is being acquired by Sunoco Logistics Partners, its co-owner in the pipeline.
"We think they are making progress on it -- obviously not as quickly as we'd like them to make progress on it -- but we do feel like they're making progress," Matt Ramsey, who will serve as the chief commercial officer of the merged entity, said after being asked directly about the status of the easement.
Kelcy Warren, the billionaire who ranked among the top five individual donors to Republican president-elect Donald Trump, will remain as chief executive officer once the transaction, which is worth an estimated $20 billion, is complete.
Despite the firm's optimism, the Army Corps has said it will not issue the easement until it consults further with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Department of Justice is opposing efforts by Dakota Access to speed up consideration of a counter-claim that was filed less than a week ago.
"Dakota Access does not suggest how any delay in granting an easement over Corps-managed federal lands at Lake Oahe would delay construction elsewhere," government attorneys wrote on Monday as they quoted from a November 10 Energy Transfer investor call stating that the pipeline was "84 percent" complete at the time. The filing followed a more detailed one on Friday that also said the easement was still being reviewed.
Prior to last week's cross-claim, attorneys for Dakota Access repeatedly told the court that they need to finish construction in order to start transporting oil by January 1, 2017. But by asking for a hearing on January 3 in their motion to expedite, they appear to concede that the deadline can slip without any apparent harm to the costly project.
"Our culture, our children and our homelands have been repeatedly stolen from us," Chairman Dave Archambault II of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe said in a press release on Monday. "We are deeply saddened that despite the millions of Americans and allies around the world who are standing with us at Standing Rock, a single corporate bully -- backed by U.S. government dollars through a militarized law enforcement -- continue to be sanctioned by aggressive, unlawful acts."
"President Obama, this cannot be your legacy," he said.
President Barack Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in June 2014, had an emotional meeting with youth and attended a powwow in Cannon Ball, not far from where the violent crackdowns are occurring. It was his first visit to Indian Country since taking office in January 2009.
The crisis at Standing Rock has put a dark mark on his final months in office as Indian Country loses faith in his ability to put a stop in the pipeline. The late timing of the easement delay, coupled with the new legal maneuvers by Dakota Access, increasingly point toward Donald Trump playing a huge role in the next stage of the dispute.
Within his first 100 days in office, Trump has vowed to lift "roadblocks" to large infrastructure projects like Dakota Access. He's also invested his own money in the companies that are financing and operating the controversial pipeline.