There is a slow uprising in noise coming from North Dakota, one that is beginning to catch the ears of many different people around the United States, and even around the world. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with thousands of others including those from hundreds of tribes, environmentalists, and even U.S. Presidential candidate Jill Stein, have been actively protesting the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline since April. The situation continues to escalate with the presence of private security and police in riot gear attempting to stop the protestors.
The reason for the protests include the disregard by Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline, to seek consultation with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (the pipeline runs through, and possibly has already destroyed, sacred burial sites and historical properties), and the threat to the tribes’ water supply, along with the water supply of possibly millions of others.
This recent happening is one that is indeed gaining traction. More and more people are beginning to open their eyes to the situation. Yet despite the increase in exposure to the situation in North Dakota, the project still moves forward and has yet to be completely halted. This isn’t about just the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, it’s about the overall injustices present throughout the situation, and the possible precedence that could be set by allowing a situation like this to unfold as ETP would like it to. Here’s a rundown of four reasons why the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline should be halted completely and immediately.
1.We, as a country, should no longer be pursuing energy options that are fossil fuel-based.
It’s interesting that the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners commented on the situation stating, “I am confident that as long as the government ultimately decides the fate of the project based on science and engineering, the Dakota Access Pipeline will become operational.” The reality is that many scientists believe we need to immediately make moves to transfer our energy infrastructure to more sustainable processes, including wind, solar, geothermal, hydropower, and even nuclear (an all-nuclear distant future is a possible reality). But when the government has people like this in positions of power such as Chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee, the government’s judgement loses validity. We should not be building a $3.7 billion project that’s fossil fuel-based. Plain and simple.
2.Something as valuable and rare as water should never be threatened, under any circumstances
According to AP, the EPA criticized the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ assessment of the safety of the pipeline earlier this year, stating that it appears to pose a threat to the clean drinking water five different Native American tribes, as well as much of western South Dakota. At a time when our American society is wasting and abusing water in its amount of use, we cannot afford to have any type of threat posed to our clean water sources. The United Nations estimates that a third of the world population live in countries where water supplies don’t meet everyone’s minimum essential needs, according to “Environmental Science: A Global Concern” by William and Mary Ann Cunningham. Fortune Magazine once wrote, “Water will be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th.” We need to preserve this resource as much as possible. Alabama is currently experiencing the effects of pipeline oil spills.
3.The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe legally should have been consulted
The destruction of the sacred and historical sites is not only ethically wrong, it’s illegal. According to the National Preservation Act, “The regulations remind Federal agencies that historic properties of religious and cultural significance to an Indian tribe may be located on ancestral, aboriginal, or ceded lands of that tribe. Accordingly, agencies must make a reasonable and good faith effort to identify Indian tribes that attach such significance but may now live at great distances from the undertaking's area of potential effect.” The actions of Energy Transfer Partners has certainly been contradictory to their words, as they state on their website about the Dakota Access Pipeline, “Protecting landowner interests and the local environment is a top priority of the Dakota Access Pipeline project.” For an in-depth look into the legal case against the Dakota Access Pipeline, The Atlantic provides a strong analysis in this article.
4.The near media blackout shows obvious intention
A quick Google search of anything related to the Dakota Access Pipeline shows that there has been very little coverage of the ongoing situation that deserves to be of national and even international interest. A hindrance on the exposure of this issue by the mass media is one that is calculated, as anything involved in mass media is. The coverage of the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge was one that received seemingly endless coverage. Yet, it was a protest that was violent rather than peaceful, and for much less valid reasons than clean water and Native American rights.
To give a timing comparison rather an incident comparison, it seems that the media would much rather, at this time, talk about the morality behind an athlete’s kneeling for the national anthem, as the coverage of Colin Kaepernick’s decision to protest the national anthem has reached fever pitch. Apparently, the discussion of a perceived disrespect for a symbol by an athlete before they play a game for a living is much more important to the masses’ collective awareness than the discussion of a genuine disrespect for a human right such as clean water by a profit-hungry company and government at the possible expense millions of people’s livelihood. As the fight continues to end this crooked project, one can only hope to continue to shed light on the DAPL and fight for the cause that has ripple effects far beyond just the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and North Dakota.
