The Dakota Pipeline Protests

The Dakota Pipeline Protests unites a number of different Human interest groups from Black Lives Matters to the United Nations. Native Americans are at the center of the protests, as the Dakota pipeline would travel under the Missouri River, a primary water source for the Sioux Indians of Standing Rock, a tribe of 10,000 Indians on a reservation in central North and South Dakota via the Fort Laramie Treaties Act of 1868. (6) Dakota Pipeline Builders insist that they have taken precautions to safeguard against pipeline oil spills/leaks and prevent the destruction of Indian burial sites. However, the indigenous Indians of North Dakota as well as outside protestor’s from as far California, Oregon and Seattle, WA, insists even the safest oil pipelines are subject to oil leaks as documented in (PHMSA) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. Reports which show more than 3,300 leaks and ruptures of gas and oil pipelines since 2010. (7) Protestors and the Standing Rock Sioux assert that even a small spill could damage the tribe’s life-giving water supply. Standing Rock Sioux also claim that building the pipeline would require the desecration of sacred Indian burial grounds which the Sioux equate to genocide and the erasure of their archival footprint. Also, Sioux Indian leaders cite that the federal …show more content…
(4) The federal court overrode Obama’s and the other agency injunction and allowed the pipeline project to continue. The federal government has the authority to cancel the Dakota pipeline permits. Ironically President Elect Donald Trump owns stock in Energy Transfer Partners. (5) Trump has also called for the removal of regulations on