Over Labor Day weekend, developers building the Dakota Access Pipeline demolished what activists say was an ancient burial site sacred to the Sioux. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters, who have been protesting the construction of the pipeline daily, attempted to peacefully stop the bulldozing of the site, only to be driven back by security guards from the development company wielding pepper spray and attack dogs.
While the pipeline’s developers are touting it as a safer alternative to fuel imported from outside the U.S., activists opposing the pipeline say that the environmental risks associated with it are too great for it to go forward, echoing criticism of the scrapped Keystone XL pipeline. Specifically, there are fears that a Dakota Access Pipeline spill could result in catastrophic environmental damage and the contamination of local drinking water.
The pipeline already has been rerouted from its original path, which would have cut across the Missouri River, upstream of Bismarck, North Dakota’s capital. Due to concerns about a potential spill poisoning Bismarck’s water supply, the pipeline was moved south of the city, closer to the Standing Rock reservation.
Activists say that the development of the pipeline, which traverses ancestral Sioux lands, will also disturb historic and religious sites. The lands in question were guaranteed to the Sioux in the 1860s under the Treaty of Fort Laramie, but their stake in the lands has been chipped away over the years.
Tension over the pipeline has been building since April, when activists first established a camp by the construction site. Protesters have been living in tents and teepees at the camp, which is known as the Sacred Stone Spirit Camp, since then. While the Standing Rock Sioux are the tribe most likely to be directly impacted by the pipeline, the conflict is generating support from tribal communities across the Great Plains and beyond, bringing more than a thousand protesters to the camp in recent weeks.
“I don’t know of anybody who is for Dakota Access; most people are against it,” Dakota Kidder told Diverse in a phone interview. “Most people have a really strong connection to this land. They grew up here, we spend our summers down in the water, we hang out, we fish. So it’s really sad and disheartening to see what’s going on.”
