The largest gathering of indigenous nations in modern history have come by the hundreds to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, which will run close to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, compromising drinking water and disrupting sacred burial sites. For more than a month, hundreds of people have camped out in protest. On the weekends, the number can swell into the thousands.
The Dakota Access pipeline has been the subject of heated court battles, with victories and defeats for each side. On Sept. 9, a federal judge ruled that construction could proceed on the Dakota Access pipeline across the Missouri River a half-mile upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, but three federal agencies immediately paused the permitting of the pipeline across the river. Since then other courts have also ruled in favor of the company, Energy Transfer Partners, to build its 1,100-mile fracked oil pipeline across four states. Water protectors have vowed to remain on-site through the winter to stop construction, and their non-violent civil disobedience actions are always accompanied by prayer, ceremony, and an incredible sense of community, according to personal witness and many news reports. Check out this article from Inside Climate News for more info:
Those fighting the pipeline need our help to raise awareness across the country and build support to keep this and all fossil fuels in the ground, and help protect indigenous rights.
There will be a protest in New Haven on Thursday, October 20 at 4:30 pm at the Wells Fargo location at 205 Church Street. Here are the details:
The Water Protectors among the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies have specifically asked that their supporters around the country continue to target the banks that are funding the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL). Wells Fargo is infamous because its scheme of creating 2 million bogus accounts for customers who didn’t want them was exposed, but it’s less known for being one of the main funders of the Dakota Access fracked oil pipeline — to the tune of 467 million dollars. Let’s expose this other scandal, which puts drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of others at risk, is destroying indigenous sacred sites, and threatens to push climate emissions past the point of no return. Construction is proceeding even as the Obama administration pauses work under the Missouri River to investigate the permitting process.
