The US Army Corps of Engineers is refusing to authorize the resumption of the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. Further to that, the Corps reiterated its request to the company to “voluntarily stop work” on private land in the area.
The North Dakota protest site at the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux has grown into “the largest gathering of Native Americans in more than 100 years,” reports the BBC.
The protectors, who have gathered together from multiple tribes, and other supporting the cause, say they are taking a stand for future generations against the four-state Dakota Access Pipeline Project.
The gathering is “historic,” Judith LeBlanc, director of the New York-based Native Organizers Alliance, told ABC News, adding,
“There’s never been a coming together of tribes like this.”
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is worried that the pipeline will negatively impact water quality on its reservation and imperil cultural heritage sites. The Departments of Justice, the Interior, and Army issue a second joint statement, again refusing to authorize construction permits and requesting that ETP cease construction voluntarily.
The tribe wrote in its lawsuit that it is concerned “with impacts to the habitat of wildlife species such as piping plovers, least tern, Dakota skipper, and pallid sturgeon, among others. The Tribe has a particular concern for bald eagles, which remain federally protected and play a significant role in the Tribe’s culture, and which would be adversely affected by the proposed pipeline.
The Tribe is greatly concerned with the possibility of oil spills and leaks from the pipeline should it be constructed and operated, particularly into waters that are of considerable economic, religious, and cultural importance to the Tribe.”
