Surviving at Standing Rock After Trump’s DAPL Order
January 25, 2017
Original water protector camp resolves to stay—even as Sioux tribe says no and Trump orders pipeline construction.
It’s been months of freezing cold and dark days at the Standing Rock encampments on the North Dakota plains, where water protectors still go about their routines while living next to pieces of the Dakota Access pipeline that await final construction under the Missouri River. Last week, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault and the tribal council voted to disband the camps. On Tuesday, President Trump signed orders to try to fast-track not only the Dakota Access pipeline construction but also to restart the Keystone XL. Activists across the nation immediately protested.
Journalist Jenni Monet, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, has been covering the Standing Rock situation since last summer and has been at the camps since early December. This morning, Archambault told her that Trump’s orders had not changed the position of the council on disbanding the camps.
I asked Monet to describe how the water protectors are taking this succession of events.
Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn: What’s your understanding of what happened Tuesday morning—what did President Trump do, in effect?
Jenni Monet: Tuesday’s executive memorandums advancing the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines and the pipeline industry, overall, was a pro-energy agenda at work, one that had been predicted from a Trump administration. The memos, while more symbolic than substantive, have helped set a tone in his administration, promoting a fast-tracked system toward implementation of such energy projects, as opposed to a thorough Environmental Impact Statement study and review process that is only beginning with regard to the Dakota Access pipeline.
Loeffelholz Dunn: Can—or will—the Standing Rock Sioux challenge the order in courts because the Environment Impact Statement process has begun?
Monet: In a statement prepared by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, Chairman Dave Archambault II said the tribe plans to legally challenge the Trump administration’s decision to ignore the Environmental Impact Statement review that was entered into the federal register on Jan. 18. The formal step by the U.S. Army Corps issues “notice of intent” to begin the EIS as part of an easement request by Energy Transfer Partners, operator of the Dakota Access pipeline, to cross over Lake Oahe.
The tribe feels any violation of this step is unlawful and disregards treaty rights that have been acknowledged by the U.S. Army.
Loeffelholz Dunn: Have you been to the camps to know what the resistance’s leadership has in mind going forward?
