Dakota Access Pipeline: The Last Stand?

In researching for this article, it seemed sensible to see what exactly all of the fuss was about with just laying pipe in the ground for the transportation of oil. After all, the US alone consumes well over 19 million barrels of oil per day, far out stripping any of the other top two oil consumers (China and India). This is despite the fact that the US population is around a quarter of these other more populous countries, putting US oil consumption ahead of the pack by a country mile. Every comfort, convenience, whim, hobby, or mere curiosity is fueled and facilitated either directly or indirectly with this “liquid gold”. So the question remains, why all the fuss?

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), according to some of its own public information outlets has, as its main goal, nothing but the best of intentions. They claim that their goal is to further advance US energy independence and conserve energy by minimizing the carbon footprint associated with oil transportation. They suggest that with the pipeline’s construction they could reduce the danger transporting oil by cargo train poses to the environment, in the case of derailment etc. As an added economic bonus, the localized economy was projected to see a vast influx of pipeline related enterprise, as pipe fitters, steel workers, and construction contractors of various kinds, flood into town requiring lodging, meals and other services.

Currently, as the statistics above indicate, the US is the number one consumer of crude oil in the world, however it is only the third-largest producer. In the present global economic and political conditions, rumors of “building walls” and eminent “World Wars” are beginning to take root. These insecurities and uncertainties about future international relations have pushed legislators and corporations, eager to capitalize, to open up more of the US territories for oil exploration. The writing has been on the wall for some time that the US needs to be producing at least enough oil to offset its staggering demand and even become an exporter, in order to bolster its debt ridden economy.

This leads us to Dakota, where a prolonged stand off seems to have come to some resolution, as the Army Corps of Engineers has denied DAPL the permit to continue construction. Up until this surprising turn of events, the fight was on at yet another flashpoint in the rolling storm of “well intentioned” destruction. The Standing Rock Sioux nation, traditionally named Lakota, are at the epicenter of the resistance in North Dakota, (Dakota being a mispronunciation of Lakota by colonists). The lands that they’ve had to draw the ‘line in the sand’ on, is hoped to be their final such stand in a long history of dispossession by the ever encroaching US interests. Once inhabiting a vast expanse of millions of acres, which it was agreed was reserved for their sole use forever, according to an early treaty, the Sioux have found themselves in an intensifying standoff over a comparatively small patch of soil. It is also due to the appalling record of continual violation of treaties that this dispute reached fever pitch, and was the impetus for this most recent struggle. There were two main points of contention according to online reports:

First the pipeline would have crossed right under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe, half a mile north of the reservation. A leak or spill could send oil directly into the tribe’s main source of drinking water. The tribe points out that DAPL originally considered a route further north, upstream of Bismarck, but the company rejected that route, in part, because of the close proximity to the state capital’s drinking-water wells.

Second, the tribe argues that the pipeline would have ran through a stretch of land north of the reservation that contains recently discovered sacred sites and burial places and any bulldozing and construction work could damage these sites. True, this land isn’t’ part of the current reservation. But the Standing Rock Sioux argue that the land had been taken away from them unjustly due to the construction of the Oahe Dam.

We might have learned in history class about Native American figures like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull or battles at Wounded Knee and Custer’s Last Stand. Somehow these leaders and events have been relegated to topics teachers barely cover in schools. However, the connection beyond this, as to the relevance and implications of these events on our day to day lives, can be considered negligible. So here we are, cautiously breathing a sigh of relief having averted what was possibly shaping up to be another Wounded Knee or Custer’s Last Stand. Will we even remember this situation a few months from now, provided that the incoming administration does not reverse the ruling or DAPL doesn’t simply ignore the Army Corp of Engineer’s denial?

With the specter of a Trump administration looming on the near horizon and considering his support of the pipeline prior to his election, it is conceivable that the victory of this decision may be short lived. Reports of the protesters being told to disband, even as DAPL construction machinery stays in place is beginning to raise suspicions that the ACE’s (Army Corp of Engineers) permit denial is a ruse. Some protesters have vowed to stay until the DAPL workbase has disbanded as well, and have begun the work of relocating the already laid segments of the pipeline from the area. Meanwhile, in the midst of this highly exposed story (primarily via social media), there are reports that two more such pipelines were approved for construction, to be undertaken by the same parent company of the DAPL project (Energy Transfer Partners). They are the Comanche Trail and Trans-Pecos Pipelines, which have been met with resistance from the Comanche people. This tribal area of the Comanche Trail and Trans-Pecos are situated in Texas which, incidentally, sits in the backyard of one, George W. Bush, oil barren of the Lone Star State.

Where will this end? Will we even see the necessity to consider what the implications of these pipelines could be and further how their resistance is relevant to us? Or, will this represent another event that happened in some Native Tribe’s territory that will join the list of requisite historical factoids our children will have to sit through in history class?

Here are some significant statistical facts to consider from an online source if we still miss the relevance of this issue:

While operators claim that oil pipelines are safer than trains or trucks, an aging infrastructure and inadequate oversight leads to numerous leaks, most of which never make headlines. A Nov. 30 analysis by Citylab revealed that more than 9,000 significant accidents (nationwide) over the past 20 years have resulted in 548 deaths, 2,576 injuries and more than $8.5 billion in financial damages. An Oct. 25 analysis by EcoWatch found 220 significant pipeline spills to date in 2016 and showed that the number of significant pipeline incidents has grown 26.8 percent from 2006 to 2015.

It is this question of relevance that makes understanding this situation key to owning up to our role in all of this. Remember those statistics given at the beginning of this article and the intention of DAPL to provide a solution? Maybe it’s time for us to look for another way to solve the issue of our ravenous appetite for all things oil. Perhaps it is time to divest ourselves from the financial institutions and instruments whose bottom line is predicated upon investments in this commodity i.e. banks, stocks, pension plans etc. The Dakota Pipeline standoff was just a byproduct of this appetite, as are the many similar conflicts surrounding dwindling resources across the globe. From West Papua to Nigeria, and from Peru to Alaska, and so many other places, too many to name, humanity is consuming its way to self-destruction. We have not yet learned the lesson of any of the protracted conflicts surrounding resources and the political power struggles that have occurred. This is despite the cost, not only to the environment but to human lives, even as knowledge of alternative more sustainable energy and materials is becoming widespread.

So why not dig up the final bastion of a displaced and dispossessed people’s sacred lands? Don’t we have the best intentions in living our day to day lives: driving our cars, heating our homes, shopping in our grocery stores for food that comes from across the country or even the seas etc? How could it be that despite our best intentions destruction can result?

Maybe it stems from the goal we have set and what directs our actions in getting there. An enlightened teacher (Neb Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig) once pointed out that, “every goal has its intelligence, and every intelligence has its values.” This can perhaps be observed in the case of DAPL. As mentioned, their stated goal among others, is to relieve Americans from the insecurity of their dependence on international oil. It would seem intelligent therefore to go about this objective by digging oil pipelines the way we dig up the ground to run water lines, electrical lines, gas lines, subway lines etc.

The issue however, has to do with the cost to us all and the affront to nature in laying these pipelines. Certainly, in the immediate sense, DAPL would have been the final insult to the Lakota who have already lost so much in the face of the sprawling scourge of human greed. But on the larger scale, common sense would suggest that it is each of us who will suffer despite being oblivious as to its relevance to us. The devastation to plant, animal, and human life in the event of a spill would be incalculable, as nature drowns in its own viscous fluids hemorrhaging at the site of an accidental breach. Hundreds of tributaries, covering millions of acres of land, act like capillaries for larger waterways. This network will suffer the disturbance to many of the life supporting agents of the fragile ecological environment including, fish, turtles, frogs, algae, deer, wolves, bears, land and water fowls etc. Can it be that we are so disconnected from nature that we presume that we, as just another species, can escape this destruction unscathed? Considering this, we can be deeply outraged at the brute tactics and recklessness of these heartless corporate entities, but what about our complicity in this tacitly averted travesty and the many ongoing travesties elsewhere across this Earth?

With no other values directing the exercise of intelligence set by their professed goal, DAPL’s intentions were becoming the cause of great suffering, misunderstandings, pain, crying etc. So many of these well intended schemes have brought similar results and more. How long before authorities dispensed with the rubber bullets, water hoses, beatings, arrests and pepper spray as the tensions escalated and resistance became more violent? These tribal lands historically stood as a water source and sacred ground that still hold spiritual meaning and significance to the native people of the territory. History has shown they were willing to die fighting to preserve their humanity and dignity and the land that figures so integrally to their way of life. The people of the tribes there are not only keenly aware of all of the violations to lands and peoples in other regions with the building of these and many other “well intentioned” modern development projects, they have also seen the devastation when things go wrong.

If DAPL’s goal is to restore a sense of stability by fostering self reliance through Americans providing their own energy resource to suit their needs, why don’t they invest in programs that help reduce energy demands and support alternative, more sustainable, energy sources? Perhaps the answer to this question could shed some light on what the true goal of this, and other corporations of its kind, really is. As for you and I, maybe it’s time to take a really hard look at our role in all of this based on our own appetites and shoulder our part of the weight in these historic flashpoints. How do we think history will remember us when our children look forward to a world rotted out by the reckless abandon with which prior generations consumed its resources? It is up to us to build the world we wish to see, one that holds firm as a rung in the ladder of human growth and establishes a history upon which we can stand proudly.