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Dakota Pipeline Construction |
In the middle of 2016, protests grew in North Dakota over the planned construction of the
Dakota Access Pipeline, which is proposed to transport approximately 570,000 barrels of crude oil per day from North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline would be a key conduit connecting oil wells in the state’s Bakken Shale, where the growth of fracking has created billions of gallons of new oil. The nearly $4 billion projects was first proposed in 2014 with an anticipated completion of this year.
Opponents of the pipeline held that it would pose a severe danger of contamination (via oil leakage) to the only source of water for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and would threaten historically significant tribal sites. About 200 activists supporting the Standing Sioux Tribe moved onto the site recently, setting up teepees and tents and saying the land is rightfully theirs under a more than a century-old treaty. More than 260 people have been arrested since demonstrations began in August. The site, known as Cannonball Ranch, will be used by Energy Transfer Partners for its 1,172-mile pipeline. Protesters have also claimed that
cell phone networks are being jammed. Below is a map of their approximate camp location.
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| Click on the map and search for Cannon Ball, North Dakota to zoom in |
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accusing the federal agency of violating the National Historic Preservation Act and other laws after it issued final permits for a crude oil pipeline stretching from North Dakota to Illinois.
The tribe, based in Fort Yates, N.D., with members also in South Dakota, is seeking an injunction to stay the pipeline's construction until its case can be heard.
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