Protesters demonstrate on August 11, 2016 against the start of construction for the Dakota Access Pipeline Project. (Photo credit: Tom Stromme / Associated Press)
A war is being waged right now to defend Native lands and people from fresh exploitation by the United States government, and yet it rages to virtually no mainstream coverage.
This week, protesters entered their fifth month of peaceful protest against the proposed $3.8 billion dollar, multi-state oil pipeline that would when completed transport crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. The Dakota Access Pipeline is being constructed by private developers, and will intersect through ancestral lands once held by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe as well as running under the Mississippi River and within half a mile of current reservation land borders. Earlier this year, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued the US Army Corp of Engineers denouncing the Corp's fast-tracked approval of the Dakota Access Pipeline plans, saying that the Pipeline's construction will threaten sacred sites and risk contamination of the Tribe's water supply.
The Tribe further argues that the Corp ignored its own policies requiring it to consider the impact of construction projects on the environment and on Native lands in order to “meet the pipeline's aggressive construction schedule.” Dave Archambault II, leader of the Standing Rock Sioux, added:
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