CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP) – A tense protest over the Dakota Access pipeline subsided at least temporarily after some protest leaders urged activists to leave a barricade near a state highway bridge.
As many as 50 protesters gathered Friday behind heavy plywood sheets and burned-out vehicles, facing a line of concrete barriers, military vehicles and police in riot gear. But only a handful of people, some of them observers from Amnesty International, remained on the bridge by late afternoon after protest representatives told people to return to the main encampment.
Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier described the protesters as “non-confrontational but uncooperative” and credited Standing Rock Sioux tribal members for helping to ease tensions on the bridge. Kirchmeier said tribal representatives were allowed onto the private property to remove teepees.
Officers arrested one person, but no details were released.
Standing Rock has waged a protest for months against the four-state, thousand-mile pipeline being developed by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners to carry North Dakota crude to a shipping point in Patoka, Illinois.
The tribe argues it’s a threat to water and cultural sites, and encampments have grown to thousands at times as its cause has drawn support from Native Americans and others from around the country, including environmentalists and some celebrities.
The protest escalated on Sunday when demonstrators set up camp on private land along the pipeline’s path that had recently been acquired by Energy Transfer Partners. On Thursday, more than 140 people were arrested as law enforcement, bolstered by reinforcements from several states, moved in slowly to envelop the protesters.
Following Thursday’s eviction, some protesters worked overnight to create the two roadblocks.
Jolene White Eagle, 56, a lifelong Cannon Ball resident, watched as law enforcement officers massed near Friday’s new blockade and called the police response “nonsense.”
“It reminds me of something like a foreign country, what’s happened here with all the destruction,” she said.
The camp cleared on Thursday was located just to the north of a more permanent, larger encampment on federally owned land that has been the main staging area for hundreds of protesters. Many returned to that site Friday to regroup and reunite with others who had been arrested the day before.
There were no immediate plans to try to reoccupy the private land or to build a new camp elsewhere in the pipeline’s path, protest camp spokesman Cody Hall said.
“That’s something in the air for people to grasp onto, think about, but I don’t know if that will happen today,” he said.
A federal judge in September denied the tribe’s request to block construction on the grounds that the Army Corps of Engineers improperly issued permits, and North Dakota officials say no culturally significant sites have been found in the area. But on the day the judge ruled, three federal agencies stepped in to order construction to halt on Army Corps-owned land around Lake Oahe, a wide spot of the Missouri River, while the Corps reviewed its decision-making.
Meanwhile, construction has been allowed to continue on private land owned by the developer, with a goal of completion by the end of the year.
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Nicholson reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.
News Guide: Pipeline activists swept off private property
By JAMES MacPHERSON, Associated Press
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – Law enforcement in North Dakota removed activists protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline who had set up a camp on private property owned by the pipeline developer. Here’s a guide to the latest developments and key background about the protest:
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THE ORIGINS
Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners got federal permits for the $3.8 billion pipeline in July, about two years after it was announced. The project is projected to move a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from western North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois, for shipment to Midwest and Gulf Coast markets.
Supporters say the pipeline will have safeguards against leaks, and is a safer way to move oil than trucks and trains, especially after a handful of fiery – and sometimes deadly – derailments of trains carrying North Dakota crude.
But the Standing Rock Sioux, other tribes and environmental groups say that the pipeline could threaten water supplies for millions, since it will cross the Missouri River, as well as harm sacred sites and artifacts. Protesters, sometimes numbering in the thousands, have gathered since April at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers in southern North Dakota.
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IN THE COURTROOM
The Standing Rock Sioux, whose reservation straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border, are suing federal regulators for approving the oil pipeline. They have challenged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits at more than 200 water crossings and argue that the pipeline would be placed less than a mile upstream of the reservation, potentially affecting drinking water for more than 8,000 tribal members and millions downstream.
The tribe hasn’t fared well in court so far. A federal judge in September denied their request to block construction of the entire pipeline. Three federal agencies stepped in and ordered a temporary halt to construction on corps land around and underneath Lake Oahe – one of six reservoirs on the Missouri River.
The corps is reviewing its permitting of the project and has given no timetable for a decision. Meanwhile, the tribe’s appeal is still pending in federal court.
Energy Transfer Partners has said construction is nearly complete elsewhere.
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THE PROTESTS
The tribe’s fight grew into an international cause in recent months for many Native Americans and indigenous people from around the world, with some traveling thousands of miles to join the protest.
“Divergent” actress Shailene Woodley also protested and was arrested. “Democracy Now!” host Amy Goodman was charged with rioting and trespassing stemming from her coverage of a protest, but the charges were later dropped.
More than 260 people have been arrested since the larger demonstrations began in August.
As of Wednesday, nearly all of the $6 million in emergency funding earmarked for law enforcement costs related to the protest had been used up. The state’s Emergency Commission approved the money in late September, and the Department of Emergency Services plans to ask for more.
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LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
The protests entered a new phase over the weekend when some 200 protesters moved onto private land along the pipeline route that had recently been acquired by Energy Transfer Partners.
Law enforcement asked protesters to leave peacefully on Wednesday and were refused. On Thursday, some 200 officers in riot gear moved in to remove the protesters, wielding pepper spray and firing bean-bag rounds from shotguns.
Donnell Hushka, a spokeswoman for the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, said 141 people were arrested.
Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said officers would stay on the site to make sure protesters don’t re-occupy it or block highways in the area.
Protesters burned three vehicles overnight and used them to set roadblocks along a state highway. About two dozen demonstrators engaged in a standoff near the blockades Friday afternoon, refusing authorities’ orders to clear the roadway.