The Dakota Access Pipeline was proposed by Energy Transfer Partners to transport fracked oil from the Bakken Oil Fields in North Dakota 1,134 miles through South Dakota and Iowa to oil tanks in Illinois.
The oil tank farm is innear Patoka, Illinois, which has approximately 633 inhabitants.
Patoka presently receives oil from the Chicago, Keystone, and Capline pipelines and sends the unrefined crude to various refineries in the Midwest.
The company detoured the pipeline around Bismarck, North Dakota at the request of the state government in order to avoid any spills in the municipal water system drained from the Missouri River.
The rerouted pipeline veered south through ranch lands to cut across at tribal Sioux reservation at Standing Dakota. The population of the reservation is slightly over 8000 tribal members. The council had granted the oil company right of access, however his year on April 1 an elderly grandmother and her grandchildren set up a protest camp blocking the pipeline.
The governor had escalated the stand-off by hiring mercenary out-of-state police.
Hundreds have been arrested by the oil police.
Many have been injured by tear gas and rubber bullets.
The protestors aren’t going anywhere, even as the temperatures drop below freezing.
This is a battle for the planet.
Win or lose we have to fight.
Non-violently until the cops try and kill the protestors,
And that will happen.
Killing is in their blood.
In the end the pipeline will provide 30 full-time jobs after the end of the construction.
The oil is for profits.
For rich people like they didn’t have enough.
Money versus nature.
It’s time to stop them from winning.
It’s a start.
And the Sioux are in this for the long run.
