When Brittany Dunn left Montpelier early Saturday morning to travel to North Dakota by chartered bus, she brought with her 125 pounds of meat in coolers, along with other food supplies. The 31-year-old volunteer coordinator from the environmental organization 350 Vermont is on her way to the Oceti Sakowin Camp in North Dakota to express solidarity with the anti-pipeline movement.
Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe started the campaign in April to protest the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline by Texas-based company Energy Transfer Partners. The pipeline will transport crude oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to Patoka, Ill. Nearly 200 tribes have offered support to the Standing Rock Sioux, according to National Public Radio.
“We’ve never seen indigenous-led action of this magnitude and I want to be able to support that,” Dunn told Seven Days Thursday.
Opponents of the project, who call themselves water protectors — not protesters — worry that the pipeline will leak into the Missouri River, which holds cultural, spiritual and environmental significance for the tribe. They also say the proposed route cuts through sacred burial grounds.
Dunn and her colleague Abby Mnookin had been thinking about traveling to North Dakota separately before deciding to coordinate the bus trip. It took them a week to do the planning. All 51 seats filled up.
“I’m a little surprised and excited that so many people are able to come at such a last minute,” said Dunn.
Participants include students from colleges in Vermont and Massachusetts, Dunn noted. Before the trip, she encouraged everyone to read a resource package from the Standing Rock Solidarity Network, which includes camp protocols. The group will spend the week at the Oceti Sakowin Camp before returning on Sunday, November 27.
Some passengers, including Dunn, will link up with another Vermonters-led group, the NoDAPL Builders Delegation and Supply Caravan, which left Friday. Henry Harris and Erik Gillard are coordinating that group. They’ve raised close to $13,000 since last month to buy building supplies.
Harris told Seven Days Thursday that the caravan of trucks and cars comprise builders and volunteers from Vermont, New York, Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota. They will work throughout Thanksgiving week to help winterize and insulate existing structures with straw bales.
“I hope that we can get a bunch of warm places for the people who are there, participate in direct action, make enough pressure on President [Barack] Obama that he moves to protect water before [Donald] Trump [comes into office],” said Harris.
The Plainfield builder said he has contacted native leaders in North Dakota. “They are excited for us to come down and help them,” he said. “This isn’t just a struggle over the climate. But this is a struggle for native survival.”
Clashes between police and demonstrators have followed what activists described as peaceful protests. The movement has received backing from several groups, including Black Lives Matter, as well as politicians and prominent personalities, such as former vice president Al Gore. Celebrities have organized benefit concerts.
The Standing Rock tribe points out that the pipeline was originally supposed to pass north of the state capital, Bismarck. But that plan was rejected and the pipeline was rerouted closer to the tribe’s reservation.
“This pipeline was rerouted towards our tribal nations when other citizens of North Dakota rightfully rejected it in the interests of protecting their communities and water. We seek the same consideration as those citizens,” Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said in a statement last month.
Brenda Gagne, an Abenaki, said earlier this month that she plans to send supplies to the Standing Rock tribe. Gagne runs the Circle of Courage, an after-school program in Swanton that teaches children about Abenaki traditions.
Melody Brook, the vice chair of the Vermont Commission on Native American Affairs, said the Elnu band of the Abenaki tribe has sent money and messages of support to Standing Rock.
“I hope everyone recognizes that they are making history,” said Brook, when told about the Vermont delegations. “Standing up for what you believe in in a world that often marginalizes others and contains far too much injustice is, in essence, expressing your deepest love of the world around you and for all of its people.”
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What a joke . I hope this motley caravan is powered by wind or solar . Doesn’t this rabble understand how much safer pipelines are over oil transported by trains ?
Somehow, Rich ard, you missed the point.
No, he didn’t. He didn’t at all. Not clear that you get the point.
Take safety of the pipelines vs alternative means of transportation out of it for just a second. The proposed pipelines still cut through sacred lands protected by treaties. Hard to miss, I know.
An Honest Government Advert on the Dakota Access Pipeline:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9TR9G5bd7…
Your house sits on somebody’s “sacred land.” Move out and hand it over.
That’s not even close to the same thing.
“That’s not even close to the same thing.”
Of course you’d say that. Because you don’t want to live by the same rules that you’re advocating others should live by. Yes, it’s the same thing. You occupy a house on land originally held by Native Americans. Give it up and hand it over.
I’ll answer your nonsense directed at Philo, which I did before. What you are saying is not the same thing. “Move out of the house that has been in your family for generations because we are taking it even though we moved you here and promised not to take it” is closer to what is happening with the pipeline. Whereas most, if not all, of the land where are houses are once belonged, in a sense, to Native Americans, the pipeline adds a wrinkle that your simplistic look ignores. I’d be all for resetting what is now the United States to what is was before the Europeans came and figuring out a way to share it. What I’m proposing now is the government simply uphold treaties that were signed after they already came in and moved Native Americans off the land it wanted but promised not to do it again with treaties.
It’s just not the same thing. That’s OK, though. You are entitled to your opinion and clearly no amount of reason is going to move you from it, which is too bad but still your prerogative.
Blah, blah, blah, it’s not the same thing, blah, blah, blah.
“It’s not the same thing” because you want to tell others that they can’t use the property that they bought the rights to, because someone else says it’s “sacred” to them, but you don’t want to give up the property that YOU bought the rights to. Hypocrisy. The rules I want to impose upon you don’t apply to me. It’s as simple as that. Abandon your home, give it to the Abenakis, move onto a reservation for European descendants, and then I might give a ____ what your pathetic bleeding heart says about Indian land rights in Dakota.
Let’s all face the facts that this fight over the pipeline is all about money. Standing Rock Reservation is one of the poorest places in America and the tribe sees everyone around them getting rich off the oil that is going to be running through their land, if the oil companies and the government would just meet their price the protest ends and all the young white protesters go back to marching against Trump and the Natives go back to their lives maybe even with running water in their homes. Native tribes throughout this country have proven time and time again that they are business orientated and only want better lives for their people. Look at all the casinos they operate across America. I’m pretty sure most of the Natives at standing rock don’t want to spend their time riding around the Dakota Plains with no money in their pockets and pretending it’s the 1800s still.
Rich ard, This is ONE pipeline from Northern Alberta to the Port of Vancouver. Have there been 82 train oil tankers explode and catch fire in North America? Xs all the separate pipelines?
Spill History | Trans Mountain
https://www.transmountain.com/spill-history
While no spill is acceptable, when one does happen, Trans Mountain notifies … Over the years, the NEB has revised the spill reporting criteria for pipeline companies. … in terms of reporting pipeline leaks and malfunctions, according to the rules … Since 1961, Trans Mountain has reported approximately 82 spills to the NEB.
It is well known railway tank cars must be built to heavier specifications.
DOT-111 tank car – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOT-111_tank_car
Rich ard, All the promises of the latest Leak Detection Equipment mean nothing. This leak was found by a man walking along the pipeline Right of Way. Oop’s for a pipeline only ONE year old.
Nexen pipeline may have been leaking for over two weeks, executives …
http://www.theglobeandmail.com … Industry News Energy & Resources
Jul 22, 2015 – Nexen pipeline may have been leaking for over two weeks, executives say Add to . … sand and salty water may have gone undetected by an automated monitoring … The spill is one of the largest in Alberta’s recent history and has spewed … B.C. The $7.9-billion proposal has languished for years and faces …