What are your thoughts on Standing Creek pipeline?

Those protesters are in for a harsh winter. I support them until the company comes up with a better plan.

What part of the “plan” do you disagree with? The pipeline is crossing private property. The property owners have signed easements.

Just a quick look makes your site slightly suspect,as it is put out by these people.
I’m not saying that those aren’t the facts, bt I’d be more comfortable seeing things from a less biased source.

Fair enough. I’ll see what else I can find.

“The Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now” is an obvious astroturf operation, posing as a “heartland” “grassroots” group when it’s a corporate lobby.

They wouldn’t resort to fraud if they were on the right side.

The United States has almost 2 and a half million miles of pipeline..
What is so different about this one?

I’ve said it before. Big oil hasn’t proven it can run any sort of operation without incident.

Despite the obvious legal, and ethical issues, they WILL fuck it up ,oil will leak out.

Extracting, transporting, and burning oil is dangerous, bad for the environment, and outdated technology.

It’s been long past time to move on from it. NOT come up with new ways to fuck the world up.

I agree it’s long past time to move away from fossil fuels…but the fact remains that we haven’t. And Trump has already said he thinks global warming is a hoax.

It’s called Dakota Access Pipeline. DAPL for short.

Jesus, guys. Look at these stats.

Reasons to be against it. http://earthjustice.org/cases/2016/the-dakota-access-pipeline#

It’s all well and good to be against it, but we have to have an alternative and we don’t.

@nutallergy, just FYI I got called out for providing what could be a biased report, in the details of my question. I went looking for more neutral sources. You should do the same. That’s how we really learn things.

The pipeline will affect surrounding lands and waters that don’t belong to the company. The company can spend the billions to go around the Indian lands as it stands to make a huge amount of money out of this as this is a huge underground lake of oil that has been tapped into—possibly the largest every tapped. Downriver from the Indian lands, one of the many alternative routes available to the company—would take the heat out of the protests. But the company decided otherwise.

They can eat the cost of an alternative route as far as I’m concerned. And if you think you will see a reduction in the price of gasoline, you are dreaming. If they can’t get the price per barrel they want, they will simply withhold the oil from the market place. This isn’t Norway. We allow private corporations to own the natural resources that rightfully belong to the citizens of this country as common shareholders. There won’t be a check in the mail for you. Transportation and all product prices that are affected by transportation will not get any cheaper for you.

As far as I’m concerned, there is a greater issue here—as to who actually owns our natural resources. And this is a good place to start in order to bring this issue to light.

we have to have an alternative and we don’t.

Nonsense.

First there’s conservation. Despite the belief that most Americans “need” an SUV, most people don’t need a big car and most can drive less.

If you don’t understand that, the auto advertisers thank you for your gullibility.

Second, nuclear power is the best option for the electrical grid.

Nuclear isn’t perfect, but it’s the best we have, and a lot better than burning coal. Wind and solar are wonderful, but only as a topper – they don’t provide the necessary baseline power.

I’m well informed about the pipeline Dutchess. If I had more time I would provide more information. It is you who didn’t even know the correct name.

The property owners of the land signed easements, @Espiritus_Corvus.

I agree with you, @Call_Me_Jay.

Once again, Natives are getting raped by the white invaders.

@Dutchess_III The actions of a few Quisling sellouts don;t make this right. And it doesn’t alleviate to risks to land and waterways not owned by them, all it does is give the company the right away to a narrow strip of earth. If we as a nation are to be asked to insure these risks through our taxes in paying for another potential Superfund site, then we as a nation should share in the profits as shareholders in our natural resources. As the system stands, we have very little say in these matters, but are asked to absorb all the costs when things go bad. It is high time we treated these oil companies into simple contractors and purchase their services, instead of giving them the whole kit and kaboodle.

The way it is, we are being treated like a third world country by corporations that couldn’t give a shit about the general population or our land and, if you haven’t noticed, we are rapidly becoming one as well. In many ways, the Native American argument is our argument as it affects all of us.

Pipelines are how our natural gas and petrol get from place to place I have no real beef with it except that there is not nearly enough maintenance done on them. I personally would not sign an easement unless a substantial amount of cash was involved, like enough not to have to worry about money. Otherwise: Not in my back yard! May sound a little selfish but it’s honest.

There are almost 2 and a half million miles of pipeline in the US already. What difference will another 1200 miles make? I also see articles that say the pipelines are much safer than shipping by rail. Still looking into that.

@ragingloli Can’t help but notice all the trucks and cars the protesters have.

@Dutchess_III you’re starting to sound like some of my more conservative peeps. Amazing what a little logic will do for ya.

I’m not taking a position either way. I’m just learning. Or trying to.

Answering some of my questions would help, actually.

There is a major pipeline about a quarter mile from my house. We looked at a couple of houses closer and one of them had it right through the back yard. I looked into the pipeline company and they had a few pretty major environmental events. While the property was amazing and cheap the pipeline made it a hell no. There were zero incentives and only drawbacks to having it nearby. They are all over the place and you would never know it if it were not for the markers. While they are mostly a very safe way to move hazardous stuff around what I found when I researched having them nearby was that they are poorly maintained. As they age without proper maintenance we’ll see problems. I have no problem building it I just would like to see more attention given to keeping them safe because I don’t think we really are.

I agree with that @ARE_you_kidding_me. Wouldn’t the newer pipelines have something built in to alert the companies that there is an issue? I don’t know what. I’m just thinking out loud.

You mean instrumentation, probably not nearly enough.

One of the major factors that bother me about it was that the pipeline was originally laid out to cross the river north of Bismark but was relocated due to fears that a leak could potentially be catastrophic to the water supply for said city. I do not see how relocating it to an area that would only affect a minority population and not the majority white population of Bismark does anything to reduce the potential for catastrophe. article

Keystone Leak Pipelines are so safe.

With these millions of miled of pipeline in the US, everyone is affected. Not just minorities.

Yes, they can get compromised. Something can go wrong with EVERY method used to transport the oil.

The thing is, they are going to get that oil out of there one way or another. The other option would be by rail.

Or not at all. As you say we have millions of miles of pipeline. Do we really need 1200 more miles? Will the world end if it is not built? Will the US economy grind to a halt?

I will look back but as I recall earlier research I did indicated that this was just an end run around the government refusal to allow the Keystone pipeline. It is over designed for the amount of oil available, the major players were involved with Keystone, one of them actually has an existing line that crosses the border but it sends product north to Canada BUT is exists so they could reverse the flow without requiring federal approval and it is only a few miles from the beginning of the Dakota Pipeline. And the tie in could be made without requiring fed approval.

It’s all going to run out eventually. And yes, if we don’t have something to take its place, the world economy as we know it will grind to a halt.

Seriously @Dutchess_III? The world as we know it will end if we do not build these 1200 miles of leaky oil pipe? Give me a break. And you as you said it will all run out eventually so wtf does it matter if we do not build this?

I said, we will run out sooner or later, with or without that one pipeline. And when it does, if we have nothing to replace it, the world as we know it will be altered drastically.

If you want to build it, put it back in its original location. It will not go over sacred land, and, as you indicate, it will not leak or if it does we can handle it. Put it back north of Bismark and the protests go away.
.

I’m neither for or against it. But from what I’m seeing it’s going over private land.

Private land that was given to the original inhabitants and then taken away again without redress.

It’s so very hard to take a stand against something that I take advantage of every moment of every day, from my house, to transportation, to my job, to the food I eat and the clothes I wear. The protesters drove there in their cars and trucks, and marched in clothes that were built with energy that oil and gas provide. How do I protest this without feeling like an utterly, idiotic hypocrite?

And Kansas was taken away from the original habitats too, but I’m not moving.

It’s dilemma.

Generally speaking, it seems like the people who protest defense spending over social programs, and who want to disengage from the Middle East in the name peace and love are also the ones who are trying to interfere with harvesting oil in the Western hemisphere which would be a huge step in meeting the previous goals.
Maybe it’s the public education system.

I don’t think a call for a pipeline to go through a different route is going to be the end of Western hemisphere oil. But I’m considering an electric car, so what can I say?

We’ve fucked the natives enough already. That’s what I think.

It’s their land. They don’t owe anyone anything. If they don’t want it there, it shouldn’t be there.

Not only are treaty violations and sacred land involved, but the Native American people depend on the river being clean for their survival.

Here’s a decent but somewhat outdated explanation for British newspaper The Guardian from just before the US elections: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/north-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-protests-explainer

Wikipedia also has a lot of information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_Access_Pipeline

In American Samoa Tesla just powered an entire island with solar power for 600 residents. It’s possible to stop using fossil fuels if our country made a commitment to it. Global climate change is coming. We can make it less bad or possibly armageddon for humanity depending on the choices we make now.

You guys, from what I’m hearing the pipeline is crossing private property, not sacred land. I’m at lunch break from work, so I’ll start looking further into it when I can.

@gorillapaws it’s not just the generation side the base power load must be reduced also. The amount that is reduced from people just being mindful, switching to efficient appliances or alternative tech is almost unbelievable.
My new workshop is now 100% solar as prices have dramatically dropped on photovoltaics. This is energy not being drawn from the grid. In ten years or so if this trend continues whole house conversions will start to be common. The grid will shift from transporting power to transporting fiber optics.

@Dutchess_III ”...the pipeline is crossing private property, not sacred land.”

See the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie. Or look at this picture.

Sadly. Much land that was considered sacred was taken by a variety of ways. Often taking away, or ignoring the few rights tribal people were given.

That is of course before they were systematically herded /marched at gun point, to the less desirable/less resourceful places on the continent….

I will @gorillapaws. But I found this, which helps me understand better. The pipe line is running right at the tip of the reservation. That’s where they’re making their stand.
I’ve read a lot today, and there is so so so much he said / she said. It is really confusing.
It looks like it’s not quite over the protected lands. I don’t understand why they can’t just move it west so it clears it safely. But I also don’t know the topography.

Weren’t there even earlier treaties that originally gave the native American’s everything west of the Mississippi?

Oh, we have the same picture, @gorillapaws. Is the dotted line on yours the pipeline, or the solid line?

Your map notes it is the area staked out by the 1851 Treaty….which factions of the government and the white civilians ignored in the 19th century, causing a lot of problems.

OK. I’m catching my breath now! I’d just gotten off of work. So the solid line was the original route, the dotted line is the new route..that’ is running through the “unceded Sioux Land under the 1851 territory.”
This needs more research.

Yes, it says on the map that the solid line on @gorillapaws‘s pic is the current planned route. The previous route, the dotted line, was abandoned due to public concern about its affect on Bismarck’s water supply. Apparently those same concerns don’t matter when applied to native lands.

I think you have it backward @Mariah. The dotted line was the “original pipeline route (nixed by regulators due to concerns over drinking water in the Bismark area.)”
That’s what I see.

The solid line is the current plan…which makes no sense. It passes through a hell of a lot more waterways than the old route did, and a spill would contaminate Bismark more surely than the original line.

Something else I would point out….whomever made the map went out of their way to surround Bismark in yellow, which, according to the legend, is “Majority White.” Well, that’ll get your hackles up! ..... Except if you look at the ALL of the towns that are noted on that map, including two that are actually in the reservation (Carson and Flasher) they are ALL majority white, by a huge margin.

Carson ND ( As of the census[2] of 2010, there were 293 people, 154 households, and 70 families residing in the city…. The racial makeup of the city was 99.3% White, 0.3% Native American.

Flasher ND As of the census[2] of 2010, there were 232 people, 113 households, and 58 families residing in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 97.8% White, 0.4% Native American.

Perhaps it’s not the racial make up of Bismark that was of the greatest concern. Perhaps it was the population density, which was 61,272, as of 2010. It’s the 2nd largest city in ND.

You might find this interesting. We’re not just speaking about North Dakota. The DAPL will cross several states and major waterways. http://www.sierraclub.org/iowa/stop-bakken-pipeline

Yes. Only one protest at a time please. I’m about at the end of my mental capacity for tonight for researching independently of Facebook and the popular news.

So lets figure out North Dakota, which is a hot spot at the moment, first, before we move on to the other 2.5 million miles of pipeline running throughout the US.

That’s exactly the same as what I said, @Dutchess_III. The solid route is current and the dotted route is previous.

This is the same pipeline. It starts in N. Dakota and ends in Illinois. The Obama administration suggested it be rerouted in N. Dakota to appease the protesters but that doesn’t solve the problem for the remainder of the pipeline. The protests are to stop it completely, not reroute.

Sorry @Mariah. I was tired.

It still seems to me that the dotted, old line, would have been safer. It looks like it didn’t have to go under nearly so much water, which is the main concern.

Perhaps safer but remember, NIMBY.

NIMBY?

Not
In
My
Back
Yard.

OK, I’ve spent several hours over the last couple of days researching this, so please bear with.

I honestly think the pipeline rerouting decision has everything to do with population density, and not ethnicity.

The entire population of the Standing Rock Reservation (which is only 1/13th of the original reservation agreement of 1851) is only 8,900 (eight-thousand-nine-hundred) people.

The “towns” within the confines of the section of the reservation in question are SMALL, like 189 to 250 people.

Some of the towns are predominately native American, some are predominately white. Flasher, for example (on Gorilla Paws map) has a population of 232 and is 97.8% white.)
Bismark, on the other hand, is the 2nd largest city in North Dakota, with a population of 62,000.

Having said that, I have decided that the people of Bismark just need to suck it up. They aren’t the only damn town that is crisscrossed with natural gas and oil lines in the United States.

But the most important thing is, that the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Larimie should still stand, wherever possible, and that “unceded” land of that treaty should still be considered, possible, to belong to the Native Americans, wherever possible. (I say “Where ever possible,” because, for example, Denver Colorado is within the 1851 treaty boundary, as is most of Western Kansas. Those are just 2 off the top of my head.)

They lost all but 1/13th of that land in 1877 when the US reniged because of gold discovered in Colorado. In the map above, the grey part were sections of the original, 1851 reservations granted to the Indians, which the government then tried to take back. The Indians said, “Nope,” and refused to cede it back.

However, in 1979, and again, 1980, The United States upheld the claims filed by the Sioux nation that the seizure of 1877 was unlawful.

However, they didn’t return the land, but offered the tribe(s) $106 million dollars, which the tribes refused. I guess the money has been sitting in an account gather interest since then.

So, in THIS situation, I agree with the Native Americans, based on moral and legal precedents.

They need to keep that pipeline out of that section of the country.

So, I honestly wasn’t on one side or the other, but now I am.

The end.

I am glad you took the time to look into it @Dutchess_III . Most just shoot from the hip.

Thank you @rojo. But then again…I’m seeing other things. Off the top of my head, there is a claim by the protesters that they weren’t involved in any meetings about the project. The other side claims that there were 500+ meetings in the last few years, but people didn’t show up! It’s a mess.

Proof of meetings available? Does this figure include internal meeting within the pipeline companies?

Kinda like posting something required by law and putting the poster up in the basement of a building that very few people will actually see.

According to the piece, the pipeline’s owners, Energy Transfer Partners, spent years working with community interests to construct its route. No evidence was provided of the purported 559 meetings between ETP and the community, but going by the 10 July 2014 date of early coverage in the Des Moines Register, 631 days elapsed between the initial query and 1 April 2016, when DAPL protests began. By that (admittedly loose) metric, ETP would have participated in community meetings nearly once a day, including on weekends.

The editorial continued on by saying that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers met 389 times with leaders from 55 tribes and referenced a year and a half of “stonewalling” by tribal leaders: – The closest to a source for the “389 meetings” claim we could locate originated with StandingRockFactChecker.com, a web site devoted to advocating for the construction of the pipeline. From its “About” page:

And what about StandingRockFactChecker.com, – The Standing Rock Fact Checker is a project of the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN) – a partnership of more than 40 civic, business, labor and agricultural groups who support the economic development and energy security benefits associated with infrastructure projects in the Midwest. So a business consortium in favor of the pipeline.

Excerpts from a Snopes report on an article called What Those Dakota Access Pipeline Protester Don’t Tell You Which is just a hit job written by Shawn McCoy who writes for organizations like Americans for Job Security a right wing think tank.

Veterans plan to join DAPL protest December 4 I wonder if they will attempt to clear the camp before this happens?

Things change by the minute. Snopes actually did some research on the very article I was talking about above. Here is the article.

From Snopes: -“Protesters claim that the Standing Rock Sioux pursued meetings with an unresponsive Army Corps of Engineers. Court records show that the roles in that story were in fact reversed. The corps alerted the tribe to the pipeline permit application in the fall of 2014 and repeatedly requested comments from and meetings with tribal leaders only to be rebuffed over and over. Tribal leaders ignored requests for comment and canceled meetings multiple times.”

Then Snopes says, “But a 4 August 2016 suit filed by the tribes opposing the pipeline [PDF] specifically contradicted that claim:”

@Dutchess_III I think you misread it. The Snopes piece is quoting the article in question when it says “Protesters claim that the Standing Rock Sioux pursued meetings with an unresponsive Army Corps of Engineers. Court records show that the roles in that story were in fact reversed. The corps alerted the tribe to the pipeline permit application in the fall of 2014 and repeatedly requested comments from and meetings with tribal leaders only to be rebuffed over and over. Tribal leaders ignored requests for comment and canceled meetings multiple times.”

Snopes then says it is contradicted by the suit and therefore of dubious authenticity,.

I didn’t miss it. I just didn’t phrase it right. Tired. Thanks for making it clearer, @rojo.

The Guardian – December 4, 2016 – US denies key permit for Dakota Access pipeline, a win for tribe

WOW!!

I thought this was an interesting interview with a tech from the DAPL protestors about the technology used by the corporate anti-protest forces to block communications about what was going on, and also good to hear someone cogently explaining how corporations are abusing our government and police in favor of corporate agendas.