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Oh hey a DAPL thread. I am up the road from this and everyone I've met seems confused about wtf is going on at the site. I talked to one of the members of a neighboring reservation and he was perplexed why a bunch of white people were protesting. Also, the consultants in the psc report "keitu engineers & consultants" are morons, or at least their boss is, so if their report looks lovely, that's why.
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Nov 10, 2016 04:48
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Treaty stuff! http://www.ndstudies.org/resources/IndianStudies/standingrock/1851treaty.html The gist I understand it is a treaty was made, but not everyone agreed to it, and toss a coin to decide who broke it first because for everyone it was supposed to cover not everyone knew the details of the treaty, knew there was even a treaty, and may not have even cared if they knew. Be careful when trying to group anyone all under one convenient label, everyone, american indians included, run the gambit from reasonable to batshit. Don't condemn any group based on the actions of a few, but don't brush the actions of those few away, either. The protest is a cluster of way too many emotionally charged issues trying to be solved on a cold and wet patch of grass, and with the first major snowstorm looking like it's going to hit on Monday, things are only going to get worse unless the feds/obama makes a call on this (likelyhood: 0%)
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Nov 26, 2016 03:00
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what white neighborhood edit: I am being facetious but still want you to clarify it before I respond
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Nov 26, 2016 03:37
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Okay, I'll bite first. Do you mean the whole "bismarck residents wanted the pipeline moved because of the risk to groundwater" bit? Because I hope you have proof of it, I've been trying to find it for days and all I got are a lot of things to the contrary on that one.
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Nov 26, 2016 03:50
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Ya, the point I was going to make was that it wasn't "white bismarck residents" (even though they probably would do something that dumb) it was the USACE looking at the bismarck route and determining that based on their criteria the southern route was overall less impact/less risk. Disagree with the corps all you want, they do stupid poo poo all the time, but turning their decision into a race issue is well, willfully dense. But please if you have a source I would love it, because I would like to slap a bismarck resident with a giant poster of the Tesoro refinery that sits just upriver from Bismarck's water intakes. Just go to google maps and go to Mandan, and head north along the river, once you see all the big ol white tanks, there she sits. There's a power plant and its coal stockpile by it too. So either bismarck residents can't look to the west and see a giant refinery and powerplant sitting right upstream or someone's trying to make this a race/ native vs non-native issue, which are probably both plausible.
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Nov 26, 2016 04:17
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Oh and speaking of Mandan, we're used to contaminated water, so it doesn't bother us. http://www.kfyrtv.com/home/headlines/KFYR-Underground-BNSF-Diesel-Leak-Cleanup-Continues-for-Years-in-Mandan-364677921.html Irony: It was discovered when they were building a new law enforcement center. So there IS some connection between the cops and oil!
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Nov 26, 2016 04:25
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Ya, once you dig down to it, with the mind of who each of these populations primarily are, I think the corps could of done a much better job describing it. We have a native population in both mandan and bismarck, bismarck itself is home to the united tribes technical college and home to their yearly powwow (http://www.unitedtribespowwow.com/). Likewise, there are "white" people living at standing rock. But when you do these big assessments and basically go, there's more people here, and less people there, so move the pipeline to where there are less people, you should really make a clarifying statement when that smaller population is also a historically abused and underrepresented population. But I can understand the process the corps went through, they permit a lot of pipelines, hell, the other end of the dakota access pipeline is upstream of Williston's water intakes, (so technically a "white" city did get a crude oil pipeline right above its intakes, but williston also already has either a crude or natural gas pipeline going exactly through the same spot as their water intakes anyway), likewise with a natural gas pipeline and an electrical transmission line already in dakota access's path, I assume they didn't think this would "blow up" in this fashion. Hindsight and all that. I am trying to find some record somewhere, because I heard a discussion where it was mentioned that the standing rock/cannonball's water intakes are being shut off anyway next year to switch to underground aquifers instead, because the river intakes keep plugging up with silt, when I found this: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-108shrg97093/html/CHRG-108shrg97093.htm It's a long congressional hearing, but from what I've read so far, basically when the area was in a drought between 2000-2006, the Missouri ran very low, low enough that standing rock's intakes ran out of water they could pull in November/December 2003, there was still water in the river but according to one of the testimonies you could cross the river on foot. Add insult to injury, apparently one of the times they ran out of water was on thanksgiving. No water for food, no water for hospitals, apparently they had to transport anyone who needed treatment 60 miles north to Bismarck. I hadn't heard about this at all, and it might be an important piece to help understand why standing rock is a little antsy when it comes to their water source.
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Nov 26, 2016 17:04
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What I'd like is if someone just either cured the europeans of the nasty poo poo they carried, or gave natives their immunity. C'mon monsanto, make a maize that confers smallpox immunity. What would happen when 90% of the population wasn't already wiped out due to disease Dead Reckoning posted:Yeah, fortunately, normal people don't spend every waking moment considering the socio-politico-historical ramifications of their every action with respect to events 150 years ago. Keep in mind the resident/boarding schools lasted into the 1920's at least up in ND, and this:  happened in 1948 (garrison dam). Edit: Thanks for the avatar, whoever. I'd love to actually hear your problem with my information instead of just giving me my first hate-atar. Silento Boborachi fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Nov 26, 2016 |
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Nov 26, 2016 20:51
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It could also be argued that easier access to oil makes society less willing to ween itself off of it, e.g. if we used less oil for fuel we would then have more supply for petrochemicals, making things cheaper overall (which this assumes there is an ultimately cheaper fuel source since transportation costs are inherent in any product), but that's a hard sell to someone living paycheck to paycheck saying pay higher fuel prices now to ultimately benefit society in an undetermined timeframe of future.
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Nov 26, 2016 21:01
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Recoome posted:Ummm it's actually to do with the pipeline leaking, you should check earlier in the thread where basically pipeline leaks go effectively unreported in the media so there's that More accurately, it's about the pipeline leaking and denying a sovereign nation their one source of water.
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Nov 27, 2016 00:34
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silence_kit posted:It's not actually about that though. The oil company could be pulling out all of the stops and could be over-engineering the hell out of the pipeline to minimize the risk, and there'd still be protest. I'm not disagreeing, but you have to specify what "it" is. The original protest, to my knowledge, was about protecting access to water, I know Chase Iron Eyes, and if I remember correctly, Archambault himself said they were fine with the pipeline in and of itself, they understood that infrastructure was needed, they just did not want it at its current spot. It seems that later, everything else got tacked on to it as more and more people became involved in the protest. I have no doubt this pipeline will be over engineered to hell, because people will be watching it like a hawk if it goes in. So yes, the risk is, imo, the lowest for any of the current modes of transportation of oil, and it is ultimately the safest choice of the three (truck, train, or pipeline), but at the same time the largest spills in north dakota to date have been pipeline spills, e.g. the oil spill up by tioga (something like a million gallons) and the saltwater spill up by williston (something like 3 million gallons). There was even a ~1 million gallon saltwater spill up on the MHA nation reservation. I guess I am trying to say it's like getting any of those rare diseases like ebola or something ( I am not a doctor, I am just trying to give an example), yes it happens even if the odds are incredibly remote, but that is what everyone freaks out about because if you were to get it the situation is pretty dire. We don't worry about the stuff that is most likely to happen to us if its symptoms are minor, we care about the catastrophes. I still hear about now and then some asteroid that "narrowly" misses the Earth. The Lakota can't do anything about that, but it seems to me that at some level they probably feel they can at least try to avoid the pipeline risk, despite how remote that risk is. I hope that maybe when/if the camps actually move to the reservation and winter hits, maybe the protestors (i.e. not the Lakota, the protestors trying to tack all these other issues onto it) will all go home and then some actual progress can be made between the tribe and the corps
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Nov 27, 2016 06:44
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Okay, so I read the entire civil action (thanks for posting it, though my head hurts now), and I hereby retract my statement that the protest was originally about the pipeline impacting the water supply. I don't know what exactly the protest started out about anymore, but as the document says: "In seeking preliminary-injunctive relief here, the Standing Rock Sioux do not claim that a potential future rupture in the pipeline could damage their reserved land or water. Instead, they point to an entirely separate injury: the likelihood that DAPL’s ongoing construction activities – specifically, grading and clearing of land – might damage or destroy sites of great cultural or historical significance to the Tribe. " The only thing I can grasp is that it is all falls back to native lands/treaty violations. I am paraphrasing/generalizing here: The tribe makes the argument that the corps did not do their duty in reviewing the entire pipeline route, the corps responds that they can only assess the parts where they have jurisdiction to do so (which I think includes both federal and tribal land, I know EPA regulates on tribal land) because a majority of the pipeline route is on "private" land (yes I understand that the definition of private land is wrong in a historical context, I am going off of the court's opinion right now), which then taking the tribe's stance that their land encompasses "wherever the buffalo roamed"* seems to indicate the tribe is trying to make the point that the corps does have jurisdiction over the entire pipeline route because the corps have jurisdiction over federal/tribal land, thus they have jurisdiction over the entire route because it is all on land taken from native peoples. So is this just a proxy in the treaty disputes then? All I can ask is please be chill to each other in this discussion, because the consensus among people I've talked to around the protest area, both native and non-native, is how we will treat each other once the pipeline is either in, or out. E.g. Older natives worry about a backlash that will affect their children's lives, and non-natives worry this will lead to long lasting distrust and heighten tensions between those living (particularly ranchers) in proximity to the reservation border both on and off. * Plaintiff never defined the boundaries of its ancestral lands vis-à- vis DAPL. Instead, Standing Rock asserts that these lands extend “wherever the buffalo roamed.”
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Nov 27, 2016 23:10
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Dead Reckoning posted:They want this because the CoE is required to consult with affected tribes when making these decisions, (although it is not required to make its decision based on those consultations,) and they are hoping to use that as a lever to hold up permitting of the river crossings while the tribe demands to do a cultural survey of the entire length of the pipeline. Yeh I kinda got that argument from the court decision, I just thought it was in support of the "greater" discussion of treaty lands themselves, thanks for summarizing it though. coyo7e posted:I find it telling that you had to go back to Nov 2 to find an example to back up your blanket generalizations You asked for a exact example from this thread, I don't think we've been talking about it because it was generally understood to be one of extra arguments that the protest has evolved into. Unless I am misunderstanding your response, if you just want sources that part of the protest is now about fighting fossil fuel use then read about the "keep it in the ground" movement: http://www.hcn.org/articles/how-the-keep-it-in-the-ground-movement-gained-momentum Also I don't think anyone wants to tread too deeply into the fossil fuels debate, since there are/was other threads to debate that in.
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Nov 28, 2016 02:25
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Sorry, I thought you were the one that asked:Liquid Communism posted:What, exactly, in this thread about a specific bit of privately owned oil infrastructure, indicates to you that people are vaguely protesting against oil infrastructure in general? When it was liquid communism that asked it instead.
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Nov 28, 2016 02:43
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Stay safe, stay warm, uglycat. I don't know if you're Lakota or how knowledgeable you are about standing rock itself, but I've got some questions if you can answer them, I've only dealt with the MHA folks so I don't know much about the current affairs of standing rock: Do you know if the protest is spurring interest in big-capital renewables down there? I know the big electrical providers have been putting wind farms all over the state, but I don't know if they've put any on standing rock, or if the tribe would be interested in it since that kind of construction also comes at some environmental cost, but I figure with the attention standing rock has now, this would be the time to start trying to fund something like that. I know a lot of the protestors are vegetarian, is this also growing in popularity with the Lakota, despite their history with the buffalo, or is it just a personal preference?
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Nov 28, 2016 06:20
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Or just look at the 1862 dakota war/dakota uprising that predated that. Denying a group of people the resources they need to survive and things turn out badly. Anyway, for the rest of the last 3 page trainwreck, the first things I want to respond to, I know some of it has been addressed already but they're pretty terrible things: No one deserves to be hurt standing up for what they believe in. If it involves breaking the law to do so, because you believe those laws are part of the problem, then you accept the fact that legally you can be arrested, but that does not warrant being ran over by a bulldozer/killed, likewise the police don't deserve to be shot if they're arresting people. You deserve to be treated with respect if you're expressing your amendment rights, and if you're doing your sworn duty. Civil disobedience can actually be civil, it doesn't have to be civil like a civil war. Secondly, stop with the whole "white people in bismarck NIMBY'd", barring the whole evidence of the USACE assessment, there is an oil refinery right upstream of the bismarck intakes, there is a coal powerplant right upstream of the intakes, there is a major BNSF train line that is upstream of the intakes, if anything is going to hit that intake it's going to come from one of those sources before a pipeline, Mandan already had a huge diesel contamination spill from the rail line that I already mentioned. If they NIMBY'd it's because the backyard is already full of crap able to pollute the land. We have racists in Bismarck, I am not denying that. One of the things a friend told me to watch out for moving up here is that the casual racism that some people treat the african americans in chicago is the same way they treat the native people here. E.g.: this that happened back in 2013: http://bismarcktribune.com/business/local/employees-fired-for-facebook-post/article_2117b7f8-199b-11e3-806d-001a4bcf887a.html (context: the pow wow is the big gathering of native people at the united tribes technical college) Arguing against the Bismarck reroute through an unproven racial lens isn't going to solve anything. Stick with the well documented hundreds of other actually race based atrocities against native peoples. Lastly, don't critique a native people's beliefs unless you have a really, really good understanding of it, and even then I wouldn't. I don't/can't ever truly understand what all the Buffalo meant to the Lakota people, or what it meant to have them wiped out for food, hides, or for a lot of cases, pure sport/goal of denying them to natives. I'd love to read/hear about what the Lakota and other North Dakotan tribes view as their future, where they would like to see their nations in 10, 50, 100 years, but I am not going to try to cast judgement on it if there's parts I don't agree with, because it's probably due to the fact that I don't understand something. You're making me switch to progressively stronger alcohols to even attempt to cope with your arguments goons, please stop.
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Nov 29, 2016 04:52
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At this point, the pipeline route is moot because the pipeline is already installed except for the route under the water, and that is apparently being drilled now. I think hindsight, everyone, USACE, energy transfer partners (sunoco now I guess), would agree they should have just put it by Bismarck and this whole thing would not have happened. Pipelines exist, we can debate what they do in the greater scheme of economics and climate policy, but that's not going to change all the pipelines by Williston, under Lake Sakakawea, or throughout the MHA nation. Keep in mind, the MHA nation has one of the richest parts of the Bakken shale play, and one tribal council leader in particular (looking at you, Tex Hall) pursued an aggressive "sovereignty by the barrel" policy that put oil wells and their supporting infrastructure all over the reservation. This lead to incredible economic wealth, but also a heavy backlash among the tribe that ultimately saw Tex Hall kicked out (I won't even go into the criminal charges against him). So for the pipeline route, I guess all I can say is as long as it followed all the rules, no change. It is not deserving of the scapegoat it has become. I'll leave you all with this, from the tribal fund created with oil royalties on the reservation: "The Three Affiliated Tribes Tribal Business Council recognizes the opportunity given to the people of the MHA Nation from the oil & gas development on the Fort Berthold Reservation. The People’s Fund has been created for the membership as a source of revenue long after the last barrel of oil is taken from our lands. As we have been fortunate to be blessed with this natural resource that has taken millions of years for Mother Nature to prepare. We shall extend the benefits of this resource perpetually into the future. The People’s Fund will continue to benefit the members of the Three Affiliated Tribes for many generations to come."
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Nov 29, 2016 06:16
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I'd take a picture of what it's like outside, but it'd be easier just to imagine something out of the revenant. How are things down there, uglycat? I know earthen lodges are pretty toasty even with tons of snow, but I don't know about the rest of the structures. I would differentiate the protestors between two groups based on the news articles I've seen (maybe uglycat can offer a better grouping) but there's the older, more traditional, primarily native protestors who are going the route of peaceful protest, set up tents blocking construction of the pipeline, pray, get arrested, repeat. IMO, A good non-violent tactic, it makes your point, and makes it difficult to stop because essentially the only law being broken is trespassing, but it's also slow. On the other hand, you have what seems to be a younger, more non-native group that wants more provocative, aggressive protesting. I know there was an article somewhere where older Lakota were lamenting the tactics of the younger protestors because the older folks viewed it to be against the principals of a peaceful protest. Likewise, the younger protestors seemed to view the hesitancy of the older folks to be sabotaging the progress of the protest, and an ineffective long-term strategy. In terms of the whole law thing, I don't know what else to ultimately fall to, unless as has been stated, we rebuild the entire justice system. The feeling I get is everyone here believes the only way to close this is for the courts to decide one way or another on the whole thing, which courts are loathe to make sweeping judgements (see supreme court cases where they make their ruling as narrow as possible). The civil action, unless I am reading it wrong, just rules that the tribe could not prove the violations they sued under, though I think they mentioned it appeared ETP followed all the laws in the permitting process. I am not a lawyer or a tribal legal scholar, but if there is a specific law that is directly harming the tribe (if you know it please post it, I am too tired to try googling through legal documents right now), then that is what we should be protesting. If we do not hold the protest against the backdrop of US law, what do we hold it to then? I assume the Lakota/Dakota have some sort of traditional justice system, but can it handle something of this complexity? If what the Lakota view as the laws they feel should be the law of the land, does it take into account the other tribes interests, and does it account for what the other tribes have already done in complying with US law on the matter? US law has been broken, rewritten, and rebroken since it was first formed, but I don't know of what could replace it. It's not perfect, for example I hate it in general when laws have exceptions, because the law shouldn't have exceptions, it should be written better to avoid the need of exceptions. But, (and this is where I think the tribes could really stretch their legal might), laws can be revised into a form that is more fair and just to what we want our united states and domestic dependent nations of america to be. If we keep focusing on the fact that so much of this debate is rooted in ultimately flawed regulations, we're just spinning our wheels. It's flawed, we get that, now what? The only other option I see is to make all tribal nations 100% independent, foreign nations to choose their own destiny, which imo, most simply do not have the resources to do because of the damage they've suffered in the interim. Isn't "the sioux nation" it's own power in the Shadowrun universe? Someone find a sourcebook and use that as a template! coyo7e posted:Please elaborate. Do you really want blowfish to elaborate on morality? 
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Nov 30, 2016 03:05
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Custer wasn't some out of the ordinary shitbag toward native peoples from what I've understood, he shared the same flawed beliefs pretty much all the whites had back then. Keep in mind there were natives that supported Custer, because Custer was primarily going against their joint enemy. Still makes him a shitbag, but an understandable one. I feel like making Custer out as "the guy" who was responsible for this, takes too much responsibility away from the federal government that sent him on his missions, the private entities that sought to capitalize on his missions, and the boots on the ground settlers and miners who followed him, willfully putting themselves and their families into harms way to exploit resources they viewed as solely theirs and then cried out when they came to harm.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:25
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well you know those protestors throwing those mazel tov cocktails...
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Nov 30, 2016 04:29
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Can supplies not come from the south? Fort Yates, mobridge, south dakota in general? I understand mandan and bismarck are larger and have more places to buy supplies, but the protestors have shown they know how to use side roads to get around the state roadblocks, and if the state is not actually making roadblocks and just "stopping vehicles they believe are headed to the camp" (which, you tell me how they can come to that belief, racial profiling or such wouldn't be the answer since so many of the protestors are white). Sounds like idle threats, which the state should not be doing in the first place. The protest is for the Lakota people, they're the ones to manage the camps as far as I understand it. Let the feds deal with the evacuation since they're on corps land, the state shouldn't be involved. Not like anyone's going to do anything for a few days with this snow making roads impassable anyway.
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Nov 30, 2016 07:17
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CommieGIR posted:Remember: They are arguing that this Pipeline MUST be done, claiming that Pipelines are "Safer" yet continuously ignore that time and again, despite all the pipelines they never switch away from the "Less Safe" transport methods. It's not exactly "pumping as much oil to market as possible" it's about getting the best price. (Though I am sure if there was some market paying outrageously high, companies would try every piece of transportation possible to get their product there) http://www.wsj.com/articles/crude-slump-pipeline-expansion-mark-end-of-u-s-oil-train-boom-1469484016 Trains were great in trying to get the best price for your oil up here in north dakota, since you could send it so many more places than pipeline, but with more pipelines going to more markets the advantage is less, so trains have definitely fallen out of favor. "There could soon be more than enough space to carry away all Bakken oil through pipelines now in the works. Phillips 66 is partnering with pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners LP to develop a pair of pipelines that will bring North Dakota crude to Illinois and then down to Texas. The endeavor, which will cost close to $5 billion, is expected to take a major bite out of oil train traffic, even though the pipelines will ultimately bring oil to the Midwest and the Gulf of Mexico, rather than to the East and West coasts, where trains have primarily taken it. Phillips 66 said earlier this year it may still be cheaper to take that oil and put it on a barge for delivery by sea to the coasts than to send it directly there by train." So, how do you feel about barges of oil cruising along our coasts? If you like those ntsb reports, look at barge collisions along the Mississippi.
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Dec 3, 2016 22:56
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CommieGIR posted:No, here's the problem, We covered this earlier in the thread: I think you're simplifying things too much, read the wsj article. I don't think any company will ever completely abandon any transport method, but rail has lost its status as the go-to transport method, at least here in the Bakken. They could be shipping more by rail, I can dig up more numbers if you want, but I know wayyy too many of the rail loading facilities that have been sitting idle if not for the last 6 months than the past year. Rail shipments just arn't worth it when compared to volume that pipelines can carry. So if your argument is that companies have been talking up the pipeline because they say they'll abandon the "less safe" transport methods all together, then I'd say you're right because no company is going to full stop until we would hypothetically have pipelines from every well to every end user, which is never going to happen, and those companies are fools to think so. But if your argument is just criticizing oil companies for not completely abandoning train and truck, I'd just have to say that's business, I don't know what you're expecting of the companies. If you've got some article that says the companies will never ever use trains/trucks once DAPL or keystone or whatever pipeline is in, I'd love to see it, because the writer must have some bizarre insight I am not aware of. And in terms of safety, I don't think anyone calls pipelines the "safe method", they're just safer than all the other traditional methods. It's hard to pin down what is meant by "safer" as well. Are you talking risk to human life? Then I'd say (crude) pipelines are safer, (excluding natural gas pipelines because that's a different beast). And environmentally, it depends on how big the release is, and what it hits. 21,000 barrels of crude into the missouri river would be one thing, 21,000 barrels into a wheat field (http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303382004579127604108354512) is another. And I don't know what you mean by "slower to report, slower to stop". Really small "pinhole" leaks are hard to find and take awhile to detect because out of, say 100 barrels of oil that goes through a section of line maybe a couple gallons comes out, leak detection systems aren't going to catch that. It's not until hundreds of thousands of barrels have passed, resulting in a detectable plume around the leak site that people are going to notice (unless it's in the water, then people notice pretty quickly an oil sheen). But the big releases are caught relatively quickly, the problem being those pipelines can only be closed off at certain points, which means whatever is in the line from the last closure to the break point is going to come out no matter what you do. Again, I am speaking from a north dakota perspective, other states with a lot older infrastructure/regulations may be entirely different.
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Dec 4, 2016 02:25
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Pellisworth posted:For the holidays I'm back on the Lakota reservation where I grew up (not Standing Rock, similar conditions). Spirit lake? Cease to Hope posted:Protestors rightly realize that the authorities in charge of enforcing regulation and punishing violators are entirely captured by the companies facing those regulations. The people in charge of deeming one pipeline safer than another are not trustworthy. I don't think it's a trust issue, it's more like the laws and regulations are so slow to catch up to current conditions that all the loopholes and exemptions and just plain lack of jurisdictional authority makes any honest oversight a drop in the bucket for all the aging infrastructure. I don't know what is worse, being ineffective due to corruption or legislative hobbling.
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Jan 2, 2017 02:38
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Technically it's the safest pipeline ever having a record of no spills so far! (Unless they've hydrotested a section of the line and had a spill of that) Statewise there are a couple different groups that oversee pipelines, as I understand it: The Public Service Commission (from their website): The Commission's statutory responsibilities concerning pipelines in North Dakota include: Establishment and enforcement of rates or charges and regulations by common pipeline carriers for receiving, gathering, transporting, loading, delivering, and incident storing of crude petroleum, coal or gas purchased or sold in North Dakota; and Enforcement of safety requirements for intrastate distribution and transmission of natural gas. So they just started up a pipeline inspector program of their own, to either supplant or work with the federal inspection team(s). From what I understand, transmission lines were just being done on the federal level, but due to the amount of growth the feds didn't have the resources to cover it all. These guys should only cover transmission lines. The North Dakota Industrial Commission: These guys regulate the bulk of the upstream O&G production side of things, so wells that pump oil, injection wells that dispose of salt water, gathering pipelines that transport oil from the wells to gathering tank batteries, lines from battery to battery, etc. They deal with spills at those facilities. The North Dakota Department of Health: These guys regulate the midstream O&G stuff and somewhat of the upstream O&G, so they don't deal with the pipelines per se, but they look at the compressor stations, big midstream storage facilities, etc. everything the big lines connect into. They deal with spills at those facilities, and work with the NDIC on spills too as I understand it.
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Jan 3, 2017 01:29
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Cease to Hope posted:If your position is that fossil fuels need to be left in the ground - which is the position of the Standing Rock Sioux and many of the noDAPL supporting tribes - then it follows that you should oppose any new oil-specific infrastructure. Where has standing rock said they're against the infrastructure? All I've seen is Iron-eyes and Archambault say they're okay with the pipeline itself, just not the location
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Jan 4, 2017 05:40
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reagan posted:When you head east from Stanley you start to run into nuke silos and the Souris River, which flows north into Canada. No idea if these were considerations. Yeh, an eastern route would also have to go around two other reservations. It could follow Enbridge's crude oil line though, but considering what happened to the sandpiper pipeline project...east ain't going to happen.
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Jan 5, 2017 02:56
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How do you feel about the native owned businesses supporting oil development? MHA Nation, Crow, and Navajo investing in their own energy development projects? Or the tribal regulators monitoring energy development in their own backyards? I guess I just need to know exactly where you're coming from with the whole regulators are untrustworthy thing. If the regulations are insufficient (and I agree, a lot are), that's on the lawmakers not the regulators. Though some regulators, at least in ND, have always gotten flak for being two-sided, the NDIC regulates oil drilling but is also supposed to promote it. But just because there is an apparent conflict of interest, doesn't mean they're "entirely captured". Like, for the Bakken oil development, you'd have to mistrust the EPA, Three Affiliated Tribe's Energy Division, NDIC, NDDoH, PSC, State Water Commission, etc. "Are you asserting that the EPA and state environmental aren't captured by industry actors, and won't be at any point in DAPL's lifetime?" Ya, I can assert that. I can also assert that there are probably individuals within the EPA and state environmental that are captured by industry actors, but that doesn't mean their entire associated organization is corrupt to the bone. Remember, these are big agencies, and environmental groups as well as industry groups are watching them like hawks for any signs of impropriety. If company A gets fined $100,000 for an incident and company B only gets fined $1000 for the same type of incident, you can bet company A is going to raise holy hell about it. Like, look at what happened when the republicans tried to take down the ethics commission. What do you think would happen if, say, Trump replaces all of EPA with his surrogates? I will say it's going to be interesting to see what fallout happens with the EPA rank and file when Pruitt takes it over if he tries anything shady. But don't think just because he's in charge of EPA that the employees are all just going to roll over and play dead.
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Jan 5, 2017 04:54
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"He explained to us that the transfer of power had happened because of an outbreak of sexual assaults around camp. When I asked him how often these attacks happened, he said, “Every night,” but then told me that when they had finally caught the alleged serial rapist on camp, they gave him a bus ticket and asked him to go home. " So, they don't trust the state cops which I can understand, but instead of handing the suspect to even the tribal police they just kick him out?
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Jan 6, 2017 02:55
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Was it not moved to the reservation? Nevermind then if oceti is still on the northside of the river. There's what, two camps then on the south side then this one on the north side still? I also remembered tribal police can't prosecute non-natives or somesuch on tribal land even if it did happen there. Ugh.
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Jan 6, 2017 06:37
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I like the whole "let my mother-in-law run over protestors" law. Like, I understand how someone could conjur this boogeyman of protestors jumping out in front of traffic just to get hurt, but really, your response to it is, hey let's make it legal to run people over? Also, one of the legislatures wanted to invite protestors to the discussions on the state budget. We have dumb legislators is what I'm saying
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Jan 20, 2017 04:39
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Quorum posted:So a video has been circulating around Facebook alleging that the encampment is getting buzzed by unmarked aircraft with their lights off at night, and even that they've been getting cropdusted. Now, I'm reflexively skeptical of claims about mystery cropdusting when they come via my vaccine-truther family members, but has anyone else heard similar claims? I know that with DAPL moving forward things are going to get nastier at the encampments in the not-too-distant future. There was a thing on this back at the end of september: "Morton County Statement: It is very important that our residents are aware that the aircraft in question was an agricultural spray plane (bi-plane) flying to a field to apply a product. The pilot noticed a DAPL helicopter in the area, and because its engine was too loud to use radio communication to identify its location, the pilot deployed a common tactic to alert the helicopter to the bi-plane’s location. The protocol is to use vegetable oil (the same used in air shows) as a method to identify an aircraft in the area. What you see is the oil being burned off as it hits the exhaust; it is not a pesticide, nerve agent, or anything of the ilk. It’s a safety measure to protect both the bi-plane’s pilot and the pilot of the helicopter. According to the North Dakota Highway Patrol, the bi-plane was flying at an altitude of 400 to 500 feet and was approximately ½ mile from the protesters. The FAA will be in contacted by the pilot, but the pilot does not anticipate any issues as the actions were in compliance with FAA regulations." BTW, check out our new gem of a website https://www.ndresponse.gov Where information is calmly and reasonably communicated! Ha ha, jk. Check out it's version of the above statement: "Myth: Dakota Access pipeline protesters have been sprayed with chemicals, specifically mustard gas, by crop duster planes. Fact: The State of North Dakota has routinely conducted aerial surveillance of the camps to ensure the safety of protesters. The rationale is to have an understanding of the number of people located in the camps in case mass evacuations are needed because of an emergency, such as wildfires, flooding, or other extreme weather conditions. At the time the rumor started, there were videos posted on social media alleging chemicals being sprayed which depicted law enforcement officers without respiratory gear. Authorities would never spray a crowd with mustard gas or other lethal chemicals, particularly with unprotected law enforcement officers present." Like, why would you feel the need to clarify that last sentence? Wasn't the statement from Morton County good enough? "Particularly with unprotected law enforcement officers present" begs the question, would the chance of spraying a crowd then increase if officers were not present or were somehow protected? I want to slap whoever wrote this, they should just say they won't gas their citizens, they don't need qualifying statements. There's some other nice passive-aggresive responses in there too. In other news, Standing Rock has asked that the camp clear out (http://www.myndnow.com/news/bismarck-news/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-supports-dapl-protesters-leaving/644476138) "The Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council is supporting the district of Cannon Ball's wish that all Dakota Access pipeline protesters leave the area." So it looks like the camp part of the protest is over?
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Jan 30, 2017 01:52
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" The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is grateful to all who have stood with us during our efforts to secure a thorough review of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Because we worked together, the Federal Government will prepare an Environmental Impact Statement. Moving forward, our ultimate objective is best served by our elected officials, navigating strategically through the administrative and legal processes. Yesterday the Tribe passed a resolution brought forward by the Cannonball District which asked that no camps remain in the Cannonball District. Councilmen from across the reservation, including Cannonball, described the hardships and strain on the citizens and resources of our Nation. The Council passed the motion unanimously. For this reason, we ask the protectors to vacate the camps and head home with our most heartfelt thanks. Much work will be required to clean up before the spring thaw, which will flood the area. It is imperative we clean the camps and restore them to their original state before this flooding occurs. Once again, thank you, and we wish you well." So when all the involved parties tell you to go home, at what point have you overstayed your welcome? It just seems like the tribe is saying its time to move to the next stage of the protest, beyond the camp, and to stay is just wasting resources. For those that hang around, what's their excuse?
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Jan 30, 2017 03:41
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Interesting note: flood risk in mandan/bismarck was greatly reduced by building garrison dam, which devastated the MHA nation/TAT, but I guess the heart, cannonball, and knife rivers still put out enough water to risk the camp? edit: also I eagerly await to see what kind of fortress fence they put around the pipeline control valves since this thing is probably going to be a vandalism target for the foreseeable future. Silento Boborachi fucked around with this message at 06:17 on Feb 6, 2017 |
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Feb 6, 2017 06:14
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They've started hauling off the cleanup trash from the camps, and I found this gem from one of the stories: "Each load that's dumped is inspected by the Morton County Sheriff's Department. "We are looking for, as I said, anything illegal, anything that might be used to, I guess, harm our officers during a protest," says Jay Gruebele, Morton County Sheriff's Office Captain. Authorities are also searching through the piles for evidence they hope they don't find. "As bad as it sounds, we're looking for people that may have died and could be wrapped up in a canvas or a tarp or tent," says Gruebele." Mmm, a wet pile of garbage with a chance of corpses. Have fun looking through that.
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Feb 16, 2017 04:57
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So the Oceti Sakowin camp is being cleaned up now, so that leaves sacred stone, and the others on the reservation? http://bismarcktribune.com/news/sta...b517a8a0af.html From the pictures it looks like a lot of stuff was just abandoned at the camp, were the other camps able to salvage whatever they needed from it?
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Feb 26, 2017 18:05
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So the Atlantic article says there were two points of contention: 1. "Before approving the pipeline, the Corps did not study whether an oil spill at the pipeline would kill most of the river’s fish. It also did not report on whether the chemicals used to clean up a spill could poison local game, rendering them unfit for human consumption" The review would have to determine that a spill, from a pipeline ~100 ft under the lakebed is likely to impact enough of the water to affect the fish and stay there long enough to kill most of them off. The river's pretty wide at that point, as it starts to transition into Lake Oahe, so you'd need something like multiple breaks in the line, and multiple paths up from underground to cover a majority of the river. You'd also need to take into account that the Missouri moves at a pretty good clip, and so any oil spill in the water is going to get carried downstream, spreading the damage out, but also making it unlikely it would build up enough in one place to really affect the fish. From what I have seen of the oil spills North Dakota has had (and yes they have had many), you get these long strings of oil that may make oil lines on the vegetation and have some impact on the aquatics in areas that the oil pools in (like river eddies, backwater channels) but not enough to markedly affect the aquatic ecology. There would be a much better argument if the spill occurred in one of the small rivers it crosses, like the Heart, Knife, L. Missouri, etc., but I guess they're only looking at the Missouri? The second part would have to determine that whatever chemicals are used in cleaning up a spill (I assume on the water?) could be ingested and harm wildlife. EPA (and if I recall, ND) does not like chemicals to be used on water (unless we're talking big waterways like the ocean) because most of the chemicals used to "cleanup" oil spills are either dispersants that thin the oil out (by just spreading it out, so useless in a river environment) or things like bio remediation accelerants, which basically speed up microbial breakdown of the oil, which sounds all nice and environmentally friendly, until you realize those microbes, in the process of going gangbusters on the oil, also use up a hell of a lot of the oxygen in the water, and oxygen depletion will definitely kill the fish off (every year ND has big fish kills when the ice prevents enough oxygen from getting in). So chemicals are usually frowned upon, instead preferring mechanical removal (i.e. just sucking all the oil up). If they're talking about chemicals on land-based spills, there's always the risk of oil spills entering the foodchain (e.g. awhile back there was an oil spill in the middle of a wheat field and their was a discussion how that wheat had to be destroyed/disposed of instead of harvested for this reason) but the report would presumably have to prove that the area being applied with chemicals could not be controlled well enough to prevent wildlife from getting in (e.g. can't build a fence, can't scare the bird populations away for some reason) and that the chemicals used are harmful enough to animals/humans that the animals won't just metabolize/pass it out their system. Cows will eat oil stained grass from what I've heard, and get bad diarrhea or die if the oil is thick enough, but cows are also dumb as hell and can be stopped by just a barbed wire or electric fence. 2. "Boasberg’s second complaint with the Corps was on similar methodological grounds. According to federal regulation, every major project constructed near a poor community, community of color, or Native American reservation must be studied on environmental-justice grounds. The Corps shrugged off many of these rules, arguing that no affected group lived within a half-mile of the pipeline route." This one I don't know what all factors are used to measure the environmental-justice impact. The three affiliated tribes (north of standing rock) got a bunch of pipelines approved through their land (some under their portion of the Missouri), and got stage one of their oil refinery approved, so in some cases there must not be an environmental justice issue, though it'd be interesting to see what the determination is between a tribe that has oil investments compared to a tribe that doesn't. So I don't see them finding any plausible issue with #1, but possibly an issue with #2, depending on what all it entails.
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Jul 8, 2017 17:18
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