The Dakota Access Pipeline is just one of many pipelines coming out of the oil fields of western North Dakota. There are at least fifteen major pipelines across the Dakotas, so what is all the whoopla about? Why should we care about the standoff? The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has sued to stop the pipeline from crossing through their sacred sites and under the Missouri River. They claim that they were not given proper chance to comment on the route, that the project was fast tracked and corners were cut. A nonprofit, environmental, legal group, called Earthjustice, has accepted the job of pursuing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s interests in federal court.
In the meantime, the shores of the Missouri River and venues across the country and throughout the world are crowding with demonstrators standing with the people of the Standing Rock Reservation. One hundred and eighty-eight Tribes across the United States and Canada have written letters of support. Thousands of individuals and hundreds of businesses - including Wild Idea Buffalo Company, support the protesters (water protectors).
The company that is building the 1,100 mile long pipeline is really a group of connected companies receiving 10.25 billion in loans and guarantees from 38 banks to continue building this pipeline and others across the country. Like the XL Pipeline that was recently brought to a halt by the Obama administration, the promoters of this pipeline promise thousands of temporary construction jobs and untold economic benefit from the oil that will be allowed to flow freely from the Bakken oil fields to industries and automobiles. What they don’t seem to understand, is that that oil will not only flow to those industries and automobiles, but will eventually flow right on up and into the atmosphere, causing even more havoc as greenhouse gasses. The people who stand to make billions of dollars by pumping oil from the Bakken to refineries in the east don’t seem to care about the atmosphere. They don’t seem to care much about the water in the ground either. They say that there is no chance of the pipeline ever breaking where it goes under the Missouri River. They say it could never contaminate the water supply of the Standing Rock People. But, forever is a very long time to go without a leak and the Standing Rock people have heard those kinds of guarantees before. In the long view, water is much more valuable than oil. It always has been and it always will be, to the Standing Rock People and to us all.
There is a BBC News video of a pretty young woman named Juliana Brown Eyes-Clifford, who lives in a very small town on the Pine Ridge Reservation just to our south side boundary fence. In the video she tells about a dream that she had: Her people were moving across a dry land and they are very thirsty. They see a simple faucet sticking up from the earth, the people struggle to the faucet, but when they turned it on, oil flowed. What a terrible dream to trouble the sleep of young Juliana Brown Eyes.
On the surface, the demonstrations up on Standing Rock and around the world are about protecting sacred burial sites and the Missouri River. But, beneath the surface are other festering wounds inflicted on us all by mindless industry, greed, and arrogance. There are tribes, individuals, and business on the long list of supporters of the demonstrators that know nearly nothing about Standing Rock, their sacred sites, or the chances of oil leaks into their water supply. The industrialists and bankers who are building the Dakota Access Pipeline would say that those tribes, people, and business should stay out of the controversy, that they don’t have a dog in the fight. But that is where they are wrong. We have all seen these little battles before. Perhaps we have closed our eyes to them in the past, but now our eyes are open. These small battles may be little more than local grievances, but they add up to a war that encompasses us all and one that we cannot afford to loose.
So, while the standoff on Standing Rock is very real - vital and dangerous as such demonstrations can be, it is also symbolic of larger passions that are rising up in our country and around the world. We are all the people of Standing Rock, finally awaken to the subhuman, faceless enemy that is trying to stare us down along the banks of the Missouri River. It could bring us all ruin as an unintended consequence of simple greed.
63 comments
Thank you, Dan. Thank you for speaking up for the animals and the plants, and for our children. I am proud to be your customer.
There are NO easy answers to the problems we create for the planet and ourselves. There IS some low hanging fruit which, if those with fingers on the buttons had the will, could be harvested. It’s easy to wish for permanent solutions to man-made problems. There would be no need for bureaucratic solutions if each of us made some small changes.
The mantra Reduce-Reuse-Recycle is a good place to start. The recent articles about more pieces of plastic (OIL) in the oceans than fishes could be interpreted to say we are NOT capturing usable items from the “waste” stream. Why do we NOT have deposits on all containers? Lack of will. Were we to discontinue making plastic containers, bags, and other non-essential items of plastic, drive a little less, carpool a little more, perhaps pipelines would become less necessary.
I could not understand why, after corporate leaders made millions, they kept the machine churning. Still don’t. How much money is enough? Rampant capitalism WILL destroy humanity. Rest assured however, barring an asteroid, the earth will carry on. With us or without us, she will keep turning.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I stand with Sioux nation as a descendant of the native nations! Our earth was created for we as humans to be cared for and passed from generation to generation, and we have raped it to death in the name of the “almighty dollar”!
I too have been fed by the " oil field" , but the oil field has ruined our earth!!
Soon we will all be in search of a drink of fresh water, and it will be nowhere to be found! Try then to drink the results of the wonderful “oil field” .
We use petroleum to make the plastic trays used for surgical devices that save peoples lives. Without them many of you would not be alive today. I do not condone disrespect for the environment, however, without many of the advances due to plastic we would still be in the stone age. What we make is made from oil and without it the medical devices used in the operating room would not be sterile. If you think wind and solar can replace oil for everything, it cannot. There are no substitutes that are available.
I agree with a few that I would much rather not get political views from a place where I get food…. we get too much news as it is nowadays. Having said that(and since you started it)…. Protecting our earth is very important to me, I hope our children aren’t left with a disaster. If you are going to dig up all this information on the oil companies and banks, I urge you to drive through the reservations of North and South Dakota and tell me that the people protesting really care about the land that they live on. What happened a hundred or more years ago to Native Americans is a terrible thing, but it is in the past! If people can’t move on and try to better themselves, then nothing will ever get better. Living in the past never helped a future.
People are waking up. All life is interconnected.
Thank you for taking an important stand and communicating it so eloquently.
One more reason to remain a loyal customer.
Thank you for your product, the way you run your business and thank you for taking your time to be involved in issues that have to do with the betterment/protection of the only world we have to live in.
like a dog soldier I stake myself with the Standing Rock tribe.
Alternative energy currently comprises 10% of our total needs. Alternative sources such as wind and solar power will never be our primary sources of energy, unfortunately they can’t be because of our massive consumption. In 2015 the United States consumed 97.7 quadrillion BTUs of energy. For reference (1) quadrillion BTU is equivalent to 45 million tons of coal, 1 trillion cubic feet of gas or 170 million barrels of oil. Like it or not fossil fuels will be our primary provider of energy consumption unless there is are scientific break throughs that can be massively adopted. At this moment objecting to the development of the Bakken pipeline is “whistling in the wind”, it serves no purpose and potentially could only increase the price of our energy needs.
I grew up on the banks of the Missouri, before graduating from the School of Mines, and then going to work for one of those “connected companies” out “east” that extract materials from the earth modern man too often takes for granted after the “temporary construction workers” move on to the next job and the “untold economic benefit” never gets told.
I’ve visited every reservation in South Dakota. Perhaps, they should look within before they worry so much about our country’s energy economy.
The “greed” you condemn is actually what allows me to splurge on your products for my middle class family.
Favored beyond belief, three generations of my family were keepers of the land on the reservation NW of Mobridge by Trail City, the Old School Rd. Riding across waiste high grass and clover bareback on a great pony are my most cherished in life thus far.
Thank you for lending your voice to this issue. The values and practices on which Wild Idea are based reflect the concerns of those of us who have opposed the pipeline. In Iowa, the many properties that the pipeline threatens to cross may be damaged in a variety of ways. The threat to water is only one. Land may be taken by eminent domain, although the purpose is for the profit of the oil company and not for public use. Opposition by many landowners has been stronge, and it has been moving to have the Native American community join them. I am happy to have a business I treasure join this cause.
Well said sir. The Missouri River is too important to too many people who rely on it for drinking irrigating and watering livestock to allow to be contaminated.
Cactus Ed was right, “The most common form of terrorism in the U.S.A. is that carried on by bulldozers and chain saws.”