The Dakota Access
Pipeline Project Shows Systemic Issues
Maxx Kriger
Intercultural
Competence
Jennifer
González
12/12/2016
The
Dakota Access Pipeline Project should be allowed, under current laws, to be
completed
It’s relatively easy to look
at the laws currently in place in the United States and past cases to decide whether
the Dakota Access Pipeline Project should legally be allowed to finish along
its projected route through the northern border of the Standing Rock Sioux
Reservation. Some people, on this subject, have difficulty separating the current
laws from morals and ethics. While laws are, in general, meant to uphold a
society’s moral and ethical inclinations, some laws are selfish and some are
manipulated for selfish means. In the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline
Project, we can observe some of these laws in action. The problem faced is in
the laws and infrastructure of enforcing them. There are many ethical arguments
against the pipeline that intrudes on Native American sovereign nations and
could permanently toxify their water supply, but none of them hold value in the
court of law.
The
first item that makes most people question the legalities of this pipeline
project is the started construction before attainment of all the necessary
permits for the pipeline. At a glance, and when phrased in this tumultuous way,
it seems that this is, or should be, illegal. The truth is that the pipeline
goes across four state borders and is required to get many permits in each one.
Dakota Access LLC only constructed parts the company had permits for. This
infrastructure of laws and order does create some problems in a scenario where
the company would have to reroute a part of the pipeline because they couldn’t
get the permits necessary, and has already constructed the surrounding parts.
This is exactly what happened in North Dakota starting in April. While the
people of Standing Rock Sioux Nation and protesters continuously rejected the
already-once rerouted project in standing rock, the surrounding parts of the
pipeline were built, operating under the assumption that this permit would be
in hand soon. The 74 involved police powers seemed to be privy to this
information since they weren’t aggressive or violent toward protesters form the
beginning of the protests in April until early September, when the surrounding
areas were almost complete. This may also have something to do with why the
pipeline route could be changed from Bismarck to Standing Rock so easily, and
why it’s more complicated/difficult to change routes again. It may just be
another case of United States Government vs. Native American nations.
The route was already
changed once, with little to no resistance; could it be legal to necessitate so
much more resistance out of one group than another group? (Civil lawsuit) People
have been being water hosed in sub-freezing temperatures and camping for months
for this water. (Civil lawsuit) In Bismarck, it never left the Capitol
building. America’s history might incline that this differential is due to
Bismarck being 92.4% white, per the US Census Bureau. It might seem as though
the water of the white people is more important than the water of the Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe. This could be true, however a less reported statistic is that
the Bismarck route was 10 miles longer and nearly impossible to keep 500 feet from
all homes, as is law. (Dakota Access Pipeline environmental assessment) When the
Bismarck route was proposed by the private company-Dakota Access LLC in the
application for permits, The United States Corps of Engineers, who is
responsible for creating and assigning the permits, then rejected the route for
an easier, ‘more legal’ and ‘more safe’ route.
Water
safety is, obviously, a huge part of this argument on all sides. Unfortunately,
the American people, and certainly the Native American people, have absolutely
no say in this part of the legal argument. The legality of a potentially
hazardous project like a pipeline is entirely in the hands of the USACE. The
uproar about this pipeline is focused on the underground crossings of the
Missouri River and Lake Oahe about 60 feet under the waterbed. The ACE and
Dakota LLC address potential risks of all water crossings in their
environmental assessments, including the Missouri River. This is supposed to
make the public feel like projects like these are safe and supervised
Unfortunately, the opposite
is true. On a systemic level, there is flagrant misconduct in permitting,
constructing, and upholding pipelines and other environmentally risky sites. And,
the disenfranchised people of the United States feel the effects of these
misconducts far more than others. For instance, in neither of the assessments
for permitting the pipeline, is there any mention (any -assessment-, if you
will) of what will happen when the oil gets into the water of any river and
begins to flow downstream. They write about rates of Spectacle Case Mussels in
the area and how they would be affected in the event of a spill, but not the
Humans 10 miles downstream. Based on statistics given by ACE and Dakota Access
LLC, this pipeline, alone, will leak into one of its crossings every 5-25
years. (Dakota Access Pipeline environmental assessment)
There are also pipelines already
that have leaked and are leaking into rivers and there are rarely legal repercussions
or proper cleanups. When there are, they are not enough to prevent
environmental malpractice. The pipeline here in Michigan that busted in 2010
resulted in a 3.7 million dollar fine. The mother company, Enbridge, admitted
that it not only knew the pipeline had a crack for months, but knew it had
busted for 17 hours before the company had any sort of response to it. (Equilar,
2013) Since almost a million gallons were spilled, the company paid as much for
spilling a gallon of oil in the environment as someone would for spilling a
gallon of milk at Walmart. The CEO of Enbridge, Al Monaco, could have paid this
fine with his own salary that year and still have went home with a million
dollars. (Equilar Atlas) The purpose of this story is to illustrate how easy it
is for oil companies to make money. It is so easy that often it’s easier to
break all the laws and pay the fine later than to try to extract the oil slowly
and carefully, as the law encourages. Enbridge also had 92 ‘out of code’
facilities out of 102 when an investigation was done in 2010. No fines were
given. (CBC News)
The infrastructure allows
companies to make money pumping oil fast and loose, and pay fines along the way
for environmental disasters. That much is evident and easy to believe. Harder
to believe is that the same infrastructure allows the government to take
similar steps. A gold mine near the San Juan river was being drilled into by
the EPA, despite prospectors’ guidance away from doing just that, unleashing
3,000,000 gallons of chemically toxic water into the river. The EPA paid
similar fines and offered minimal assistance to the Native American
reservation. The agency dug three ponds around 10x20 feet to dilute heavy
chemicals and authorized the waters use 10 days later.
"We would have no reservation about
pumping from the river but the
fact is, we're in a situation where we have enough water in reserve,"
Mayes said. Mayes said he'll meet with the water engineering team Monday to
develop a timeline on pumping from the river.
Farmington officials have said they have about a five-month supply of water in
the reservoir.
When the reservoir ran low, they began pumping
water from the, now thick and yellow, river. This unacceptable behavior has led
to a lawsuit on its own, claiming almost $3,000,000 has been spent by the
community to clean up the mess that the EPA created and promised reimbursement
for.
The
pipeline culture financially supports the corporations and the government. It
makes sense that the corporations and the government would support the pipeline
culture. When eminent domain laws were first written, they were used mostly
within railroad culture, the big money-maker of the 1800’s. (Leeds, 2005) Since
then, eminent domain has been used by the privileged to make ‘more efficient
use’ of land than less privileged people. This usually means industrialization
of a less profitable land. As in the famous case of Kelo vs. City of New
London, people were bought out of their homes, which were demolished to create
nicer, higher payment homes. (Leeds) There are treaties and pacts protecting
native tribal and ancestral lands from these types of situations, but they
almost never mean anything to a judge when eminent domain is brought into play.
Clearly,
in a Country where there are atrocities like those committed in Standing Rock,
and those atrocities go unchecked, there is a systemic problem. By looking at
how pipelines obtain permits and how pipelines under legal permits are
operated, it is evident that the public’s safety and well-being is not the
first priority. This is further reinforced by the EPA’s misconduct and
Enbridge’s misconduct, which were relatively unpunished. When looking at these
things together, one must reflect on why none of them are stories of upper
class white people being moved or abused. In the cases represented in this
paper, two systemic problems seem to be at play, creating a world where DAPL and
San Juan river are commonplace. The mistreatment of races, specifically the
Native American nations, is a systemic problem, and so is the evident mistreatment
of the environment.
Annotated
Bibliography
"Upstream From Standing
Rock, Tribes Balance Benefits, Risks Of Oil Industry." NPR:
Economy, 24 Nov. 2016. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A471280032/OVIC?u=lom_gvalleysu&xid=d5575463.
Accessed 6 Dec. 2016.
Amy Sisk of the Public Media Project: Inside Energy speaks about Ft Berthold, which is 150 miles northwest of the DAPL. It also has a pipeline that crosses the Missouri River. She notes that there is always a cost-benefit analysis when considering constructing these pipelines and that the Army Corps of Engineers is also in control of new pipelines being protested going under the reservation’s reservoir. This provides a context of how pipelines can be done safely and effectively, not to mention, bring wealth and prosperity to Native American nations. It also shows a strange coincidence that both pipelines are being constructed right underneath Native Americans’ water. This pipeline spilled nearly a million gallons of wastewater “…and the community is still feeling the effects of it.”
Sisk, Amy. "Fight Feels
Familiar for Tribes at Pipeline Protest." Inside Energy. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context: MEL. http://insideenergy.org/2016/09/16/fight-feels-familiar-for-tribes-at-pipeline-protest/.
In this
piece, verbal accounts of members of the DAPL protest are taken. Many of these
accounts are eerily similar in context and in process. The stories are of government
pushing Native Americans around and, bluntly, imposing their will. Each story
is linked to a more reputable source which provides the background for each
individual account of being bullied and oppressed throughout history. In the
case of Celilo falls, a Native American fishing grounds is literally washed
away despite eminent domain laws contradicting the case. In another incident, a
group of EPA employees caused an accident at a gold mine that lead to millions
of gallons of chemically toxic water from inside of the mine to spill into the
nearby river. Some these people have spent their whole lives fighting battles
against the systematic oppression of Native Americans like Brian Cladoosby, who
cites a coal mine being built on Native American ancestral land in Texas. This
is also against eminent domain.
Caldbick, John. "Celilo
Falls disappears in hours after The Dalles Dam floodgates are closed on March
10, 1957." The Free Encyclopedia of Washington State History. February 10,
2012
The author
writes historically about the fishing that occurred for thousands of years, at
Celilo Falls, and the long legal battle that led to the falls literally being
washed away into a larger lake. The battle is reminiscent of the DAPL legal
battle in that the actual treaties are not what is being respected or even
acknowledged by the courts. The decision seems to be based more on the
‘taxpayers right’ to the land and resources and less on the treaties and laws
in place to protect the Natives rights. In this case, a dam was being
constructed to make it easier for people in the area to get water and fish, but
the dam would also destroy the fishing and water gathering cite the Native
Americans had signed a fishing treaty over. It, too was decided largely by the
Army Corps of Engineers. For these reasons, Amy Sisk uses this story in her
piece cited above.
Kellogg, J. (2015, Aug 16).
San Juan county reopens public access to animas, san Juan rivers. Daily Times Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.gvsu.edu/docview/1704392125?accountid=39473
Joshua Kellogg reports the
reopening of the San Juan river in an unbiased article with many quotes from
the locals. Here is one from the City Manager.
"We would have no reservation about
pumping from the river but the
fact is, we're in a situation where we have enough water in reserve,"
Mayes said. Mayes said he'll meet with the water engineering team Monday to
develop a timeline on pumping from the river. Farmington officials have said they have
about a five-month supply of water in the reservoir.
The city manager would have no problem using a
plant on water from the San Juan River that filters out 95% of harmful solids,
if they needed water to use. The water in the San Juan, at the time, was cited
at being at 15,000 times the healthy levels of chemicals. Using those two numbers
given by the EPA, the city manager has no problem using water that is 750 times
the healthy level of chemicals for his constituents.
Main, Carla T. "How
eminent domain ran amok." Policy Review, no. 133, 2005, p.
3+. Opposing
Viewpoints in Context, link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A138277926/OVIC?u=lom_gvalleysu&xid=0ec2c0db
The author writes a long, very passionate, very detailed
breakdown of the definitions and applications of eminent domain over the past
150 years or so, with a focus on the case of Kelo vs. City of New London. This
case was not the first case to go to supreme court in which the purpose of the
seizing of the land was for a private company to make money for the local
economy. However, it was the first case in which the private interest succeeded
in seizing the land for a private project using the government’s eminent domain
laws. The author acknowledges this 5-4 case ruling as the start of a trend in
which companies started using eminent domain to acquire land for ‘public
economic growth.’ Like the eminent domain exercised for Dakota Access LLC, it
was highly contested and detrimental to the people whose land is being taken.
United States Army Corps of
Engineers. "Environmental assessment: Dakota Access Pipeline Project,
crossings of flowage easements and federal lands." http://cdm16021.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16021coll7/id/2427.
Authored by
Dakota LLC hand in hand with our federal government, this assessment is a 1000-page
long distraction from obvious problems not only with this project, but the
pipeline culture. The assessment worries deeply about the continued existence
of the Missouri River Spectacle Case Mussel, but fails to assess damage for the
Humans just ten miles downstream of a pipeline that will move close to 200,000
gallons of oil a day. There is likewise useless information all over the
assessment and many key points missing from it. In writing the assessment the
ACE was quoted: “…when there was a part of the pipeline that intersected
ancient Native grounds, we usually stayed away from them.” It is law to ‘stay
away from them.’
Regan, Lauren. "1983
Civil Class-Action Lawsuit." Civil Liberties Defense Center.
https://cldc.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Standing-Rock-emergency-injunction-1.pdf
This is a
lawsuit filed against the police forces directly responsible for hateful,
disgusting malpractice that led to the hospitalization of at least 20
protesters, many of them losing access to, or just losing, body parts. It also
holds Dakota Access LLC responsible for the actions taken on their behalf. It
is used as a reference for those who aren’t aware of how hard the people at
Oceti Sakowin camp are fighting for their right to clean water, and their children’s’
right to clean water.
Equilar is
a publisher of online and physical magazines about the most connected or
wealthy individuals and companies in North America. It publishes a monthly
issue and has an “Equilar Atlas” available to nonmembers, where it collects
some of the monthly information. It has a plethora of very general numbers and
names on such companies as Enbridge, Exxon, and GE, and such executives as Dave
Monaco.
Stacy L. Leeds,
Eminent Domain, or Some Other Name: A Tribal Perspective on Taking Land
In this journal, the
author takes many cases of eminent domain laws being used against Native
Americans and contrasts cases of eminent domain laws being used to take other
people’s land. She notices that there is more outrage among most populations
than in Native American populations. She theorizes and supports this argument
by showing how much longer the native people have been subjected to eminent
domain and now much more frequently unfair or ‘unlawful’ cases against Native
Americans are than against other populations. The author offers a comprehensive
account of the history of eminent domain and its relationship to Native
Americans. This starts, obviously, with the formation of the 13 colonies, but
officially starts when the term eminent domain comes into use at the end of the
19th century.
