NO DAPL and other pipeline concerns - Keystone, etc.

This is a very enlightening thread and has made me learn much more about this than I already knew.
Popping in to say I love you Jacob and I hope you are well and I still have some records to send to you soon.

It seems to me that if the pipeline is rerouted at this late a date, SOMEONE is going to be taking a huge monetary loss.

Hi Ian!! When will you come to Texas??
http://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500331158/north-dakota-commissioner-standing-rock-souix-sat-out-the-state-process

3-day xps to Sanpaku - a fair chunk of the FB chatter I see on this issue makes reference to that 1851 treaty, fwiw

also just gonna throw this in here, I don't have primary source confirmation

-@suntzufuntzu via twitter

Reminder that DAPL was re-routed through Standing Rock because Bismarck's residents feared it could poison their drinking water.

The Sioux are literally being forced at gunpoint to accept ecological risks that North Dakota's white residents refused.

Reminder that DAPL was re-routed through Standing Rock because Bismarck's residents feared it could poison their drinking water.
Why do you believe this to be true? I keep reading this but haven't found any source for it. It's my understanding that the Bismarck proposed route was rejected because it eliminated 10 miles, would have been within 500 ft of homes, and took out muliple road bores. One a road bore cost about $20,000. The route they choose was due previously disturbed ground, The Northern Boarder Pipeline's ROW.

http://www.psc.nd.gov/database/documents/14-0842/001-030.pdf

That was the wrong link, I meant to share this http://cdm16021.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16021coll7/id/2801

see this is why I'm glad you're on this thread, although I don't have one iota of sympathy for this company or industry there is a ton of misinformation going around on the protestor side (hence my disclaimer) that doesn't help anyone.

http://mondoweiss.net/2016/10/palestinians-standing-pipeline/

http://i.imgur.com/b6T7jwy.jpg

DAPL is so concerned for the safety of their own employees from the dangerous protesters that they refused to stop work for 30 days, even when asked by the obama administration. i'm sure they're just looking ahead to president trump, who will do everything he can to fast track construction and establish law and order.

you are most definitely not an asshole and the world is complicated.

to clarify, are you saying that the "ETC" is the line under the river that needs to be repaired before they can afford to even look at the one you raised an alarm about?

this is all somewhat personal to me as well - my childhood home is threatened by a potential pipeline through the property (regardless of anyone's opinions pro or con, the reality is that is reduces the value of the land and makes it more difficult for them to eventually sell and make the move to an assisted living facility like my mom and stepfather want to do.

meanwhile, my dad moved to a nearby state where a lot of people are moving, and it is painfully obvious that the planned pipeline through my mom's place is a direct response to the demand created by my dad.

I don't know what else to say other than thanking you again for your perspective and knowledge.

ETC is who will operate the DAPL once construction is complete.

https://cldc.org/2016/11/13/back-to-the-war-zone/

http://www.kfyrtv.com/content/news/Largest-bank-in-Norway-pulls-its-assets-in-Dakota-Access-pipeline--401768696.html

North Dakota law enforcement deployed tear gas and water hoses against hundreds of activists on Sunday night, during a tense bridge standoff amid ongoing protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Protesters also reported being hit with rubber bullets and percussion grenades during the standoff, which took place on a bridge just north of the encampments established by indigenous and environmental activists in opposition to the controversial pipeline.

“They were attacked with water cannons,” said LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a Standing Rock Sioux tribe member and founder of the Sacred Stone camp. “It is 23 degrees [-5 °C] out there with mace, rubber bullets, pepper spray, etc. They are being trapped and attacked. Pray for my people.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/21/standing-rock-protest-hundreds-clash-with-police-over-dakota-access-pipeline

There were NODAPL protest here in Austin and San Antonio last weekend. nearly three-fourths of my Facebook friends have NODAPL somewhere on their photos or feeds. I don't know what to say about this anymore. When I started working in pipeline construction it was going to be a temporary job, a way to make money to buy records and get away from everything. But I beginning enjoying the challenge of it, that I was so out of my element. For years no one understood what I did. Anytime my job came up in conversation usually the person would ask me if I work in fracking and I would have to explain the difference between exploration, production and midstream. Usually they would get bored halfway through. Now whenever I bring up work, the conversation goes to DAPL. I do feel bad for how the protesters are being treated. I knew this would happen when the FBI issued environmental terrorist watch notices to all the oil & gas companies.

I apologize if that came off sounding underhanded or backhanded. I'm tired.

hey no you are doing god's work.

just be careful to not lose you job over this.

Not necessary to apologize - everyone is tired. Your posts here been far more illuminating on this than the propaganda out there.

@AlleenBrown
Sheriff on using water cannons on protesters: “It was sprayed more as a mist...to help keep everybody safe” #NoDAPL

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/21/medics-describe-how-police-sprayed-standing-rock-demonstrators-with-tear-gas-and-water-cannons/

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/33832/1/people-are-treating-the-dapl-protest-like-burning-man

an obvious development, and perhaps a contender for most 2016 story of the year.

Around me there has been a lot of calls for Obama to change things in Standing Rock in the past few days,cam ilxorsians who know this situation better than me could help me figure out if pressuring more local elected officials (city/county levels) would be more effective?

According to NPR, the governor has ordered an emergency evacuation of the protestor camps, based on the idea that an approaching winter storm puts 'public safety' at risk. I presume this would allow him to enforce his evacuation order using police or the national guard to coerce the protestors to leave, or else to arrest them on charges of "resisting a lawful order to leave".

iow, loks like shit's gonna get real ugly again real soon and heads will be broken, all in the name of "protecting" the people whose heads get bashed.

Do you guys realize how cold it will soon be in North Dakota? When I first experienced it it literally took my breathe away and froze my eyelids shut. I hated being in North Dakota, the cold is brutal. Virtually nothing you think you know about it is true. The reporting on this story has been some of the most factually inaccurate and biased I have ever seen. The protestors are not on their own land or federal land. They're on private property owned by the pipeline company. They have no right to be there. ETC literally planned this pipeline to avoid the Standing Rock land because of their behavior towards other pipelines that they agreed upon then kept changing how much money they wanted. Now this has become dressed up as something entirely other. Pipelines are not the major source of water pollution, farming runoff and road runoff pollutes more rivers across the united states than any pipeline has. Do you guys really want Obama to step in and stop this? On what grounds?

I'm pretty sure the Standing Rock Sioux knows how cold it is in North Dakota, though...

I'm pretty disgusted by how the police have responded regardless of whether the pipeline should ultimately be built. Maybe if the company had made an effort to offer concessions to the standing rock sioux and give them some kind of meaningful assurance about protection of their water things would be different.

Do you guys realize how cold it will soon be in North Dakota?

I spent a couple of winters attending college in Minnesota so I have some idea, yes. "Soon"? It's still November, Jacob. Rather too early for a breath-snatching, eyeball-freezing cold snap in my somewhat limited experience. If, rather than a convenient political excuse for evicting protestors, this storm constitutes a real public safety emergency, I will be extremely surprised. What their next move? Arresting ice fishermen?

"The protestors are not on their own land or federal land. They're on private property owned by the pipeline company."

this land is unceded sioux territory. Now I know most people just ignore this, but Sioux have been fighting for things for years; the black hills were never ceded, even though the government eventually paid out for them, the tribes never took the money for it. So this fight is about much more than just the pipeline crossing the river.

Pipelines are not the major source of water pollution, farming runoff and road runoff pollutes more rivers across the united states than any pipeline has.

This is a specious argument imo. First, comparing something bad to something worse does not change that bad thing into something good.

Next, ag runoff is ubiquitous and affects more or less every river in the USA. Pipelines are local. Of course, if you average the two sources of pollution across all the rivers in the uSA, pipeline pollution appears much less significant, but the local pollution is still pretty goddamn "major". If I dump a truck load of pig shit in front of your house, you won't comfort yourself by saying that pig shit pollution, on average, is not a problem for homeowners in the USA.

Aimless could you explain why you think there will be a local failure of this pipeline? Do you have knowledge of a failure on the contractors to pass failing x-rays of welds, was the coating not within the specs? Do you have actual data that this pipeline was not built within the federal guidelines? There are 12 existing pipelines crossing underneath the same lake that is up for question, none of which has leaked due to people monitoring and surveying the cathodic protections on these pipelines. I am deathly afraid of flying in airplanes due to how unsafe in my mind being in a airplane seems. But I look at the statistics and I keep flying. Because I like making a decision based on data rather than on feelings, which seems to be the motiving force behind this protest. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-ed-standing-rock-sioux-other-side-110916-20161109-story.html
Today I posted this on my Facebook and I guess I'll share it here
Through out the past month, I’ve seen many people posting various sites showing PHMSA’s map of pipelines leaks. Such as this one.
http://www.foreffectivegov.org/…/map-displays-five-years-oi…
I would like to provide some perspective on how this data is being used to prompt the idea that pipelines are unsafe and constantly having major problems. Whenever a gallon of liquid is spilled on the ground a report has to be submitted to the government, it’s a law. Route maintenance usually involves spills by a few gallons. Launching pigs, hydrostatic testing, valve maintenance, all of these tasks are performed regularly on pipelines. Whenever a spill happens the contaminated soil is removed and replaced. You can click on each spill at PHMSA's site and read any report. Most of those incidents are maintenance related. These sites state that since 2010 there have been 7 million gallons of crude oil spilled and that is true. We currently have a pipeline that on any given day, moves 100,000 gallons of crude oil. That’s one pipeline. There are around 2.4 million miles of pipelines crossing our country, and 72,000 miles of that carry crude oil. 7 million gallons might seem like a large number, but combine a few thousand miles of pipelines and that’s a less than a week’s shipment. If you do the math and take a honest look at the spills that do occur and what could be possible but is prevented due to technology, the idea that pipelines are not safe does not hold up. Take some time to do some research and learn about what we do in the industry. Smart pigging, cathodic protection, coatings, anomaly digs, ACVG surveys, leak detection surveys, row inspections, NDT and ultrasonic testing, ESD valves, etc. Hopefully we can start having a honest discussion about new pipeline construction and prevent what is currently happening up north.

If the Lakota do not want the pipeline routed through land they have a legitimate claim to under treaty, as a sovereign nation, then let the Corps of Engineers reroute it across land the Lakota have no claim upon. Maybe their objections are for mere emotional reasons. Maybe they will be all the poorer for not having this wonderful pipeline running across their land. That's not for us to decide. They don't want it.

Of course, rerouting it would probably involve condemning land owned by non-tribal people. But why would anyone object? As you state, it is as safe as can be. Maybe the Corps could route the pipeline through some ND towns, since as you say no one has any reason to think it would be a problem, other than people's irrationality. But how about we let white people be the irrational ones for a change?

^^^^ there you go.

admission: I'm a registered member of the Oglala Sioux tribe from Pine Ridge. This protest is about more than the safety of the pipeline and the river at this point; this is an indian uprising against broken treaties. With the essential demise of AIM after the 70's I think people got used to thinking of indians as complacent; but it's been percolating in Canada with Idle No More for a few years. I do not think this protest will end well once Trump is in office. The current stance is an ordered evacuation that will not be actively forced (although there is a threat of fines); i'm concerned that once Trump is in, there will be forcible removal.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-gates/on-the-standing-rock-tribes-dakota-pipeline-protest-/10154529600627457

Wow, that guy seems sympathetic to Native Americans. He even writes that he is sympathetic to Native Americans several times. Of course, later on he writes this:

The new Standing Rock water system, provided for by a very large gift to the Standing Rock tribe from the good people from the United States of America, insures and provides a state of the art new complete water system, guaranteeing the tribe a reliable, safe water source for generations to come.
It is sad that the tribe repays this significant gift with a lack of truthfulness, and incites protest based on the same.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault has been either outright lying to the media or has been lied to by someone at his council. I find the second option highly unlikely after reading numerous interviews with him.

And to think he would do that against those good people from the United States of America who has done nothing but good to him and his tribe, and has definitely not elected a populist bigot prone who can't be trusted on any environmental protection agency!

So it's ok to mislead the american public about one's agenda? Now many people have traveled to support the protest and are now being hurt. Lying is lying, no matter who you are.

Yeah, lying and misleading is bad, and that facebook writer is clearly lying and misleading about his opinion on Native Americans.

He is also getting a lot of his facts correct about the planning of the project, which has otherwise been lied about. Read the court documents and injunction filed by the Stand Rock, read the Army Cops findings, the permits, the state historical society of north dakota ruling which Standing Rock is a broad member of. Every time I show these to people and ask them to read them, they bring up slogans or tell me you work in the industry of course.

What seems to be in dispute is whether or not the Army Corps dealt with the Standing Rock Sioux as a Sovereign Tribe, or whether they dealt with them as any other interest group. The Department of Justice has written that this case gives cause to rethink the entire relationship between the two, so somebody thinks the Army Corps screwed up, and it's not just fringe liars.

So many people I know here in Austin are in support of the protest, joining in a local protest. All of the land in Texas and much of the southwest were obtained by breaking the Adams Onis Treaty, the Texas revolution and the Invasion of Mexico This land was stole from the The Caddoes of East Texas, the Karankawas of the Gulf Coast and the Coahuiltecans of the Rio Grande and later the Norteño Apaches and Comanches tribes. All of whose descendants still live here, my wife is one of them, but people look at her and call her Mexican. For the last 20 years the white people of Austin turned a blind eye to the wholesale gentrification of East Austin. Now the property taxes are forcing those same descendants out of their homes. Where were these protestors then, fighting for a fully integrated community? But now white people are caring about indigenous people because a big bad oil pipeline is involved? The inconsistency of this sickens me to my stomach.

Standing Rock is a flashpoint. You can't predict where and how the outrage will coalesce and solidify. Pointing out that it didn't happen somewhere else doesn't detract from the legitimacy of the Standing Rock claim.

Also, I'd venture to guess that the organization level and tribal unity of the North Dakota Sioux is quite a bit stronger than the Texas tribes you mentioned.

The Texas tribes I was speaking of is what we call Mexican Americans.

And yes I can point out the inconsistency of why people rally around something that is far away and what is right in front of their doorsteps.

sure, you can say it's inconsistent

but saying the inconsistency "sickens" you is implying, to me, that you don't see the Standing Rock protests as legitimate unless the same thing was happening everywhere else? I'm pretty sure that's a logical fallacy. It's perfectly reasonable for the ND Sioux to pursue a broken treaty claim while others don't choose to, or take a different approach. begrudging the Sioux's wider support seems unreasonable.

idk why "white people" care about this more than other (similar) native issues, but yes it is problematic to some degree as the "burning man" article you posted made clear (and I liked that btw). but again, you can't predict flashpoints. and there's a ton of native people there from all over. a friend of mine from the Siletz tribe flew there to dig toilets for a week. she got pneumonia :(

It's my understanding that the Bismarck proposed route was rejected because it eliminated 10 miles, would have been within 500 ft of homes, and took out muliple road bores. One a road bore cost about $20,000. The route they choose was due previously disturbed ground, The Northern Boarder Pipeline's ROW.

wonder how much they would have saved by now if they had chosen this path.

If there was more honesty from David Archambault about his claims concerning ETC then yes I would give the protest more legitimacy. But as it stands nearly everything he has claimed has been untrue. I've been following this project since it's initial planning stages in 2012 because there was a chance I was going to be involved. When the protest first started and Mr. Archambault started saying to the press that their community was never contacted I knew it wasn't true. Then it was reported by friends of my at the protest that Michels the contractor had started clearing a right of way on sacred ground, I also knew that wasn't true. All of this information is in public domain and easily accessible. ETC used a preexisting archeological survey from a previous contractor that was resubmitted and given over to the State Historical Society of North Dakota who reviewed every site and individually visited each site that was questionable. Standing Rock is on this board and was a part of this investigation in 2014. I don't understand why none of this has been addressed or brought up. It really bothers me and I would think anyone interested in knowing the truth would want to know as well.

The thing is, though, what board Standing Rock was a member of doesn't matter. They had a right to be consulted as a sovereign tribe, not board members of a State Historical Society.

I do get your frustration, it must be really annoying to see people dress their irrational anger at pipelines up in faux concern for Native American issues (as the Burning Man description makes clear, and as I've seen several tribe-members complain about as well) but that doesn't mean the Tribe's grievances aren't legitimate.

Why does everyone keep asking why Standing Rock wasn't contracted? When they were repeatedly. By ETC the company who will own the pipeline that made repeated attempts to contact Standing Rock, but phone calls, letters, and repeated in face house calls, as well as Town hall meetings? Also by the USACE, by FERC, and by Michles land agents. I bring up the State Historical Society because that is who oversees scared sites which could be disturbed by construction. Have you guys read the court filings I keep asking you to read?

sorry for my poor grammar. I should sleep.

I added Keystone to the thread title to make this thread more searchable because qualmsley started a separate Keystone thread. Open to suggestions on the name change though.

https://www.ecowatch.com/transcanada-pipeline-explodes-west-virginia-2576042392.html?xrs=RebelMouse_fb&ts=1528427379