Native Americans prepared to dig in for harsh winter to continue Dakota Access Pipeline protest

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As colder temperatures come to North Dakota, Native Americans protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline have pledged to continue their protest throughout the winter, Jack Healy reports for The New York Times.  Protesters have begun building shelters to survive the region's typically harsh winter. Protester Retha Henderson told Healy, "This is where we are, and where we’re staying. We’re not giving up. This is my home now."

On Sunday, a federal appeals court rejected the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request for an injunction against the pipeline, Healy notes: "The tribe has sued in federal court, arguing that it was not properly consulted about how the pipeline’s route could affect ancestral tribal lands. The appeals court said crews could resume work on private lands, bringing the pipeline closer to the Army Corps of Engineers land straddling the pipeline’s crucial river crossing."

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Justice released a joint statement asking "the pipeline company to pause construction within 20 miles of Lake Oahe, the dammed section of the Missouri," Healy writes. "The agencies and the tribes will meet this week in Phoenix to discuss the need for nationwide reform on how Native Americans are consulted on major infrastructure projects like the pipeline."

The $3.8 billion, 1,150-mile pipeline is expected to carry as much as 570,000 barrels of Bakken Formation crude to Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux fear a leak would contaminate their main source of water, the Missouri River. (Read more)