Environment | National

Dakota Access Pipeline to go underneath tribal burial site in Iowa

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

The Oceti Sakowin water protectors are forming human shield of prayer to prevent the Dakota Access Pipeline from crossing the homelands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota. Photo from Indigenous Rising

Officials in Iowa have given permission for the Dakota Access Pipeline to go underneath a tribal burial and archaeological site in the northwest part of the state.

Officials believe the work will not harm the site known as 13LO335 because the pipeline will go about 85 feet underground, The Des Moines Register reported. But Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network said tribes and indigenous activists will continue to fight the project.

"It is disheartening that they have a green light to move ahead, but I feel very confident that there are a number of landowners, tribes and well-informed citizens who will be standing up to make sure that this pipeline does not get built," Goldtooth told the paper.

The site is located in the Big Sioux River Wildlife Management Area, not far from the South Dakota border. Tribes in both states are fighting the pipeline due to concerns about the environment, sacred sites and their treaty territories.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has yet to give approval for the pipeline to cross wetlands and other area under federal jurisdiction.

The 1,100-mile pipeline would start in the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and would cross South Dakota before entering Iowa and ending in Illinois. The company behind the project, Energy Transfer Partners, has said it will comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and other historic and environmental preservation laws.

Get the Story:
Bakken pipeline will run under sacred tribal site (The Des Moines Register 6/21)
Bakken Pipeline To Go Under Native Burial Ground In Lyon County (KIWA 6/21)
Bakken pipeline given approval to proceed, but path must be bored under tribal burial grounds (The Cedar Rapids Gazette 6/22)