The Cannonball River joins the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Photo by Bryan Boyce
Indian Country is standing up to corporate invaders by fighting the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. But Mark Anthony Rolo, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, points out that the federal government plays a big role in the controversy:
While American Indian tribes continue to be plagued with poverty and all the health and social ills it breeds, Indian Country is now facing a new threat: corporate invaders. On the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, tribal members are protesting a $3.8 billion crude oil pipeline that would threaten contamination of their water supply and sacred lands. A section of the Dakota Access Pipeline, beginning in western North Dakota and stretching to Illinois, would be built under the Missouri River, which is the source of sustenance for the Standing Rock Sioux. Corporate officials argue that the pipeline will generate jobs. Tribal members ask: At what price? What is also disturbing to the Standing Rock tribe is that the oil corporation received its blessing to construct the pipeline from the U.S. government.Read More:
Mark Anthony Rolo Fighting Back in Indian Country (The Progressive 8/29)
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