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A Letter from Our Chairwoman
In 2017, despite the protest of hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, Energy Transfer drilled the Dakota Access pipeline through the sensitive earth beneath Lake Oahe on the Standing Rock Nation’s doorstep. Standing Rock sued, and the pipeline’s easement to cross federal lands was ultimately revoked by a federal court, pending a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).
Then the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did something terrible. It selected Environmental Resources Management — a member of the American Petroleum Institute, which participated in the lawsuit against Standing Rock and argued that the EIS wasn’t necessary — to oversee the EIS process. This unacceptable conflict of interest now means DAPL could continue to threaten the water and jeopardize the livelihoods of every tribal member and millions of others downstream of us on the Missouri River.
As a result, I have withdrawn the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe as a cooperating agency on the Army Corps’ EIS process. To be clear, this pipeline and this EIS do not have our free, prior, and informed consent, as required by the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Right now, to make things worse, low water levels in Lake Oahe have created a situation where DAPL’s already inadequate emergency response plan won’t work, increasing the danger to Standing Rock, our wild relatives, and Unci Maka, our Grandmother Earth.
DAPL is a disaster waiting to happen — but this fight isn’t over. And there is something you can do about it! You can sign up for our mailing list, and then help us flood the Corps with thousands of comments calling for a new, fair, and valid EIS.
Please share your name and email address with us so we can notify and provide a message for you to send as soon as the comment period opens. We’ll also keep you updated on the things most important to our Tribe as we go forward. Your participation can create the pressure it takes to win this fight! Please stand at our side, and let’s put an end to DAPL once and for all.
Wopila tanka — thank you, always, for standing with Standing Rock.
Janet Alkire
Chairwoman
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
