Native Americans united by oil pipeline fight

Drive on a state highway along the Missouri River, amid the rolling hills and wide prairies of North Dakota, and you'll come across a makeshift camp of Native Americans -- united by a common cause.

Members of some 200 tribes have gathered here, many raising tribal flags that flap in the unforgiving wind. Some have been here since April, their numbers fluctuating between hundreds and thousands, in an unprecedented show of joint resistance to the nearly 1,200 mile-long Dakota Access oil pipeline.

"All of this is Native American land here," said Michael Zephier, who came from South Dakota with his children. "These are my people."

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which uses the river for drinking water, says allowing the pipeline to cross it just north of its reservation -- near the campsite -- would endanger its water supply and destroy culturally significant lands nearby.

"Pipes always break. It will break. And within about 10 minutes, it'll be to our fresh water intake for the tribe," said Ron His Horse Is Thunder, a former tribe chairman and its current head of transportation.

"They say that they're going to have monitoring systems that'll tell them 24 hours a day whether it breaks. But by the time they get to shut the thing off, the water will already be contaminated," he said.

A federal regulatory agency approved the river crossing, but the tribe sued to stop it. Now, it is waiting for a federal judge's ruling expected this week, on whether to temporarily halt construction while the lawsuit proceeds.

- Safety concerns -

The Dakota Access Pipeline would snake through four US states, delivering oil from North Dakota to Illinois, where it can be shipped to other parts of the country. It could help reduce the cost of transporting North Dakota oil, enabling it to better compete with cheaper oil from Canada.

Proponents say a pipeline is more efficient than moving oil by truck and train. Its developer, Energy Transfer Partners LLC, claims environmental impact analysis shows that it will be safe.

"This is a state of the art pipeline," said Julie Fedorchak, a member of the North Dakota Public Service Commission which approved its route in the state.

Fedorchak said the pipeline would have multiple safeguards -- buried under the river bed to avoid contact with water, thicker pipe walls, and remotely-controlled shut-off valves. The project route was thoroughly examined by archeological experts, she said, during a 13-month vetting process.

"We didn't hear a single word from (the tribe) until a month after it was approved," she said. "At this point, I just think it's too late."

But such claims have fallen on deaf ears among Native Americans and their growing number of supporters. There have been sympathetic protests held in other parts of the US. Celebrities have rallied to the cause, including actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Susan Sarandon. A petition on the White House website has collected more than 150,000 signatures and now awaits a response from the Obama administration.

The protest even touched on election year politics when Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein faced criminal charges after spray painting a pipeline bulldozer.

There has been violence, too. A weekend confrontation between construction workers and campers left injuries on both sides. Company guards pepper sprayed protesters and used attack dogs. Protesters struck back with sticks and poles.

- 'Conquer anything' -

Many Native Americans see the current fight as an assertion of their rights and their tribes' sovereignty -- as they battle in an underdog tale that could have been penned by a Hollywood screenwriter.

The local tribe says it was railroaded by the pipeline's developer and the US Army Corps of Engineers, the governmental body responsible for approving construction under the river (the state approved the rest of the route). In its lawsuit, the tribe said neither paid much attention to its repeated objections.

Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. The Corps did not respond to a request for comment.

The encampment meanwhile has turned into a celebration of Native American culture. Members of tribes from across the US have visited -- sometimes in ceremonial dress, performing songs and rituals. During large gatherings, camp leaders address the population here as "relatives."

"I haven't seen anything like this anywhere in my lifetime," said Susan Ireland, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who put together a tepee wrapped in white canvas at the camp, on which visitors scribbled messages and tribal names.

"Look how powerful we are," Ireland said, "If we can combat this... we should be able to conquer anything."

- Historic wrongs -

The Native Americans' distrust of both government agencies and the oil company is rooted in events dating far into the past.

"In 1889, Congress stripped large portions of the Great Sioux Reservation that had been promised to the Tribe forever, leaving nine much smaller Sioux reservations, including Standing Rock," the tribe said in a court filing.

It also pointed a finger at the Corps, saying that in 1958 it took away land from the tribe for a water project.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency has added some weight to the tribe's concerns, telling the Corps in a letter to reevaluate the potential environmental impact.

Still, the Sioux tribe is not trying to completely shut down the oil pipeline -- even though some groups that have joined their cause, such as the Indigenous Environmental Network, say they would like to do just that.

What the tribe ultimately wants, said His Horse Is Thunder, is to move it farther north, above the state's capital city Bismarck, an alternative route that was initially considered by the pipeline developer.

"We're not so naive to believe that we can stop the pipeline completely," he said.