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Water Is Life, Oil Is Death: The People vs. the Bakken Pipeline in Iowa and
the Dakotas
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/water_life_oil_death_people_vs_bakken_pi
peline_in_iowa_dakotas_20160822/
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Posted on Aug 22, 2016
By Paul Street
People opposing the Dakota Access pipeline project, also known as the
Bakken pipeline, rally in Des Moines, Iowa. (Barbara Rodriguez /
AP(http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Oil-Pipeline-Iowa/393ce53295ba481b
8662efbd40f303df/4/0) )
The American version of democracy focuses on elections and candidates. As
the venerable left intellectual Noam Chomsky
observed(http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/03/anti-intellectualism-terrori
sm-and-elections-in-contemporary-education-a-discussion-with-noam-chomsky/)
in June, "Citizenship means every four years you put a mark somewhere and
you go home and let other guys run the world. It's a very destructive
ideology . a way of making people passive, submissive objects." Chomsky
added that we "ought to teach kids that elections take place, but that's not
[all of] politics." There's also the more urgent and serious politics of
popular social movements and direct action beneath and beyond the election
cycle.
We might refine Chomsky's maxim to read "and let rich guys run the world
into the ground" or "let rich guys ruin the world." With anthropogenic
(really
"capitalogenic(http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Anthropocene-or-Capi
talocene-20151027-0020.html) ") global warming, the nation and world's
corporate and financial oligarchs are bringing the planet to the brink of an
epic ecosystem
collapse(http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/14/the-impending-ecosystem-coll
apse/) .
We might also put some meat on the bones of Chomsky's pedagogical advice by
"teach[ing] kids" about the people's politics being practiced in the upper
Midwest and northern Great Plains by citizen activists fighting to help
avert ecological calamity by blocking construction of what North Dakota
Sioux leader David Archambault II calls "a black snake" of "greed." The
snake in question is the planet-baking Dakota Access/Bakken pipeline, what
Iowa activists call "The Next Keystone XL."
While Iowa Berned, Dakota Access Worked Behind the Scenes
As progressives flocked to presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' impressive
rallies in Iowa (like this one(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YeaGxmXUAw)
) over the past year, the Texas-based company Dakota Access LLC, a division
of the ecocidal corporation Energy Transfer Partners LP, moved methodically
ahead with its plan to build the Bakken pipeline. This $3.8 billion,
1,134-mile project would carry 540,000 barrels of primarily fracked crude
oil from North Dakota's "Bakken oil patch" daily on a diagonal course
through sacred North Dakota Sioux tribal sites and burial grounds, South
Dakota, Iowa, the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and many other major
waterways, to Patoka, Ill. It would link with another pipeline that will
transport the black gold to terminals and refineries along the Gulf of
Mexico for export to the global market.
In March, five weeks after Sanders essentially tied Hillary Clinton in the
Iowa caucus, the corporate-captive Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) approved the
giant Iowa portion of the project, granting Dakota Access eminent domain
across the entire route through 18 counties-the last major administrative
hurdle for the project. The "regulatory" boards in the other three states
had already signed off. There was still some slim hope that the Army Corps
of Engineers could be persuaded to block the project. That hope was dashed
July 25.
Dakota Access construction crews have begun moving dirt and tearing up
farmers' crops along the pipeline's projected path. Pipeline workers with
out-of-state license plates are showing up in hotels, motels and camps-and
on dating sites like "Plenty of Fish"-along the route. Construction began in
South Dakota, North Dakota and Illinois in May. Pipe has been laid in Lee
County in Iowa's southeast corner and Lyon County in the northwest. Last
week, a pipeline trench crossed the popular Chichaqua Valley Trail in
central Iowa. A young woman from central Iowa reports that a local dating
website is "swarming" with out-of-state pipeline workers staying in
campsites and elsewhere.
Dakota Access first applied to the IUB for a pipeline permit in the fall of
2014, just before Sanders' first visit to Iowa. Slowly but surely, as
media-driven popular excitement over the largely Iowa-focused presidential
contest built last year, the company quietly pressed ahead with a public
relations offensive (with a strong emphasis on "jobs for Iowans") against
the opposition of environmentalists and concerned citizens. There was only
one formal IUB public hearing, and it lasted just one day. The opponents of
the pipeline represented a cross-section of Iowans. The proponents were
almost entirely from construction unions, many from out of state. Opponents
who attended multiple "informational meetings" staged by Dakota Access
reported numerous blatant inconsistencies, contradictions and lies in the
"facts" presented by the company. While the state dived further into the
quadrennial caucus commotion, Dakota Access moved the pipeline through the
required administrative and public relations hoops under the media-politics
radar.
The stakes are high in the fight against the project. "If the Bakken
Pipeline is built," the progressive lobbying organization Iowa Citizens for
Community Improvement (CCI)
notes(http://iowacci.org/in-the-news/bakken-pipeline-fact-sheet/) , "it
would seriously harm Iowa's already impaired water quality, threaten the
integrity of the fertile farmland of thousands of everyday Iowans, and
contribute to our dependence on fossil fuels. This steers us away from
developing renewable energy infrastructure and curbing the most catastrophic
impacts of climate change." CCI is part of a broad statewide anti-Bakken
group called the Bakken Pipeline Resistance Coalition(http://nobakken.com/)
(BPRC) that includes more than 30 organizations. BPRC is engaged in the
difficult work of grass-roots politics and direct action-both legal and
extra-legal-beneath and beyond the major-party and candidate-centered
presidential election extravaganzas that take early root in Iowa (thanks to
its first-in-the-nation caucuses) every four years.
A Fake 'Public Utility'
The IUB's decision in March was rich with Orwellian irony. Iowa law forbids
the condemning of agricultural land for private development. It is true, as
Dakota Access argues, that the law excludes utilities under the jurisdiction
of the IUB from the private development limitation. And that includes
pipelines if they serve a "public purpose." But this pipeline would simply
transport oil through Iowa and therefore serve no discernible public good
for the state and, in fact, promises to do considerable harm to the state's
environmental and financial health. Opponents rightly point out that like
all pipelines, it will eventually spill, and Dakota Access LLC will leave
Iowa holding the bag for the cleanup.
Like something out of Kafka(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka) , the
IUB will have no power to enforce any kind of public regulations whatsoever
on the operators of the private interstate pipeline they approved as a
"public utility."
The IUB's decision was another example among
many(http://iowacci.org/in-the-news/governorbranstadcorporateaghavealongpatt
ernofcorporateagsecrecy/) that Iowa is up for sale to big business under
the right-wing administration of Republican Gov. Terry Branstad.
The giant Canadian pipeline company Enbridge and Marathon Petroleum are
impressed by Dakota Access' success in gaining the approval of "regulators."
The two corporations recently put up $2
billion(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-02/enbridge-marathon-
agree-to-buy-2-billion-bakken-pipeline-stake) ($1.5 billion from Enbridge
and $500,000 from Marathon) to purchase 49
percent(http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/enbridge-bakken-minority-stake
-deal-mar-1.3705464) of the Bakken pipeline. A likely consequence if the
project is completed is that Canadian tar-sands oil will flow through the
pipeline-and Iowa-toward the Gulf Coast. That oil is one of the most
carbon-rich, planet-cooking fossil fuels on earth. Dire environmental
concern about the mining of Canadian tar sands oil was the main reason
climate activists like Bill McKibben(http://www.billmckibben.com/) engaged
in high-profile protests of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline-a leading news
story a few years ago.
Enbridge's big buy-in is unsurprising to knowledgeable environmental
researchers and activists. In February, a coalition of leading environmental
groups produced a report showing that the company has been carefully
patching together a massive pipeline network across the Great Lakes region.
Enbridge wants to boost the volume of tar sands crude flowing through its
pipeline system-collectively known as "Enbridge GXL"-to more than 1 million
barrels a day. That is considerably more than what was expected from
Keystone XL. The report, titled "Enbridge Over Troubled
Waters(http://www.mn350.org/enbridge-over-troubled-water-report/) ," finds
that the Canadian firm has worked behind closed doors with government
regulators to dodge the kind of open public environmental review that undid
Keystone XL. The study also highlights Enbridge's terrible environmental
record, noting that the company was responsible for the largest inland
pipeline disaster in U.S. history-a July 2010 spill in Michigan's Kalamazoo
River. Enbridge pipelines caused more than 800 spills in the U.S. and Canada
between 1999 and 2010, pouring nearly 7 million gallons of oil into North
American woodlands, fields and waterways.
Enbridge is coming off a major defeat at the hands of Native American and
other activists who mounted a successful four-year campaign to block the
company's proposed Sandpiper pipeline in Minnesota. The firm is turning to
the Bakken project as an "alternate
route(http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/18/stopping_the_snake_indigenous_pr
otesters_shut) ."
Following the business press, one might conclude that the project's
completion is a slam dunk. A report in Bloomberg Business News three weeks
ago reported that in the judgment of the paper's "intelligence analyst"
Michael
Kay(http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-02/enbridge-marathon-agre
e-to-buy-2-billion-bakken-pipeline-stake) , "The Bakken Pipeline System is
under construction and expected online by the end of 2016." Bloomberg
thought it was a done deal.
But it's not, thanks in no small part to popular opposition and struggle
beneath and beyond the quadrennial electoral extravaganzas that pass for the
only politics that matter in the U.S.
Out-of-state pipeline workers report that "people around here hate us" in
Iowa. In two central counties, arsonists have
damaged(http://www.newtondailynews.com/2016/08/01/arson-investigation-underw
ay-on-three-bakken-pipeline-sites/a7lc0hy/) $1 million worth of Dakota
Access equipment (bulldozers and backhoes). Edward Abbey and his "monkey
wrench gang(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang) " would
have approved.
A central Iowa county sheriff arrested a 63-year-old Fort Dodge military
veteran named Homer Martz on the charge of "desecrating the American flag."
Martz had hung the flag upside
down(http://www.messengernews.net/page/content.detail/id/610615/Homer-Martz-
says-his-rights-were-trampled.html?nav=5010) on a flagpole outside his
home, underneath a Chinese flag. He put up a sign that read: "In China there
is no freedom, no due process. In Iowa? In America?"
Martz told the Fort Dodge Messenger that he did this as a protest because of
his frustration over "having no say in the construction of the Dakota Access
pipeline near the well that serves as the drinking water source for his
home." (The charge against Martz was dropped because it was based on a law
ruled unconstitutional two years ago.)
Wednesday, the normally staid editorial board of the state's leading paper,
The Des Moines Register, defended Martz's
action(http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/editorials/2016/08/16/
editorial-law-officers-desecrate-rights-veteran/88822052/) for "rais[ing] a
valid point about infringement on liberties." The paper said that the
proposed pipeline was "creating legitimate fears about oil spills, ruined
farmland and contaminated water." It noted that "like many Americans, Iowans
don't take kindly to their land being seized or jeopardized."
Legal Resistance
Fifteen of those landowning Iowans have filed a lawsuit against the IUB's
eminent domain authority; hearings began Friday at Polk County District
Court in Des Moines. The suit challenges the spurious "public utility"
claims behind the agency's decision and could result in the suspension of
the project statewide.
The project also faces legal challenges in North Dakota. On Thursday, Dakota
Access agreed to halt construction on the western side of the Missouri River
in southern North Dakota until a federal court hearing in Washington this
week. The partial and "temporary" (according to the company) shutdown
follows months of protests and growing tensions over the company's attempt
to drill beneath the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux
reservation, which straddles the border between North Dakota and South
Dakota.
Iowa's leading anti-Bakken activists have been playing by the official
rules. They've gone through all available official procedures and appeals.
They've written and delivered carefully worded petitions and given polite,
fact-filled testimony to all the relevant, corporate-captive regulatory
bodies. They've met and communicated with the Army Corps and numerous other
relevant federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and
the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety
Administration. They've sued in court, defending farmers' traditional
American-as-apple-pie private property rights. Along the way they've
caucused for Sanders (who denounced the
pipeline(http://www.democracynow.org/2016/2/1/will_iowa_stop_the_bakken_oil)
in some of his Iowa speeches and ads) and reached out to Hillary Clinton,
who switched from pro- to anti-Keystone pipeline for campaign purposes (but
who nonetheless cozies up to leading fracking
companies(http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37120-clinton-fundraises-with-f
rackers) ) after leaving her position as secretary of state. They hand
residents fliers asking them to call the White House and give President
Obama this message: "This is the new Keystone XL. You can stop this
pipeline. You must stop this pipeline."
Still, the environmental necessity of stopping the project and the
possibility that playing by the rules will be to no avail have convinced
Iowa activists that they also need to plan significant acts of civil
disobedience. And here they are taking notes on the struggle and tactics of
Native American comrades to their north and the long history of the success
of civil disobedience in forcing social and political change.
The direct-action leaders in the fight against Bakken are indigenous
activists in North
Dakota(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/if_the_dakota_access_pipeline_is_
built_water_will_be_the_new_oil_20160817) . Militant action already is
underway along the Missouri River, led by indigenous Sioux from the Standing
Rock Reservation, the onetime home of Sitting Bull. These activist Native
Americans are heirs of the continent's first human inhabitants, who always
understood the need to live in harmony with the natural environment.
The Standing Rock Sioux have set up a "Camp of the Sacred Stones," a prayer
and protest site to monitor and resist Dakota Access' effort to lay pipe
beneath the Missouri River. In the words of a camp
spokesperson(http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2016/04/camp-of-sacred-stone-call
-to-action.html) in April, the "proposed Dakota Access Pipeline" is "a
direct life or death threat to the Dakota, Nakota and Lakota people. We must
save sacred water for the future generation." For many weeks now, tribal
members and supporters from around the region and country have used the camp
as a base from which to conduct peaceful protest marches, river flotillas
and prayer groups. They have faced arrest by standing and sitting in the
path of the
pipeline(http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/brenda-norrell/2016/08/na
tives-sacred-stone-camp-stand-path-dakota-access-pipeline) , "ready to halt
crews from drilling beneath the Missouri River and endangering the water
source of Indian Nations with crude oil," Brenda Norrell reports. Native
American female warriors have blocked and occupied construction machinery.
Dozens of indigenous "pipeline fighters" have been arrested, some in brutal
fashion(http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/08/21/dakota-access-d
emocracy-now-profiles-water-protectors-sacred-stones-camp-165524) . An
inter-tribal relay team of Native American youths even ran from Standing
Rock to the White
House(http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2016/standing-rock-sioux-tribe-take
s-action-to-protect-culture-and-environment-from-massive-crude-oil-pipeline)
this summer to deliver a No Bakken petition with 160,000 signatures.
The Standing Rock Sioux have received solidarity and reinforcements from the
Oglala Sioux at the legendary Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. As of
Friday afternoon, the number of anti-pipeline activists in and around the
camp had grown from an original 15 to over 1,000. Local and state police
were setting up barricades and redirecting traffic to reduce the number of
protesters, while a state police surveillance plane flew above. Drones and
helicopters also buzzed overhead.
No Prior First Nation Consent
Anti-Bakken activist attorneys have discovered that one of (Dakota Access
parent company) Energy Transfer Partners' leading creditors and investors is
the Royal Bank of
Canada(http://ir.energytransfer.com/mobile.view?c=106094&v=202&d=3&id=aHR0cD
ovL2FwaS50ZW5rd2l6YXJkLmNvbS9maWxpbmcueG1sP2lwYWdlPTEwMDgwNDgzJkRTRVE9MiZTRV
E9MzQmU1FERVNDPVNFQ1RJT05fUEFHRSZleHA9JnN1YnNpZD01Nw%3D%3D) (RBC). Five and
a half years ago, RBC pledged to
honor(http://www.reuters.com/article/idUS362545447820110106) the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by refusing to
invest in development projects opposed by "First Nations"
people(http://www.ran.org/royal-bank-canada-steps-away-tar-sands-support-fir
st-nation-rights-0) . The declaration requires "free, prior and informed
consent for development impacting Indian land, territories and waters."
Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director the Science and Environmental
Health Network, says that while RBC's pledge may not be legally actionable
against Dakota Access, it is a valuable part of the moral and public
relations case against the pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux and other
Native American groups in Iowa and the Dakotas have clearly withheld consent
to the partly RBC-funded Bakken pipeline. And last week, the tribe and the
International Indian Treaty Council appealed for
help(http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/08/20/dakota-access-pipe
line-standing-rock-sioux-issue-urgent-appeal-united-nations-human) to the
United Nations, citing the declaration.
Anti-pipeline activists in the upper Midwest and northern Great Plains have
adopted the Sioux saying Mni wiconi: "Water is life." It's a fitting maxim
in the river- and stream-filled state of Iowa, which is bordered by the
great Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
Peaceful civil disobedience to block construction is imminent in Iowa. At
the very white and middle-class Iowa City Farmers Market two weekends ago,
anti-Bakken organizers signed up people ready to face arrest. One of the
activists and signatories is Richard Lamb, 73, a courteous, retired
educational psychologist and Vietnam War veteran who owns a 300-acre farm
that has already been partly torn up by Dakota Access. The farm has been in
Lamb's family-just one step removed from original Native American
ownership-since the 1870s. Lamb is one of the 15 landowners suing the IUB,
but he has also recently received civil disobedience training alongside
fellow environmentalists.
It's no time for "Iowa
nice(http://iowapublicradio.org/topic/beyond-iowa-nice#stream/0) ." Big
Carbon is not bashful about pushing legal limits and offending the state's
famously polite "farm folks" along the way. The cowboy-boot-wearing
officials of Dakota Access-rich guys out to ruin livable ecology-hope to
build as much of the pipeline in Iowa as possible before a ruling comes down
from the Polk County court. They don't mind having their workers rip up
farmers' crops and trees along the way.
In the days leading up to the electoral holy day that is the Iowa
presidential caucus, the state was briefly home to a large number of Bernie
Sanders-backing political visitors. They had out-of-state license plates and
banners on the sides of their vans and SUVs proclaiming that "The Revolution
Starts Here." The slogan was printed inside an outline of the state of
Iowa(http://iowafarmersunion.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/RevolutionStarts
Here-Bernie-logo-300x199.jpg) . Now is a good time for activists concerned
about preserving livable ecology from the profit gluttony of capitalism to
return to the upper Midwest for a different, more "revolutionary" kind of
politics.
The nation's unelected dictatorship of money and oil knows very well that
politics is about more than elections. The petro-oligarchs pursue their
government-corrupting pillaging of the common good and profit-addicted
poisoning of the well to fuel their never-ending growth on a year-round,
24/7 basis.
You can contribute to the Sacred Stones protest camp
here(https://www.gofundme.com/sacredstonecamp) and to the Iowa Bakken
Pipeline Resistance Coalition here(http://nobakken.com/support-our-work/) .
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