Last holdouts cleared from camp
UNITED STATES: Law enforcement officers took control of the largest Dakota Access pipeline protest camp yesterday, arresting or moving the few dozen people who had remained in the mud and snow in one of the largest environmental protests in American history.
‘‘At 2:09 pm, Oceti Sakowin protest camp was completely cleared by law enforcement!’’ the Morton County Sheriff’s Office wrote on its Facebook page, referring to the name protesters gave the camp just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation in North Dakota.
Later, law enforcement, with the aid of National Guard troops, also began clearing the smaller Rosebud camp, located across the Cannonball River. There were no reports of broad confrontations with law enforcement, though some people were wrestled to the ground and handcuffed.
At least 30 people were arrested, but many others fled towards a third camp, Sacred Stone, the original protest site established 10 months ago. That camp was set up on private land by a handful of people from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and others who argue that the pipeline threatens the tribe’s water supply and sacred cultural sites.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and officials with the US Army Corps of Engineers, which controls most of the land where the protest camps are located, have said the site must be cleared for health and safety reasons, including concerns that spring snow melt will flood the low-lying area where the Oceti Sakowin and Rosebud camps are located.
The Corps of Engineers has said it will take about a month and more than US$1 million to clean debris from the area.
The evacuation ended the most visible element of one of the highest-profile US environmental protests in recent memory.
Beginning in April last year, tribal members set up tepees at a protest camp overlooking Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River under which the pipeline was to travel. In time, the Sioux and other tribes filed legal challenges and welcomed thousands of Native American and others to join them in protest.
At its peak, the Oceti Sakowin camp was home to thousands of people who called themselves ‘‘water protectors’’. They ate communal dinners in makeshift mess halls, set up composting toilet operations, and endured brutal summer heat and an even more brutal winter, when temperatures often dropped below zero.
Some protesters clashed with law enforcement, and about 700 people have been arrested, with many alleging police brutality.
After construction was halted by the Obama administration, which initiated an expanded environmental review of the pipeline’s route in its final weeks, construction of the pipeline resumed on February 9, less than 24 hours after the Trump administration granted a final easement allowing for completion of the section beneath Lake Oahe.
Hundreds of protesters remained even as construction resumed, though the Standing Rock Sioux encouraged them to leave and focus instead on political and legal efforts. The Corps of Engineers imposed a Thursday evacuation deadline.
Law enforcement was followed into the camps yesterday by heavy equipment that was used to quickly begin levelling several wooden structures. The camps became a sprawl of law enforcement and large vehicles navigating through campsites, vehicles and debris, much of which had been abandoned weeks ago by the protesters.