Protests expected Tuesday in Kansas City over North Dakota pipeline
Officials locked down the North Dakota Capitol on Monday after opponents of the Dakota Access pipeline gathered there, one day before groups planned more than 200 protests at Army Corps of Engineers offices and other sites across the country.
The North Dakota Highway Patrol, which provides security at the Capitol in Bismarck, locked the doors and patrolled both the building and grounds. There were no immediate reports of arrests.
“It’s being done to avoid a gathering inside the building,” Patrol Lt. Tom Iverson said.
More than a dozen protesters opposed to the $3.8 billion pipeline were arrested in the Capitol earlier this month when they sat, chanted and sang and refused to leave. Three others who refused to leave the nearby governor’s residence also were arrested.
The rallies set for Tuesday at such places as state Army Corps offices, federal buildings and offices of banks that have helped finance the project are seeking to draw the attention of President Barack Obama.
A rally is scheduled in Kansas City at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday across from the Bolling Federal Building, 601 E. 12th St.
Groups including the Indigenous Environmental Network, Honor the Earth and Greenpeace USA want Obama to permanently halt the construction of the pipeline, the focus of confrontations between police and protesters in North Dakota for months.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps of Engineers on Monday said it has finished a review of the disputed Dakota Access pipeline but wants more study and tribal input before deciding whether to allow it to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota.
The announcement, which came amid speculation that federal officials were on the brink of green-lighting the crossing, spells further delay for the project. Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the company developing the pipeline, said earlier Monday that it expected to be moving oil through the pipeline by early next year if it got permission.
The corps in July granted Energy Transfer Partners the permits needed for the project, but in September said more analysis was warranted in the wake of American Indian concerns. The Standing Rock Sioux, whose reservation will be skirted by the $3.8 billion, four-state pipeline, says it threatens its drinking water and cultural sites.
A United Nations group that represents indigenous people around the world says the U.S. government appears to be ignoring the treaty rights and human rights of American Indians opposing the pipeline.
The Nov. 4 statement from the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called on the government to “protect the traditional lands and sacred sites of the Standing Rock Sioux and uphold their human rights commitments.”
Forum member Edward John in late October visited a camp in North Dakota that’s drawn hundreds of protesters against the 1,200-mile pipeline to carry North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.
Nearly 470 protesters have been arrested supporting the Standing Rock Sioux. John said he found a “war zone” atmosphere and that “I felt as though I was in an armed conflict zone on foreign soil.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2016 at 5:57 PM with the headline "Protests expected Tuesday in Kansas City over North Dakota pipeline."