There is an ongoing issue in North Dakota as we speak. There is an access oil pipeline being built near a reservation. This pipe is supposed to carry oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to get to an Illinois pipeline that is already there. The route is right in the territory of a tribe called Standing Rock and it would cross under Lake Oahe, which happens to be that tribe’s drinking source.
In March, 2016 the Iowa regulators approved the pipeline.
In April, later that year, citizens started a peaceful protest which soon turned from small numbers to thousands of people.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers then granted pipeline permits through more than two-hundred water crossings in July. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe did not tolerate that at all, and sued a day later, along with another tribe named Cheyenne River Sioux.
On August 10, the police arrested some of the protesters that were there. Over six-hundred people were arrested by the end of the day.
Crisis In The Middle-North
Image By: Maria Hernandez