An encampment at the protest against the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation near Cannon Ball, N.D. (Stephanie Keith/Reuters)In the Dakota language, the word “oahe” signifies “a place to stand on.”And that’s what the Standing Rock Sioux and its allies in the environmental and activist movements say they are doing: using Lake Oahe in North Dakota as a place to take a stand by setting up camps and blocking roads in order to block the controversial $3.7 billion Dakota Access pipeline. The project inundated and destroyed the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s “most fertile bottom lands,” home to medicinal plants, wildlife and timber, said Everett J. Iron Eyes, Sr., former water and natural resource director for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and now a water consultant. “So the Standing Rock tribe still feels very abused. Shale oil produced by fracking in western North Dakota is the main source of crude for the Dakota Access pipeline project.

Source: Washington Post November 25, 2016 13:18 UTC