SRST continues battle against DAPL and Energy Transfer

STANDING ROCK—Although Indian Country is not presently focused on Standing Rock’s battle with Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), and the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), the battle still continues. Last week the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe (SRST) issued a press release addressing alleged misinformation being disseminated by ETP.

“A big part of the problem with the Dakota Access Pipeline is the secrecy and misinformation by Energy Transfer,” SRST Chairwoman Janet Alkire stated.

Alkire was specifically referring to the extensive redactions in the DAPL oil spill response plan submitted to the federal government in April 2023.

“All of the important information, such as the worst case discharge calculations, and the clean-up control points for an oil spill are blacked out. Standing Rock’s first responders will need this information to safely supervise any clean-up activities on the Standing Rock Reservation,” Alkire stated.

She asserts that important specifics of the report, which might protect the Missouri River in the event of an oil spill, have been withheld not only from the public, but SRST.

“Energy Transfer has hidden driller logs that prove that up to 1.4 million gallons of drill mud was lost during construction of the pipeline,” Alkire said. She explained that this is especially concerning because ETP was convicted in 2022 of 23 criminal violations of Pennsylvania’s Clean Streams Act, for using unapproved chemical additives to drill mud, which polluted the nearby aquifer and waterways.

Alarmed by the lack of disclosure and the Pennsylvania criminal convictions, Doug Ghost Crow, Director of SRST’s Department of Water Resources asked, “Was Standing Rock’s groundwater polluted also? We do not know, because they are keeping the information hidden.”

For many years SRST has asserted ETP lies about critical specifics concerning DAPL and the threat it poses to the environment. Alkire said that statements at the DAPL website are straight up lies. She said the DAPL website states that the DAPL does not encroach or cross any land owned by SRST.

“In fact,” Alkire said, “DAPL crosses Standing Rock’s unceded Treaty lands from the Heart River to the east bank of the Missouri River and encroaches on our Tribe’s aboriginal territory for hundreds of miles, where we have hunting, fishing and gathering rights, and many sacred sites.”

These sacred sites, as pointed out many times by SRST Communications Officer, and sacred site expert, Tim Mentz, have had nontribal archeology experts walk right over a site and declare it clear when beneath their feet are extensive sacred rock arrangements, in one case depicting the skull of a bison, where the archaeologist saw nothing but grass, rocks, and dirt. ETP can hardly assert no sacred sites are threatened when they struggle to even identify these sites.

Crow Ghost contends that ETP’s assertion that DAPL is “one of the most technologically advanced” pipelines is blatant disinformation.

Crow Ghost said, “Industry experts identify secondary power supplies at emergency flow restriction devices, such as the shut-off valves at the Missouri River, as required technology. DAPL was built without a back-up power supply at the valves. If there is a power outage, and the pipeline needs to be shut down for any reason, their workers will have to go out to the site with a crescent wrench — real high-tech.”

Although ETP asserts that a lawsuit filed by SRST against the Army Corps of Engineers to shut down DAPL, is just “rehashing old ground,” Alkire responded: “Nothing could be further from the truth. This legal action is based on new information — such as Energy Transfer’s criminal convictions on August 5, 2022, and the drill mud spill, which we learned of a few months ago.” The tribal press release stated that the “oil spill response plan, challenged by the Tribe as inadequate, was submitted in April 2023, years after Standing Rock’s prior legal action had concluded.”

The press release goes on to say, “Since 2017, when Standing Rock initiated legal action to prevent construction underneath the Missouri River, Energy Transfer and its subsidiaries have been convicted of environmental crimes and have been subject to numerous civil penalties for pipeline safety violations.

They caused 66 ‘significant incidents’ as defined by the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration — almost one per month.”

“From 2017 through 2023,” according to SRST’s lawsuit, “Energy Transfer LP pipelines have spilled 48,005 barrels of oil (2,016,210 gallons) or about 600 barrels (25,200 gallons) per month. These spills caused property damage totaling almost $57 million, or $1 million in property damages per month.”

According to SRST, back in “2022 and 2023, ETP had nine spills exceeding 1,000 barrels, making it the most serious violator during this period. The second worst violator had one.”

Alkire’s chief concern is that the Army Corps of Engineers, working hand in hand with ETP, has pursued a campaign of secrecy and disinformation, placing “our community at risk, and so we are taking action.”

The Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency, responding to ETP’s criminal convictions, debarred ETP from federal contracts or other assistance.

Crow Ghost stated: “There is no easement for DAPL to cross Corps-administered land, and Energy Transfer is debarred from obtaining an easement. The Corps should shut this pipeline down.”

DAPL is a 1,172 mile-long underground pipeline that transports crude oil from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to an oil terminal near Patoka, Illinois. Announced in 2014, construction began in 2016, completed in April 2017, and became operational in May 2017. The SRST opposed the operation every step of the way, setting up a sometimes violent confrontation with DAPL and the law enforcement agencies backing their operation. Support for SRST poured in from across the planet, and neighboring tribes, rallying under the battle cry of Mni Wiconi, “Water is Life,” responded with material and emotional support to maintain the encampment, especially throughout the harsh winter, when access to the camp was blocked by law enforcement. Badly needed supplies were loaded on sleds which crossed the frozen over Heart River.

Economic stress from the battle with ETP eventually forced SRST to end their physical protest, but SRST has never stopped doing everything possible to protect the tribe from the ongoing threat of a DAPL oil spill into the Missouri River water, or the threat to sacred sites ETP had no capacity to even identify let alone protect.

(James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of OST. Contact him at skindiesel@msn.com

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