{"id":33868,"date":"2022-03-31T13:40:32","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T18:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/youth-water-protectors-take-center-stage\/"},"modified":"2022-03-31T13:40:33","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T18:40:33","slug":"youth-water-protectors-take-center-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/youth-water-protectors-take-center-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Youth water protectors take center stage"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Youth water protectors take center stage<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Water protector, O\u2019Shea Greyeyes (Din\u00e9\/Cherokee), holds his hands up before a line of militarized police the day before protest camps at Standing Rock, North Dakota were razed in resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, February 23, 2017.\u00a0 (Jenni Monet)\u00a0<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Five years ago this week, militarized police and National Guard troops in North Dakota razed the protest camps at Standing Rock.\u00a0 Bulldozers were used to level tiny houses and officers slashed teepees open like fresh kill.\u00a0 Some water protectors exposed to the intrusion shot their hands in the air, shouting\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t shoot!\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Officers standing mere feet away could be seen hovering over the last remaining campers, their high-powered guns pointed at their faces.\u00a0\u00a0The raid was mentioned at that day\u2019s White House press briefing after reporters asked if the situation was being monitored by President Donald Trump.\u00a0 \u201cOf course,\u201d said the press secretary.<\/p>\n

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During his first week in office in January 2017, Trump wasted little time\u00a0revamping the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) while delivering blows to a months-long\u00a0movement to try and stop it.\u00a0\u00a0By executive order, he overturned an earlier decision by the Obama administration to pause the crude-oil line until a federal Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) could be conducted.\u00a0 But the review never happened and oil started flowing beneath treaty-protected water bodies that spring.\u00a0 It\u2019s still flowing despite one court hearing after another declaring that the DAPL has been operating illegally in absence of the EIS, and without meeting a federally mandated permit \u2013\u00a0a clear violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.<\/p>\n

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This week, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand these lower court determinations about the EIS when it denied a petition to hear Dakota Access v. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, et al<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0 The rejection means that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) must finally move forward with the delayed environmental review of the DAPL, though the pipeline will not be forced to shut down in the meantime as was\u00a0previously court-ordered.\u00a0<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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For water protectors, the news is seen as another small win within a much bigger battle; they still want the project nixed because of credible threats<\/a> the pipeline poses for poisoning their water supply \u2013 Lake Oahe and the Missouri River.\u00a0\u201cThis is a victory for Standing Rock, but the fight is not over,\u201d said Janet Alkire<\/a>, the newly-elected Chairwoman of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. (The DAPL litigation has so far spanned three tribal and U.S. presidential administrations.) \u201cThe Supreme Court\u2019s announcement demonstrates that we were correct all along,\u201d she said\u00a0in a press release<\/a>.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Alkire- an Air Force Veteran and the first women elected to lead the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in more than six decades \u2013 is not embracing the EIS process; in fact as one of her first acts in office last month, she withdrew the tribe as a \u201ccooperating agency\u201d with the USACE after it was revealed<\/a>\u00a0the agency hired a firm<\/a> that filed an amicus brief in association with a petroleum lobby in direct opposition to Standing Rock\u2019s pipeline fight. (Wow.)<\/p>\n

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According to Alkire, she now has a meeting set with the Corps next week, March 2 \u2013 and here\u2019s where things get interesting:\u00a0 She\u2019ll also be meeting\u00a0with none other than newly-appointed Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Micheal Connor<\/a>, who descends from a lineage of Indigenous water protectors.<\/p>\n

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An enrolled citizen of Taos Pueblo, Connor, 58, was raised under his grandfather, Patricio Romero, who served as Pueblo governor and helped establish the tribe\u2019s water rights task force.\u00a0 The era was marked by the unprecedented return<\/a> of the sacred Blue Lake in 1970 \u2013 \u201csymbolically the source of all life and the retreat of souls after death,\u201d according to tribal leaders in describing their religious site, the water.\u00a0 This shaped Connor\u2019s career path.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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White House photo taken July 8, 1970. From left, Jim Mirabal, Taos Pueblo Tribal Council member; Walter Hickle, Secretary of the Interior; Taos Pueblo Governor Quirino Romer; President Richard Nixon; Paul Bernal, Taos Pueblo Tribal Council secretary. Nixon and Hickle gave tribal leaders support for the tribe\u2019s claims to Blue Lake. Nixon did not sign the Blue Lake Bill until December 1970, after senate approval.<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Decades later when he was nominated to serve as the second in command to the Secretary of the Interior Department in 2013 \u2013 at that time,\u00a0the highest-ranking Native American at the DOI \u2013 Connor centered the significance of water in his confirmation\u00a0testimony<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cWater sustains both the lives of our citizens and the economic activity that is the foundation of our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As Assistant Secretary of the Army, Connor is now poised to make #LandBack history like his forebears in convincing President Biden to protect promised waterways and shut down the DAPL, a corporate energy project built upon\u00a0broken treaties, environmental racism, and violent government collusion. Whether he will make the bold determination that Standing Rock wants may depend on how well water protectors court him.<\/p>\n

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Few are aware of Connor\u2019s background.\u00a0\u00a0When he was short-listed along with Deb Haaland to become \u201cthe first Native American cabinet secretary\u201d in November 2020, progressive activists diminished his decades-long track record<\/a>\u00a0 of water wins for Indian Country as a way to boost Haaland\u2019s chances.\u00a0 Some labeled him as\u00a0\u201ccorporate.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 Others attacked journalists<\/a> who dared to compare his expertise to Haaland\u2019s relatively thin policy record. No one acknowledged his leadership at the DOI when the department, through its Solicitor, Hilary Tompkins, concluded that the DAPL was in violation of Standing Rock\u2019s 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.\u00a0 The December 2016 opinion<\/a> is what led to the Department of Army to temporarily halt the pipeline \u2013 a major victory<\/a> at the time.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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If any of this has weighed on Connor, he hasn\u2019t showed it.\u00a0 He addressed the National Congress of American Indians during its annual winter session about the need to improve\u00a0the Army Corps\u2019 relationship with Indian Country.\u00a0 \u201cThere has been tension in the way the Corps has historically gone about the rest of its portfolio, permitting activities that impact the interests of tribes and tribal treaty rights,\u201d he said<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe want to improve these relationships.\u201d<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n
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Micheal L. Connor (Taos)\u00a0United States Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Whether these improvements begin with stopping the Dakota Access pipeline is as riveting a prospect as the timeline of the movement at Standing Rock, itself \u2013 a fight that quite simply has never faltered.\u00a0 In every way it matches the 64-year-long perseverance of Taos Pueblo to reclaim its holy Blue Lake.<\/p>\n

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@lynciacreatesgifs<\/a><\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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ENDORSEMENT<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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In June of 1970, the Youth of Taos Pueblo traveled to Washington, D.C. to testify before members of Congress in support of Blue Lake Bill H.R. 471.\u00a0 Gilbert Suazo was then the group\u2019s president and served as its spokesman.\u00a0 He struck home to lawmakers the importance of the reclamation.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur tribal leaders have been criticized that their tribe and traditional way of life is deteriorating; that their young people are not interested in the traditional way of life.\u00a0 Let these people who voice these opinions look and listen \u2013 we are the young people of Taos Pueblo who will carry on our tribe,\u201d said Suazo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur way of life is centered around this homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The post Youth water protectors take center stage<\/a> first appeared on Native Sun News Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Youth water protectors take center stage Water protector, O\u2019Shea Greyeyes (Din\u00e9\/Cherokee), holds his hands up before a line of militarized police the day before protest camps at Standing Rock, North Dakota were razed in resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, February 23, 2017.\u00a0 (Jenni Monet)\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Five years <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a>
Shared by Native Sun News Today<\/a> March 31, 2022<\/p>\n

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