Mapping the pipeline in Sioux Country
2016Carl Sack 2016-11Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 7 →
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Thousands of Native Americans and their allies have gathered on unceded Sioux land delimited by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie to try and stand in the way of the “black snake” that could poison the Stand ing Rock Reservation’s water supply. Many have not ed that the pipeline corridor was repositioned from its original route north of Bismarck after white citi zens spoke up against the threat a spill would pose to their drinking water—a threat duly recognized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Yet the Corps failed its federal mandate for meaningful with the Standing Rock Tribe before signing off on a route that moved the pipeline to their doorstep.
This is not to say that the good citizens of Bismarck and Mandan were wrong to protest. What’s wrong with the picture above isn’t the routing of the pipeline. What’s wrong is that the pipeline project exists to be gin with. Some say it’s a good alternative to dangerous oil-by-rail shipments of Bakken crude. Those are bad too. We don’t need more fossil fuels making it to mar ket to be burned and burn up the planet in turn (I am typing this in Wisconsin as the temperature nears 70 on the first of November). We do all need clean water. As the Sioux say, mni wiconi (”water is life”).
To keep to its construction schedule, the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, has met non violent water protectors with private security guards using attack dogs in a scene reminiscent of 1963 Birmingham. It has worked hand-in-glove with law enforcement and the National Guard to create a mili tarized response straight out of apartheid South Af rica or occupied Ireland. It has locked up hundreds of protesters in wire cages like those used early on at Guantanamo Bay. Those on the ground fear some thing like another Kent State, yet they keep coming, and the worldwide solidarity has gone viral.
Yet for all that, when I went out to camp with the water protectors at Oceti Sakowin on Oct. 13, I had to rely on a friend’s hand-drawn sketch posted to Facebook for directions to the camp. If you Google “NoDAPL map,” you’ll find few maps available to pro vide visual context for the unfolding drama. The most popular seems to be the company’s own very small- scale route map, showing a dotted line over highlight ed counties on a generic road map backdrop.
This kind of view erases the people affected by the pipeline—quite literally, by covering over their com munities with a hot pink gradient fill. It doesn’t tell you that all of Turtle Island (North America) is Indian Country, or that the project runs headlong into inter national treaties signed between the U.S. and various tribes and then unilaterally violated by Congress. It Carl Sack doesn’t show you where the frontline communities have set up camp to fight back or where the pipeline company, spurred on by the internal pressure of their $3.8 billion investment, has bulldozed sacred ground, or where exactly a pipeline break would endanger the drinking water of millions downstream. n Carl Sack’s original blog post, showing his map and others, is available at https://northlandia.wordpress. com/2016/11/01/a-nodapl-map/.
Karen Schraufnagel / Socialist Action