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'This is history,' tribes say of Dakota Access pipeline halt

Kevin Hardy
kmhardy@dmreg.com

OCETI SAKOWIN CAMP, N.D. — A day that began with prayers ended with victory dances Sunday as Native Americans and environmentalists here celebrated the news that the Obama administration was halting construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

In the most substantial blow yet to the highly contested project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement for the oil pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, a Corps-managed reservoir on the Missouri River in North Dakota. That remained the only contested portion of the 1,172-mile pipeline, which runs through four states and is nearly completed.

Fireworks go off in the Oceti Sakowin Camp close to the Standing Rock Reservation on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016 near Cannon Ball. Today, the Army Corps of Engineers denied Dakota Access an easement to cross the Missouri River.

"Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do," Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Army's assistant secretary for civil works said in a statement Sunday afternoon. "The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing."

In a statement late Sunday, pipeline builder Energy Transfer Partners said it remained committed to completing the project without a reroute.

"The White House’s directive today to the Corps for further delay is just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions," the statement read, "by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency."

The pipeline was set to cross the river a half-mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation border in North Dakota. Tribal members for months have protested the project, worried that a pipeline breach could threaten their drinking water.

Darcy said the pipeline should undergo an environmental impact statement — a process that could take months. The decision means construction likely won't be completed during Obama's remaining weeks in office.

President-elect Donald Trump's administration, widely viewed as more friendly to traditional energy interests, could reverse the Corps' decision after he takes office, on Jan. 20.

News of the Corps' decision spread quickly across the snow-covered protest camp in North Dakota, home to an expansive array of teepees, motorhomes and tents. Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II took the microphone at the camp's central fire after speaking with Army officials.

"I'm telling you, this is true," he said. "You know how rumors spread."

The central fire turned into a mob of people dancing, singing and cheering at word of the news. One native woman urged her teenage son to take a photo of his father dancing.

"This is history," she told him.

At the top of a nearby hill, one of the few places where cell phone service can be found near the central fire, one man relayed the news to those back home.

"Our prayers have been answered," he said.

After sunset, revelers shot fireworks into the starry sky.

As the victory party began, security volunteers working the camp's front gate said traffic was backed up for five miles, as cars attempted to join the camp for the celebration.

Geraldine Agard, a 63-year-old member of the Standing Rock Sioux, gave credit to the prayers of those filling the camp for Sunday's decision.

"It has to be. How else?" she said. "We can’t do this alone."

Earlier in the day, campers joined arms in creating what they said was the world's largest prayer circle.

“Prayer is powerful," Agard said. "I hope all the people who came learned something from our native culture. I think we have taught them a lot."

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'It's not over until it's over'

Yet even as men and women began drumming and dancing around the fire, many Native Americans were unconvinced that Sunday's news was the end.

"I still have that doubt," Agard said, as men driving reservation ambulances shouted "don't give up, don't go home" over their loudspeakers.

Rocky Littlewind, a 60-year-old member of the Spirit Lake Nation in North Dakota, said the fight wouldn't be over until the pipeline company's equipment and security had left the area. He worries that the news might mean only a temporary delay, given Trump's pro-energy rhetoric.

"We've got to wait and see, because we've been lied to before," he said. "To me, it's not over until it's over. And I think most people — Native Americans and white people — believe that."

Craig Stevens, spokesman for the pro-pipeline Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, said the decision was a rejection of the entire regulatory and judicial system, as well as a repudiation of the Corps' previous decisions to greenlight the project.

"With President-elect Trump set to take office in 47 days," he said in a statement, "we are hopeful that this is not the final word on the Dakota Access pipeline."

'It’s a war for the hearts of humanity'

Earlier Sunday, faith leaders from North Dakota and across the country took turns at the campfire's microphone as hundreds of bundled-up campers circled around a sunken fire pit. The roster included representatives of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and several Christian denominations.

Rabbi Julia Vaughns of Oregon said the pipeline protest is a "battle in a greater war." To win, the movement must bring together people of many faiths, just as the American Civil Rights movement did decades ago, she said.

"It’s a war for the hearts of humanity. And the only way to win that war is through prayer," she said. "You can’t win by fighting. They can take away your gun. But they can’t take away prayer."

The Rev. Victor Kazanjian, an executive trustee of the United Religions Initiative, said he came armed with more than 1,000 prayers from people in 56 countries. He also brought a gift of water, saying that over the last decade, his group has collected water from 167 sacred water sources.

“Their waters have been mingled,” he said, “because when waters of different sources mingle, they do not separate from each other. One does not stand higher or lower than the other. They come together as one being — one essence.”

Noted academic and political commentator Cornel West gave a short, impassioned speech Sunday morning. He told the camp that the original sin of the United States was not its enslavement of African natives, but its treatment of indigenous peoples.

He said many of history's great freedom fighters, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Dorothy Day, began their movements with prayer.

West, a professor of philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary and professor emeritus at Princeton University, said prayer is a form of reverence to something greater than worldly pursuits, such as money or status.

"Because we have a profound love of our priceless indigenous brothers and sisters and because justice is what love looks like in public," West said, "we want to be on the love train and the justice train with them as they struggle against these corporate fools."

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Iowa's pipeline opponents react to Sunday's news:

Jessica Reznicek, an Iowa activist who began a hunger strike in opposition to the pipeline, said she would end that effort Sunday, thanks to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers decision to stop construction in North Dakota.

“It's time to get healthy, reorganize, and shut this pipeline down for good!” she said in a statement.

Reznicek was arrested Nov. 30 for trespassing at the Iowa Utilities Board in Des Moines. She said Sunday that she still plans to occupy the IUB building on Wednesday, a day of planned civil disobedience against the pipeline.

Matt Ohloff, an organizer with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, celebrated the Corps announcement, but noted that it doesn’t bar construction of the project in Iowa.

“We’re very encouraged by the news. … But we’re still going to fight to kill this pipeline,” he said.

Ed Fallon, director of Bold Iowa, an activist group opposing the pipeline, was just leaving the North Dakota encampment when he heard the news. His eight-day trip was his first to the protest site.

“It’s pretty amazing. It’s really cool,” he said. “It’s not over yet, but this is huge.”

Des Moines Register reporter Charly Haley contributed to this story.

WATCH: Pipeline protests at the Oceti Sakowin camp: