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Keisha E. McKenzie | communication | systems | social good

#NODAPL

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An update on #NoDAPL

From way down the lawn: the United States White House. The trees are full; and the sky is bright and clear. It must be summer.
Photo credit: Srikanta

“Elections have consequences.” That’s the Told Ya So of 2017: annoying and yet valid.

Among the consequences: the AP reports that the acting US Army Corp chief has authorized resumption of the Dakota Access Pipeline project. Construction is moving forward yet again, over the objections of the Standing Rock Tribe and coalitions like the Indigenous Environmental Network.

(A transnational pipeline expansion project, Keystone XL, will transport Canadian tar sands oil from Oh, Canada to Texas, Our Texas by way of Nebraska. The previous federal administration reviewed it for six years before failing to advance it.)

I’ve written about this energy construction project several times over the last six months. I’ve never been to South or North Dakota. I’m not part of the indigenous community, and I only started paying attention to climate change and energy politics a few years ago.

I still came to follow and care about the pipeline project and several of the Native communities who’ve mobilized against it because of its route through unceded Sioux land.

I’ll keep sharing updates on this pipeline until it’s stopped (ideal) or operational (increasingly more likely).

In the meantime, follow and help to fund the IEN, and take action with the Standing Rock community.

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A little money, a little power

A hand holds up a roll of $20 bills.
Photo credit: Vitaly

I’ve been reflecting on the story of the money behind the Dakota Access Pipeline. More than 17 major national banks are funding construction and credit lines for the companies building it across the Dakotas and the Midwest:

  • $2.5 billion to Sunoco Partners
  • $3.75 billion to Energy Trading Partners
  • $1.5 billion to Energy Trading Equity; and
  • $2.5 billion to Dakota Access [Source: Food and Water Watch, September 6, 2016]

That’s an incredible amount of money: more than I can compute, and some of it, indirectly, comes from us.

For the last several months, ordinary people have been leveraging their much, much smaller assets to make a statement on this project.

Yes Magazine reported this week that fiscal organizing against the Dakota Access Pipeline is producing tangible results: people have already divested $28 million in private funds, withdrawing money from and closing checking, savings, and credit accounts with the banks named in Food and Water Watch’s article.

As people take responsibility for their personal accounts, banks and states are also taking responsibility for theirs: a Norwegian bank has already sold off its investments in the project—a transfer of responsibility—and California, Minneapolis, and Seattle are apparently considering divestment legislation as well.

All levels of engagement are necessary: every dollar is part of the story. And as much as some activists have invited sending money to the community at Standing Rock, perhaps we ought to also consider withdrawing money from the communities making Standing Rock more of a war zone than a sanctuary.

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From encampment to divestment

A dream catcher flies in the air. The sky behind it is light blue. There's a sun flare in the center of the image.
Photo credit: Dyaa Eldin

As winter sets in the Dakotas and the government begins an environmental impact study of the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, a coalition of Native people at and around Standing Rock is weighing its options.

Should non-Natives leave the area or stay, ready to intervene? Should activists focus on Energy Transfer Partners and its ongoing construction of another section of DAPL in Iowa, or lobby the national banks that are funding the project? These aren’t easy questions, but the right answer is probably “Yes.” Complex problems often require many people pressing forward on several fronts at once.

This week, days after the announcement that the pipeline company would not receive the easement permit it applied for, the Standing Rock coalition has published a new statement on the road ahead. The coalition at Standing Rock includes the Indigenous Environmental Network, the International Indigenous Youth Council, Honor the Earth, and the Sacred Stone Camp. And they have a very specific ask:

We ask you to join us in an unprecedented divestment campaign to kill the black snake financially.  We will also ask you to engage in the development of the Environmental Impact Statement to the extent that the public is invited to participate, and guide you through that process.  But let us use this time to cut off funding for the project.  December is an international month of action focused on the 17 banks that are profiting off investments in the Dakota Access pipeline.  Shut these banks down with direct action.  Close your accounts and tell the world you’re doing it.  Pressure your local jurisdictions and philanthropists to divest.  Every day is a day of action… Now more than ever, we ask that you stand with us as we continue to demand justice.” (December 9, 2016)

Read the rest of the statement and take this weekend to discern what action is yours to take.

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The latest from Standing Rock

A view of Standing Rock under a huge blue sky.
Photo credit: Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council

The story of the Dakota Access Pipeline continues:

The pipeline is planned from Bakken oil fields of North Dakota to Illinois, where it would tie in with an existing pipeline to refineries in the Midwest and on the Gulf coast.

The project was never examined under an environmental impact review but instead was approved under a fast-track process that three federal agencies have stated was not adequate.” —Lynda V. Mapes, November 25, 2016

A neighboring town, Bismarck, ND, also rejected the Dakota Access Pipeline over pollution risks before the company approached the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Tribe rejected it too.

This weekend, the Army Corps of Engineers informed the Standing Rock Sioux that it planned to close public access to the Oceti Sakowin camp, a site where thousands of Native and non-Native water protectors have gathered over the last several months. Tribal chairman David Archambault, Jr. published a response this morning on the Standing Rock Sioux website:

Our Tribe is deeply disappointed in this decision by the United States, but our resolve to protect our water is stronger than ever. We ask that all everyone who can appeal to President Obama and the Army Corps of Engineers to consider the future of our people and rescind all permits and deny the easement to cross the Missouri River just north of our Reservation and straight through our treaty lands. When Dakota Access Pipeline chose this route, they did not consider our strong opposition. Our concerns were clearly articulated directly to them in a meeting on Sept. 30, 2014. We have released that audio recording from our council meeting where DAPL and the ND Public Service Commission came to us with this route…

We ask that the United States stop the pipeline and move it outside our treaty lands.” —David Archambault, Jr., November 26, 2016

Three people in my network have joined camps at the Standing Rock Reservation, and several more in my extended network are reading for winter there. Excessive local police force has been all over the headlines, and rightly so. But state violence is the easiest story to tell because, as Archambault writes, it’s so common, so continuous with the history of the US and its dealings with Native peoples.

EarthJustice’s legislative counsel Raul Garcia tells a simpler, less sexy story of Native and non-Native people gathering at Standing Rock out of shared spiritual conviction, not just common political belief.

Even when we were talking about politics, the sacredness of it all was what tribe members conveyed as important. The respect of the people overcame any thought of animosity, and the solemnity of the place and the need to protect nature inspired peaceful unity. This indigenous vision of sacred air, sacred water and sacred land was striking to me. I live in Washington, D.C., where polarized rhetoric dominates the landscape, and where, since the presidential election season, distasteful attacks are rampant. Visiting the camps and understanding the spirituality driving this struggle against corporate profit was an eye-opening and humbling experience.” —Raul Garcia

All of the camps and the medical council still need material support, and as Dr. Adrienne Keene has said, “money might be best.” Please give what you can.

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Read: #NoDAPL, Sea levels, Organizing

A man holds an oar in the air on the Missouri River: a thick line of water protectors line the banks of the river.
Photo credit: Rob Wilson (via Sacred Stone Camp)

On #NoDAPL: the movement against the Dakota Access Pipeline

“What the Trump victory means for Standing Rock.” (Jenni Monet for Common Dreams)

Now that Trump has won the election and has said he would steer energy policy toward more oil production rather than less, [Energy Transfer Partner’s] plans to ignore the Obama administration and advance the pipeline so swiftly doesn’t seem so brazen at after all. Just prescient.

According to his Public Financial Disclosure Report, Trump disclosed between $500,000 and $1 million in investments in ETP. He also disclosed $50,000 to $100,000 in investments in Phillips 66, which would own one-quarter of the Dakota Access pipeline once complete.”

On rising sea levels in West Africa

“West Africa is being swallowed by the sea: Encroaching waters off the coast of Togo, Ghana, Mauritania, and others are destroying homes, schools, fish, and a way of life.” (Matteo Fagotto for Foreign Policy)

Fuvemeh is one of thousands of communities along the western coast of sub-Saharan Africa, stretching more than 4,000 miles from Mauritania to Cameroon, at risk of being washed away. Spurred by global warming, rising sea levels are causing massive erosion — in some places eating away more than 100 feet of land in a single year. Sea levels around the world are expected to rise by more than two-and-a-half feet by the end of the century, but they are expected to rise faster than the global average in West Africa, according to the West African Economic and Monetary Union. In a region where 31 percent of population lives along the coastline, generating 56 percent of total GDP, according to the World Bank, this is a potentially catastrophic problem.

“In West Africa, infrastructure and economic activities are centered along the coastal region, so as sea levels continue to rise, it threatens our very existence and source of income,” says Kwasi Appeaning Addo, a professor in the University of Ghana’s department of marine and fisheries sciences. “We are sitting on a time bomb.”

Ways for marginalized people to self-secure ahead of January

“Concrete Suggestions in Preparation for January 2017’s change in American government (by demographic issue, but for any interested readers).” (Kara Hurvitz/crowd-sourced) Hat tip: Leslie H. Foster

Hurvitz is compiling a series of resources and action items for people concerned about how a new federal administration will handle healthcare access and fragile social rights. Even if you don’t need any of these recommendations for yourself, consider passing the link onto others who might.

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Take action: An update on #NODAPL

We can't live without water. We have alternatives to oil. We have alternatives to oil; we have no alternatives to water. —Kandi Moss, Indigenous Earth Network of Turtle Island #NoDAPLKandi Mossett of the Indigenous Earth Network shared a live update from Standing Rock today.

She describes the way the National Guard, police from five states, Energy Transfer Partners, and the Dakota Access corporation have corralled indigenous people in camps near DA Pipeline construction. And she calls for trans-ethnic solidarity.

[These states are] sending their police forces over here to protect an oil industry pipeline which is becoming obsolete before it’s even built.

The price of oil has dropped so low. The amount of oil that’s being pumped out of the Bakken Shale Formation is so low that this pipeline is becoming obsolete before it’s even constructed. There are charts; there are graphs that show that they may not even need this pipeline.

And so why they’re continuing to allow it is beyond me.

We don’t know where our president is. We don’t know where you are, Obama, but we could really use your help out here. We’re trying to protect the water for your children too.” —Kandi Mossett

Mossett’s update is 16 minutes long, and includes some graphic reports of violent policing. It is auto-captioned.

Mossett invites Native and non-Native people to journey to Standing Rock and stand with the Native people there.

She also encourages continuing donations to the Indigenous Environmental Network of Turtle Island‘s Indigenous Rising project and to Sacred Stone Camp. The costs of this disruption are significant and water protectors shouldn’t face them alone.

We need people to come because the Missouri River is right there, and we need people to help us to protect the Missouri River. For the 18 million people that are downstream, for the millions more that are downstream of [them], we need President Obama to demand a full environmental impact statement. We need the Department of Justice to come out here and see what’s happening to us. We need you to go to your Army Corps of Engineers offices and we need your help…

We never give up hope… Send your support any way you can.” —Kandi Mossett

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Watch today’s update