Sacheen Littlefeather

The Pine Ridge Reservation, located in South Dakota, is home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe the reservation land is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. The reservation’s needs are immense, commensurate with grinding poverty. Unemployment is over 80%, the suicide rate, at 150%, is higher than the national average, life expectancy for men is only 48 years old and for women it is only 52 years. The weather is extreme, many families have no running water, lack of heating resources and are under constant attack from the utility companies because the State of South Dakota refuses to enforce the federal cold weather rule, allowing these companies to turn off the utilities at any time payment is not received on the due date, even if the occupants of the home are elderly, disabled, have babies or small children and the weather outside is far below freezing. Most families live on an annual income of only $3,000.00 to $4,000.00 and occupy homes infested with toxic black mold. The Infant Mortality rate is 5 times higher than the national average, death rate and amputation rates due to diabetes is 3 to 4 times higher than the national average and heart disease as well as high blood pressure are also an epidemic on the reservation. Under funded schools and other social issues keep the Pine Ridge reservation the poorest area in the United States.
The government has sold used FEMA trailers that were not properly insulated or meant to be permanent structures to the Lakota people. With no income, no resources and no hope of things changing, families struggle to do the best they can, but always fall short of even the barest necessities. In such conditions the problems of leaky roofs, rotting floors and frozen pipes due to inadequate heating add to the problem of toxic black mold growths.
The Lakota people are a proud nation who have survived in their land for thousands of years. But ever since our notion of “civilization” has been forced upon them, their ability to survive has suffered greatly. It is time that the self styled “civilized” race that came to conquer this land looks back to the time when the indigenous people helped the first settlers to survive in a foreign land.

Dozens of tribal members from several Native American nations took to horseback on Friday to protest the proposed construction of an oil pipeline which would cross the Missouri river just yards from tribal lands in North Dakota.

The group of tribal members, which numbered around 200, according to a tribal spokesman, said they were worried that the Dakota Access Pipeline, proposed by a subsidiary of the Dallas, Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, would lead to contamination of the river. The proposed route also passes through lands of historical significance to the Standing Rock Lakota Sioux Nation, including burial grounds.

“They’re going under the river 500 yards from my son’s grave, my father’s grave, my aunt who I buried last week,” said Ladonna Allard, a member of the Standing Rock nation and the closest landowner to the proposed pipeline. “I really love my land, and if that pipeline breaks everything is gone.”

“We must fight every inch of our lives to protect the water,” Allard said.

A “spiritual camp” will be set up starting Saturday at the point where the proposed pipeline would cross the river, and the tribal members plan to stay and protest indefinitely.

drinking water for the tribal reservation, according to Doug Crow Ghost, a spokesperson for the Standing Rock Sioux and the director of the tribe’s water office, who joined the protest on Friday. Tribal members also fish in the river, he said.

“Because we are going to be fighting this giant, all the rest of the nations came on horseback to say ‘we support you’,” said Allard. “That is why this horse ride is so important to us. Because we’re not alone in this fight. All of our nations are coming to stand with us, and all our allies and partners. This pipeline is illegal.”

The pipeline is currently waiting on a decision from a colonel in the Army Corps of Engineers, who oversees such projects, on whether Dakota Access will be granted a permit to proceed, according to Dallas Goldtooth, a Keep It In The Ground campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. The tribes are petitioning for an environmental impact study, which has not at this point been done, into the pipeline.

Goldtooth is optimistic about the tribe’s chances of stopping the pipeline. “It infringes on the tribe’s water rights, which are guaranteed by treaties, and the protocols associated with those rights were not followed,” he said. “The tribes have a really strong standing-point on this issue and we’re confident that we’ll see a whole environmental impact study enacted.”

Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to a request for comment.

“Although we do live on a reservation, the land that [the Dakota Access pipeline is] going to be crossing is on original land that was given us by treaty,” said Dakota Kidder, a member of the Standing Rock nation. “This is where it gets people fired up when you talk about broken treaties.”

“Without water there is no life, and this is our main source,” Kidder added. “It’s not just our issue. Everybody downriver of us is going to be affected, all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. We’re not just looking out for ourselves; we’re looking out for all people.”

Watch a report on the protest, as aired on KXNET-TV, below.