Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in the United States is the scene of growing support in a showdown between indigenous nations and pipeline construction.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe challenged the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits at more than 200 water crossings for the $3.8-billion US pipeline.
The tribe argues that it threatens water supplies and has already disrupted sacred sites.
Today in Ottawa, a group of aboriginal Canadians protested outside the American Embassy in Ottawa in support of the Sioux. And Kevin Hart, the regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations in Manitoba, spent a few days in Standing Rock recently.
The pipeline, almost 1,700 kilometres long, would carry light sweet crude oil from the Bakken oilfield in North Dakota near the Canadian border, to Illinois. Calgary-based Enbridge is spending $1.5 billion (US) to be a part of the project.
Now the U.S. government is asking the pipeline company to “voluntarily pause” construction in the area the Standing Rock Sioux are defending.
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