Dakota Access Pipeline
The Dakota access pipeline, which does not cross Sioux land, has been a touchstone for “hippies” who showed up to join the Indians in protesting. President Donald Trump on Jan. 24 — just four days after he took office — signed an executive action telling the Corps to quickly reconsider the Dec. 4 decision. Many of the protesters have gone because of bitter cold winter weather.
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| The protesters who showed up treated the event more as a party and as an opportunity to engage in the same style of protests as those in the 1960’s that they missed. |
The Acting Secretary of the Army has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with an easement necessary to complete the Dakota Access pipeline.
President Trump projected that both Keystone and Dakota Access projects will generate on the order of 40,000 well-paid jobs. He also required that the pipelines be constructed of American steel.
The crossing under Lake Oahe, a wide section of the Missouri River in southern North Dakota, is the final big chunk of work on the four-state, $3.8 billion pipeline to carry North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to Illinois. President Donald Trump on Jan. 24 called on the Army Corps of Engineers to reconsider its December decision to withhold permission until more study is done on the crossing.
The move is likely to be challenged in court by the Standing Rock Sioux, who have spent months protesting the project along with supporters from around the country. The tribe gets drinking water from the river and worries a pipeline leak would pollute the water. The developer, Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, says the pipeline is safe.
Over 400 pipelines currently cross under the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and there are not leak issues with those pipeline crossings. The Sioux complaint is a red herring.
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| The Sioux have had to feed and house protestors, most of whom are without means of support – and have wicked alcohol and drug habits. |
Hundreds and at times thousands of pipeline opponents who have dubbed themselves “water protectors” have camped on federal land near the crossing site since last August, often clashing with police and prompting more than 625 arrests. The camp’s population has thinned to fewer than 300 due to harsh winter weather and a plea by Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault for the camp to disband before the spring flooding season. Most of the protestors relieve themselves in shallow pits or on the open flood plain, and that effluent will be washed into Sioux drinking water with the spring floods.
Keystone XL Pipeline
President Trump also revived the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline. “We appreciate the President of the United States inviting us to re-apply for KXL,” TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said in a statement. “KXL creates thousands of well-paying construction jobs and would generate tens of millions of dollars in annual property taxes to counties along the route as well as more than $3 billion to the U.S. GDP,” Cunha added.
Barack opposed the pipeline because he thought that it would change the weather. However, Warren Buffet, one of Barack’s key financial backers, owns the railway rolling stock that is currently taking oil to market. It’s more expensive and less safe than using a pipeline — come on, Barack, tell us again why you oppose the pipeline.
President Trump supports projects that build infrastructure and create jobs. These pipelines do both. I guess that you could opine that President Trump likes to lay pipe…
I'm all for the pipelines as a way of reducing our need for reducing the need for OPEC oil. I even want to extend into the Gulf or anyother place off our cost to retrieve it. The only problem I have is that it will take so long for all this to take palce, I will be dead and gone before I can benefit from it. And, after all, it is all about me.
Lay dat pipe. Mock dem hippies. And, as the Russian oilmen say, drive the heated wheels of the nation (Motherland… whatever).
There is that way to look at it. I suspect it's how long you plan to live. Didn't they freeze Walt Disney's head and put it in a walk-in under Disneyland or somewhere? You could do that and wake up in the 24th Century as a 22 year old transexual (because they'd know how progressive the time you came from was and how you'd want to feel like the average prog of your time…). At this point, I don't think that you'd make a hot looking womyn, John, but who knows what a couple hundred years will do for technology.
Hippies take themselves too seriously. They're human lice, as the Sioux are quickly learning. Was the protest worth having hoards of hippies move in? My sense is that the Sioux would say, "no".
Do we still have a steel mill that can make the pipe? That was my question. I thought our last steel mill shut down during the last president's early years.
I look forward to seeing US steel again. I just hope the quality is still the best there used to be.
I'm kinda sold on the notion that the hippies are squatting to put more water soluble fiber into the Sioux diet.
I asked the very same question, but I guess that Bethlehem still makes steel pipes. We need to start making steel and a lot of other things again. China subsidized steel to drive us out of business. Trump understands that sort of thing. Barack didn't care.
That's the sort of love you get from hippies.
That would be great. Bethlehem steel used to be one of the best, if I remember right.
Now let's hope the liberals haven't made the younger generation so stupid that manufacturers can't find the help they need!
As always, being contrary and contrarian, the story not being told is the abuse of eminent domain by the companies building the pipeline. It is not just the Sioux, many Iowa farmers are in opposition.
The whole issue is complex but is obscured by the nihilists grabbing hold and screaming loud. Yes, and the hippies.
Well Seasoned,
"Many" Iowa farmers, I beg to differ… it's 14 farmers and SIERRA CLUB lawyers,
on a pipeline that goes 346 miles, traversing 18 Iowa counties, and the Iowa part is already 100% constructed.
I'm extremely suspicious when the Sierra Club becomes involved, their cause is not in the best interest of the farmer or the rancher.
The Sierra Club is much like the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center. If they ever had a serious role in positive change, that ship sailed a long time ago.
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