Speaker 1: We're continuing our series today on the increasing global criminalization
Speaker 1: of protest with a look at what's happening now with
Speaker 1: the protest that the fossil fuel industry, politicians, and police
Speaker 1: often cite as the reason that we need new laws
Speaker 1: against protest in the United States. Standing Rock. The protests
Speaker 1: on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North and
Speaker 1: South Dakota took place from April twenty sixteen to February
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and thousands of
Speaker 1: allies protested against a project called the Dakota Access Pipeline
Speaker 1: or DAPPLE, a one thousand, one hundred and seventy two
Speaker 1: mile long pipeline running from the back and oil fields
Speaker 1: in western North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri
Speaker 1: and Mississippi Rivers. Members of the Standing Rock Tribe and
Speaker 1: surrounding communities said the pipeline was a serious threat to
Speaker 1: the region's drinking water. The construction also directly threatened burial
Speaker 1: grounds and cultural sites of historic importance. Although you'll hear
Speaker 1: in this episode that both the company in charge of
Speaker 1: the project, Energy Transfer, and the US government, have at
Speaker 1: various times claimed otherwise, the Dapple fight has been a
Speaker 1: real roller coaster, and it might surprise some of you
Speaker 1: to hear that despite the fact that construction on the
Speaker 1: pipeline was completed in April twenty seventeen, the Army Corps
Speaker 1: of Engineers only just this year, in September twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: six years later, released its Environmental Impact Statement or EIS
Speaker 1: on the project. You might remember that back in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: December twenty sixteen, to be exact, the Army Corps of
Speaker 1: Engineers announced that they would deny the easement to drill
Speaker 1: under the Missouri River and would conduct an EIS. Energy
Speaker 1: Transfer criticized the Obama administration when that came out, calling
Speaker 1: it political interference and saying that further delay in the
Speaker 1: consideration of this case would add millions of dollars more
Speaker 1: each month in costs that could not be recovered. When
Speaker 1: former President Trump took office just a month later in
Speaker 1: January twenty seventeen, he issued an executive order overturning everything
Speaker 1: that the Army Corps had said and lifting all blocks
Speaker 1: to pipeline construction. The tribe sued, and in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: a US federal judge ruled with them. They said the
Speaker 1: government had not studied the pipeline's effects on the quality
Speaker 1: of the human environment enough. They ordered the Army Corps
Speaker 1: of Engineers to go ahead with its environmental impact review.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of legal back and forth after that,
Speaker 1: but ultimately all the courts agreed on the need for
Speaker 1: an environmental review that includes the Supreme Court. Despite all
Speaker 1: of those rulings, the pipeline has remained operational this whole time,
Speaker 1: transporting over five hundred thousand barrels per day. After it
Speaker 1: released the draft EIS in September this year, the Army
Speaker 1: Corps of Engineers scheduled a public hearing on it in Bismarck,
Speaker 1: North Dakota in November. Our senior editor for this series,
Speaker 1: Alane Brown, who's been reporting on Standing Rock and Dapple
Speaker 1: since twenty sixteen, was there to hear what everyone had
Speaker 1: to say. Today she brings us that story and also
Speaker 1: a look at the impact that anti protest tactics used
Speaker 1: to shut down what was happening at Standing Rock and
Speaker 1: lots of other protests since then have had on communities.
Speaker 1: Whether we should start to think about those impacts as
Speaker 1: part of an environmental impact as well, particularly when we're
Speaker 1: looking at Indigenous communities for whom these tactics really trigger
Speaker 1: historical generational trauma. The public comment period for this Environmental
Speaker 1: Impact Statement closes next week December thirteenth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drilled, the real free speech Threat. I'm
Speaker 1: Abe Westervelt. After the break, Alan Brown takes us to
Speaker 1: North Dakota.
Speaker 2: I know I'm just gonna say the thing true.
Speaker 3: I'm in North Dakota on a hill overlooking the Cannonball River.
Speaker 3: I'm surrounded by rolling land dusted with snow under a
Speaker 3: gray sky. This land is unseeded treaty territory, meaning it
Speaker 3: was never given up or seated by the Ocheti Shakoen
Speaker 3: people that have lived here for generations. I'm standing with
Speaker 3: a handful of water protectors from the tribal nation of
Speaker 3: standing Rock over a small fire.
Speaker 4: The Army Corps of Engineers is doing what they call corraling.
Speaker 4: So is it going to be a single line in
Speaker 4: and they're going to corral us in. There's going to
Speaker 4: be booths with curtains and a sonographer and it, Mike,
Speaker 4: It's not going to be like your typical hearing that
Speaker 4: we're used.
Speaker 3: To Today, water protectors are being invited by the US
Speaker 3: Army Corps of Engineers to a public hearing to share
Speaker 3: their comments on the draft environmental impact Statement for the
Speaker 3: Dakota Access Pipeline known as DAPPLE. The pipeline has been
Speaker 3: operating since twenty seventeen, and then.
Speaker 4: You make it as personal as possible. You talk about
Speaker 4: how or where you grew up and how the Missouri
Speaker 4: River is connected to you.
Speaker 3: For over seven years, some people gathered here have been
Speaker 3: fighting to stop the pipeline. Some of them camped on
Speaker 3: this very spot in twenty sixteen in a resistance camp
Speaker 3: that was a jumping off point for direct action protests
Speaker 3: meant to stop construction. Police and private security responded with dogs,
Speaker 3: tear gas, water hoses, aerial surveillance, infiltration of their movement spaces,
Speaker 3: radio eavesdropping, and mass arrests.
Speaker 4: Like we do know and we did confirm that private
Speaker 4: security is there along with North Dakota law enforcement.
Speaker 3: After the pipeline was complete, the camps shut down and
Speaker 3: the cameras left, but Standing Rock and other tribes continued
Speaker 3: to fight in court. In twenty twenty, a judge agreed
Speaker 3: with the tribes. He revoked the permit that allowed the
Speaker 3: pipeline to cross the Missouri River, and he ordered an
Speaker 3: environmental impact state men. That report is seven years late,
Speaker 3: but it also represents one of the few pathways left
Speaker 3: to stop the pipeline.
Speaker 4: I can't I can't speak for any other elder, but
Speaker 4: I'm kind of getting up there, and i just want
Speaker 4: to say I'm really proud.
Speaker 2: Of all of you, really proud of all of you.
Speaker 1: And that's all I can say.
Speaker 5: I'm always proud of all of you.
Speaker 4: Okay, car count.
Speaker 6: And we're off.
Speaker 3: I'm in a line of about one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 3: six cars. We've got our blinkers on and we're headed
Speaker 3: to the public hearings. Right now, our cars are crossing
Speaker 3: over the precise site where the Dakota Access pipeline is buried.
Speaker 3: At a certain point, there were encampments all the way
Speaker 3: up to that spot where the pipeline route is. Eventually
Speaker 3: that was pushed back, but the place where you know
Speaker 3: over ten thousand people were camped at one point is
Speaker 3: right where folks set a fire and were praying. I
Speaker 3: had a chance to read the EIS before I came
Speaker 3: out here. After years of researching the environmental harms associated
Speaker 3: with pipelines like this one. I was pretty surprised to
Speaker 3: hear the Army Corps suggest that removing the pipeline would
Speaker 3: be more environmentally harmful than allowing the oil to continue
Speaker 3: pumping under one of Standing Rock's primary drinking water sources.
Speaker 3: The EIS says that a major spill under the Missouri
Speaker 3: River is remote to unlikely. As for climate change, this
Speaker 3: document claims that allowing the pipeline to continue operating as
Speaker 3: it is would quote not generate any direct greenhouse gas emissions,
Speaker 3: with the exception of a minor amount of emissions associated
Speaker 3: with pipeline maintenance activities. That's because the Army Corps is
Speaker 3: only taking into account the emissions generated by the pipeline itself,
Speaker 3: not by the activity it enables burning fossil fuels. Finally,
Speaker 3: it claims there are simply no historic properties like sacred sites,
Speaker 3: for example, in the area being studied. A couple of
Speaker 3: nights before the hearing, I sat down with Honorata Defender
Speaker 3: and Jonathan Edwards to talk about the EIS. Honorata is
Speaker 3: a journalist for the local Corson Sioux County News Messenger,
Speaker 3: and Jonathan is a former paramedic. Their siblings and both
Speaker 3: members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, and they organized
Speaker 3: some of the first grassroots meetings about the pipeline, held
Speaker 3: in an unheated movie theater here in the reservation town
Speaker 3: of McLoughlin, South Dakota. We ate pizza at a Senex
Speaker 3: gas station with a small table in the back. Have
Speaker 3: you guys had a chance to look at the draft
Speaker 3: environmental impact statement.
Speaker 4: You have?
Speaker 3: What do you think about it?
Speaker 7: I think it's bull duty. It's severely lacking in everything.
Speaker 7: It is not a real environmental impact statement.
Speaker 8: Be honest.
Speaker 9: I haven't read it, so but I would imagine it's
Speaker 9: just something that's copied and pasted from another EI S
Speaker 9: if they did somewhere else in another part of the country.
Speaker 9: I don't think it'll adequately address our treaty rights, our sovereignty,
Speaker 9: the effect to the water when when the thing breaks.
Speaker 9: I think I'm on the spill response team. We had
Speaker 9: a it's some asthma classes a couple of years ago, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're screwed.
Speaker 10: Here if there's an oil spilled.
Speaker 3: I was curious about another kind of impact that I
Speaker 3: knew the pipeline had had. I've spent years digging into
Speaker 3: reams of public records and leak documents describing the way
Speaker 3: the pipeline company and its private security contractor, Tiger Swan,
Speaker 3: worked with police to repress the movement. The EIS didn't
Speaker 3: mention the emotional and physical trauma of police repression. It
Speaker 3: didn't mention the long running community divisions that a project
Speaker 3: like this can inflict. Those kinds of long term impacts
Speaker 3: are common around the world when corporations and governments forced
Speaker 3: through large polluting projects, and they typically go unacknowledged by
Speaker 3: regulatory processes. I wondered, like, what kind of impact all
Speaker 3: that law enforcement presence and private security presence, like in
Speaker 3: a way that that is an extension of the pipe line,
Speaker 3: So what impact has that had on continued impact has
Speaker 3: that had on people who were subject to it.
Speaker 7: I know a number of people that you know they
Speaker 7: have PTSD still that suffered from PTSD still from what
Speaker 7: they went through because of how Tigers Want and the
Speaker 7: police handle everything.
Speaker 3: For Jonathan, fighting the pipeline deepened his distrust of public
Speaker 3: agencies that are supposed to keep people safe. For him,
Speaker 3: this was an intensified version of the everyday criminalization that
Speaker 3: he faced as a Lakota man in white communities bordering
Speaker 3: the reservation.
Speaker 9: I'm in a group that's most likely to be killed
Speaker 9: by police, Native American males, you know, more so than
Speaker 9: African American males. So I think it's just something that
Speaker 9: expect to personally, that I expected, and it's just normal,
Speaker 9: I guess. Unfortunately, the gassed US shot at US beat people,
Speaker 9: you know, pointing loaded weapons at unarmed women and children.
Speaker 10: A lot of tear gas.
Speaker 9: Asthma.
Speaker 10: Now they have never.
Speaker 9: Had any breathing problems before before I went out there,
Speaker 9: but but yeah, there's just a lot of tear gas
Speaker 9: and mind you for standing.
Speaker 3: On our own land. Oh well, I guess what you know,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of thinking about is like, if resistance to
Speaker 3: a pipeline under the conditions that were in the reality
Speaker 3: that we're living in, with climate change, with leaks, with
Speaker 3: all these things, if resistance is inevitable, and if resistance
Speaker 3: means like this kind of police repression, then like, isn't
Speaker 3: PTSD and the trauma that comes with those kinds of
Speaker 3: police confrontations also like an impact of the pipeline.
Speaker 7: Yeah, most definitely they are. Yeah, I've never thought of
Speaker 7: it that way, but now that you bring it up. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it most definitely is, because unfortunately, I mean, these people,
Speaker 7: I mean they're gonna be haunted for the rest of
Speaker 7: their days. We're all going to be haunted for the
Speaker 7: rest of our days on the travesties that were committed there.
Speaker 3: Anarata is clear on what she'd like to see happen.
Speaker 7: I would love to see them remove it. They say
Speaker 7: that there's gonna be it would be worse. That's what
Speaker 7: they say throughout the whole environmental impact statement, basically is
Speaker 7: that it'd be worse for the wildlife, it'd be worse
Speaker 7: for the habitat, it'd be worse for the fish for
Speaker 7: us to remove the pipeline. And I believe that's so false.
Speaker 7: It's the unstruethening I've ever heard. I mean, they already
Speaker 7: disrupted all of this by putting it in, so why
Speaker 7: is it now a big deal to remove it?
Speaker 3: She's describing one of the strangest things about the document.
Speaker 3: Since the pipeline is already built, the eis is backward.
Speaker 3: It describes the severe environmental harms that would come from
Speaker 3: removing the pipeline, which one has to assume are basically
Speaker 3: the same harms that would have come from putting the
Speaker 3: thing in. I figured Honorata and Jonathan would be at
Speaker 3: the EIS hearing, but Bismarck is an hour and a
Speaker 3: half away from the town where they helped start this movement.
Speaker 3: Honorata wasn't sure if she'd have gas money, and her
Speaker 3: van's heat was broken. It was twenty five degrees outside
Speaker 3: back on the road, our caravan eventually arrived at the Ratisin,
Speaker 3: where two days of public hearing were about to begin.
Speaker 3: I catch up with Standing Rock Tribal chair Janet al
Speaker 3: Qayr in the lobby. The Standing Rock Zoo Tribe has
Speaker 3: already dropped out as a cooperating agency on the EIS,
Speaker 3: and I want to understand why.
Speaker 11: When this pre draft came out, it showed on the
Speaker 11: cover of this book that we were a cooperating agency
Speaker 11: with our logo, and when.
Speaker 2: We opened it up, you're like, hey.
Speaker 11: Don't you're not giving us anything, You're redacting everything. How
Speaker 11: was this cooperating I don't want our logo on this document.
Speaker 11: I'm not supporting this document.
Speaker 3: The pages on spill response are heavily redacted. Janet and
Speaker 3: others suspect it has to do with the independent contractor
Speaker 3: that drafted much of the EIS.
Speaker 11: You know, when this came down in twenty twenty, the
Speaker 11: tribes asked that can we since we're in a cooperating agency,
Speaker 11: are you going to allow us to have some kind
Speaker 11: of say in who this independent company is going to be.
Speaker 3: Months later, with little fanfare, Army Corps announced that they'd
Speaker 3: hired Environmental Resources Management. Environmental Resources Management has been accused
Speaker 3: of conflicts of interest before, including when it was hired
Speaker 3: by the State Department to help draft the EIS for
Speaker 3: the controversial Keystone exceled Tarsan Soil pipeline in twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: Reporters and environmental organizations uncovered a whole tangle of red flags,
Speaker 3: including that some of the Environmental Resources Management experts who
Speaker 3: worked on the EIS had previously worked for the pipeline's
Speaker 3: parent company, Trans Canada and for other companies with a
Speaker 3: stake in kxl's construction. So many red flags in fact,
Speaker 3: that the State Department's Office of Inspector General investigated. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: they concluded that none of it amounted to a violation
Speaker 3: of the Department's conflict of interest policy. To many critics,
Speaker 3: that was just an indication of how truly broken the
Speaker 3: system was. Environmental Resources Management again came under fire in
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen when another government agency, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
Speaker 3: hired the company to monitor construction of Enbridge's Atlantic Bridge
Speaker 3: natural Gas project. Records obtained by DSMOG showed the agency
Speaker 3: was aware that Environmental Resources Management had a business relationship
Speaker 3: with Enbridge, but hired them anyway. Environmental Resources Management is
Speaker 3: a member of the American Petroleum Institute, which has long
Speaker 3: been an ardent supporter of the pipeline. It's also a
Speaker 3: member of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an industry
Speaker 3: association that helped draft new anti protest laws which swept
Speaker 3: the nation in the wake of the pipeline protests near
Speaker 3: the Standing Rock Reservation in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: Environmental Resources Management did not respond to a request for comment.
Speaker 11: We knew there was a conflict of interest. We all
Speaker 11: know what a conflict of interest is, you know, and
Speaker 11: so but it we were just disregarded in that decision. Yeah,
Speaker 11: And just like we said today, everything is box has
Speaker 11: been checked off already.
Speaker 3: So and so it sounds like the option that the
Speaker 3: tribe prefers is sealing it off and leaving it in
Speaker 3: the riverbed.
Speaker 11: Okay, right, sealing it off. We chose that option basically
Speaker 11: not to destroy the river bed.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: As the hearing kicked off, the Army Corps laid out
Speaker 3: the possible outcomes this EIS process could have. At the
Speaker 3: end of the day, after the comment period closes on
Speaker 3: December thirteenth, the agency will have to decide again whether
Speaker 3: it's going to sign off on the pipeline's route, known
Speaker 3: as an easement under the Missouri River.
Speaker 12: Within the EIS, there are five alternatives analyzed. The first
Speaker 12: alternative is to not grant the Eastment and would result
Speaker 12: in the restoration, meaning that the existing pipeline would be
Speaker 12: stopped and.
Speaker 7: Dug up.
Speaker 12: The second alternative would be to not grant the Eastment,
Speaker 12: but leave that pipeline in place so that the oil
Speaker 12: would stop. However, there would be no excavation of the pipeline.
Speaker 12: The third alternative, which is the applicants to go to
Speaker 12: access LLC's identified alternative, is to reissue the east with
Speaker 12: the existing conditions the same as they were under the
Speaker 12: previous environmental assessment. The fourth alternative would be to grant
Speaker 12: the East Mint with additional mitigation measures. The last alternative,
Speaker 12: as a result of public scopey commas, was to look
Speaker 12: at an alternative that re routes the pipeline.
Speaker 3: In the room is a microcosm of the movement. The
Speaker 3: space is dominated by water protectors from Standing Rock and
Speaker 3: other neighboring tribes. There's also a duel of police officers.
Speaker 3: Water protectors already recognized one of them as an officer
Speaker 3: who was behind the razor wire at the front line.
Speaker 3: There are a few burly men who later tell me
Speaker 3: they are pipeliners, there to advocate in favor of the
Speaker 3: pipeline for their union. And there's a handful of white
Speaker 3: guys who don't quite look like they fit in. I
Speaker 3: figure they must be police or private security. Of course,
Speaker 3: it's hard to learn exactly who anyone is because this
Speaker 3: is not the public hearing we were all expecting. Public
Speaker 3: comments are to be submitted privately to stenographers sitting behind
Speaker 3: curtained boots. Water Protectors had hoped to deliver their remarks
Speaker 3: in front of the pipeline executives who built the project
Speaker 3: with no microphone, provided they took to the bullhorn.
Speaker 4: Apply the perpetrators aren't going to be here to listen
Speaker 4: to us because they don't have a backbone.
Speaker 3: So my comments.
Speaker 12: Right here.
Speaker 4: Because I'm not afraid to.
Speaker 13: Say no, we're not being given a mic bush.
Speaker 4: That's okay, We'll bring them on.
Speaker 13: And when you're able to push people behind curtains, there's
Speaker 13: no accountability and our voices lose their power when we're
Speaker 13: here at numbers. There's people here and where you're wanting
Speaker 13: to pop.
Speaker 3: The Army Corp attempted to respond to the complaints the
Speaker 3: next day. Commenters had the option to either go into
Speaker 3: the booths or deliver their testimony by microphone. I catch
Speaker 3: up with Tim Donagy, the research manager for Greenpeace USA,
Speaker 3: after he speaks at the mic. Green Peace and a
Speaker 3: handful of water protectors are still fighting a lawsuit from
Speaker 3: Energy Transfer, which claims that Greenpeace orchestrated the movement as
Speaker 3: a way to encourage donations. The company has used the
Speaker 3: lawsuit to go after all kinds of indigenous people and
Speaker 3: environmental justice advocates via subpoenas. It's what some critics call
Speaker 3: judicial harassment. But Tim isn't here today to talk about that.
Speaker 3: He's focused on the eis's shortcomings where it comes to
Speaker 3: the climate crisis.
Speaker 14: Oftentimes, in environmental impact statements, they'll say, well, if we essentially,
Speaker 14: if we're not going to drill oil here, it'll come
Speaker 14: from somewhere else, so it'll just be perfectly substituted. And
Speaker 14: because of that assumption, they say, well, there's no climate
Speaker 14: impact from approving this project or disapproving it, because it's
Speaker 14: going to be the same no matter what. And I
Speaker 14: think that kind of flies in the face of basically
Speaker 14: what the science has shown about oil markets, which is
Speaker 14: that there's not going to be one hundred percent new
Speaker 14: oil coming on but it's not going to be zero
Speaker 14: percent either. It's going to be kind of somewhere in
Speaker 14: the middle, and a lot of the studies have kind
Speaker 14: of shown that it's roughlye around fifty percent of the
Speaker 14: oil will be replaced. But that means that building a
Speaker 14: pipeline like decode acxis is going to boost the oil supply,
Speaker 14: It's going to boost oil consumption, and as a result,
Speaker 14: is going to increase global greenhouse gas emissions. And obviously
Speaker 14: we're at in a climate crisis and we simply just
Speaker 14: can't do this anymore. We can't continue to be facilitating
Speaker 14: more and more oil and gas extraction at a time
Speaker 14: when we need to be using less of it. So
Speaker 14: it's just like slamming on the brakes and the gas pedal.
Speaker 14: At the same time, the courts in the last couple
Speaker 14: of years have said that's not a good analysis, and
Speaker 14: any way, NEPA requires that you do more than that.
Speaker 14: And then the other flaw I would say in this
Speaker 14: particular analysis is they're kind of implicitly assuming a business
Speaker 14: as usual baseline scenario where they're saying, oh, for decades
Speaker 14: to come, we're going to be using lots of oil.
Speaker 14: And I think, you know, there's already like countries are
Speaker 14: pledging to do better on climate, there's a continuing conversation
Speaker 14: about how we're going to reduce emissions. I think it's
Speaker 14: just not credible to say that nothing is going to
Speaker 14: happen over the next coupley Obviously we need to go faster,
Speaker 14: but neither we shouldn't also just be assuming that oil
Speaker 14: demand is going to stay high all the way out
Speaker 14: for you know, decades to come.
Speaker 3: Across the room. I see Julie Fedorchak, a member of
Speaker 3: the North Dakota Public Service Commission, which issued another key
Speaker 3: permit for the pipeline, she's a reliable advocate for the
Speaker 3: oil and gas industry, and I was curious what she'd
Speaker 3: say about the process, including how it handled the question
Speaker 3: of climate impacts.
Speaker 8: We had three public hearings, actually four if you consider
Speaker 8: the one for optimization, and you know, had a very
Speaker 8: exhausted review looking at all of the impacts to the
Speaker 8: environmental impacts, all the river crossings, all the water bodies, wetlands,
Speaker 8: cultural resources, unstable areas like the whole Gamut. So I
Speaker 8: think that, you know, all of those reviews were done effectively,
Speaker 8: and that's what the law requires, and so we need
Speaker 8: to support the law.
Speaker 6: So I'm just curious about how that review process that
Speaker 6: you're talking about addressed the climate crisis and the impact
Speaker 6: of the fuel that this pipeline is carrying on the climate.
Speaker 8: Actually, that's not part of the law in North Dakota.
Speaker 8: We don't have to review that. It's in fact, we're
Speaker 8: but inhibited from including that in our review of these
Speaker 8: kinds of infrastructure projects. So the company wasn't required to
Speaker 8: provide any data of that nature.
Speaker 3: Although federal agencies like the Army Corps are required by
Speaker 3: law to consider climate impacts, state laws very significantly as
Speaker 3: far as I could tell, the environmental regulatory process has
Speaker 3: not fully accounted for the climate impacts of the Dakota
Speaker 3: Access Pipeline. The hearing was winding down, and when Nia
Speaker 3: Locke got up to speak, she's the standing Rock tribal
Speaker 3: member who had given us the logistical rundown as we
Speaker 3: prepared to caravan out here right now.
Speaker 4: But one of the things that hurt me personally, that
Speaker 4: affects me to this day is when I saw the
Speaker 4: announcement from the local media here from Kwyr that the
Speaker 4: Army Corps engineers hired on private security, according to the
Speaker 4: Tiger Swan documents in twenty sixteen, were elicted as a
Speaker 4: Jihattis terrorist. They used aero to monitor us. There was
Speaker 4: chemicals that were sprayed upon us, and they activated specific
Speaker 4: propaganda that was put out on a national level. We're
Speaker 4: brutalized out there, and that we were light about. And
Speaker 4: then I watched friends family, I even watched are then
Speaker 4: tribal chairman gay York Shovel.
Speaker 7: Get arrested.
Speaker 3: Whenia and I talked more about it in the hallway.
Speaker 4: I just find it really interesting that people now have
Speaker 4: a criminal record for standing up and speaking the truth.
Speaker 4: Prior to twenty sixteen, I was a very innocent law
Speaker 4: Quota language teacher, and I only had historical trauma from
Speaker 4: congressional decisions that were made from boarding schools to militarization
Speaker 4: in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: The Dakota Wars have all.
Speaker 4: Impacted my life, but it was all historical trauma, meaning
Speaker 4: it wasn't my lived experience. It was my ancestors, it
Speaker 4: was my grandparents, it was my aunt and my uncle's
Speaker 4: that has experienced the historical trauma brought on by the
Speaker 4: United States government. And so in twenty sixteen, I actually
Speaker 4: got to live through warfare because North Dakota, the Army
Speaker 4: Corps engineers, the Obama administration, Trump administration, Biden administration continue
Speaker 4: to allow Dakota Access Pipeline to be built and operating
Speaker 4: illegally right now. And how it was built was by
Speaker 4: using warfare tactics on innocent people that were telling the truth.
Speaker 4: And so the impact, you know, there was PTSD, there's triggers,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of emotional trauma.
Speaker 3: Whenia's experience aligns with what psychologists predicted, what happened in
Speaker 3: October twenty seventeen, the Society of Indians Psychologists, which exists
Speaker 3: to support the psychological well being of American Indians, put
Speaker 3: out a statement about police and private securities actions at
Speaker 3: Standing Rock. The statement said civilians in the movement would
Speaker 3: likely have developed normative paranoia and fear relative to these
Speaker 3: increasing stressors placed on them over time. It would be
Speaker 3: likely that those who remained at the camps over long
Speaker 3: periods of time could begin to question who could be
Speaker 3: trusted or communicated with, and develop ruminations and recurring thoughts
Speaker 3: regarding their safety. They also noted, given that we know
Speaker 3: a great number of Native American people participated in the movement,
Speaker 3: and that multi generational trauma and the ongoing effects of
Speaker 3: colonialism have left their mark, it is likely to have
Speaker 3: triggered normative fear and recurrence of traumatic themes from history.
Speaker 3: I asked the Army Corps press guy, Steve Wolf about
Speaker 3: what Winnia said. I had read a piece about how
Speaker 3: Army Corps brought in some extra security for this hearing.
Speaker 2: Was it private security?
Speaker 6: No private security.
Speaker 5: That I'm aware of.
Speaker 10: We've hired no.
Speaker 6: Private security, okay, and so what I mean?
Speaker 3: You see uniformed police officers here?
Speaker 9: So and not all else to say about that?
Speaker 3: Okay, so the news reports about Army Corps bringing in
Speaker 3: security was law enforcement.
Speaker 11: So this is a private property.
Speaker 6: I think people have seen what has happened in the
Speaker 6: past with this project, and I would certainly imagine they're
Speaker 6: a bit concerned.
Speaker 3: If you had a private enterprise, would you be concerned.
Speaker 3: I asked one of the out of police white guys
Speaker 3: if he was security, and he replied that no, he
Speaker 3: worked for law enforcement. I also called the Ratican to
Speaker 3: see if they'd hired security, but they didn't return my
Speaker 3: calls and messages. Finally, I sent Steve an email just
Speaker 3: to clarify. His reply was pretty vague. He said, when
Speaker 3: we approach private sector organizations such as a hotel to
Speaker 3: conduct a public meeting, we cannot simply dictate to them
Speaker 3: how their facility might be used for this purpose. He continued, Ultimately,
Speaker 3: the US Army Corps of Engineers must agree to and
Speaker 3: pay for the requirements of a given facility to host
Speaker 3: a public function for our environmental analysis process. He added,
Speaker 3: what you witnessed firsthand is that no law enforcement action
Speaker 3: was taken against anyone expressing their views or attendance at
Speaker 3: these two public meetings. Freedom of assembly and freedom of
Speaker 3: expression were alive and well at these meetings. I did
Speaker 3: end up seeing Honorata at the hearing. Her uncle, who
Speaker 3: is an elder, gave her a ride, and I watched
Speaker 3: the two of them go into the booth and submit
Speaker 3: their testimony. At nine o'clock PM, they prepared to travel
Speaker 3: the hour and a half back home on the Dark
Speaker 3: Country Highway. Regardless of the outcome of the EIS process,
Speaker 3: she and Jonathan and other water protectors who are on
Speaker 3: the ground will continue to carry the weight of what
Speaker 3: happened at Standing Rock.
Speaker 10: It was really upsetting to stand there and watch the
Speaker 10: people that are in uniform, whom some of whom I
Speaker 10: used to work alongside up in Bismarck, and they're they're
Speaker 10: shooting at you, and they're shooting tear gas and robber bullets,
Speaker 10: and it's upsetting and Baptists, that's upsetting, very upsetting. Yeah,
Speaker 10: there's a lot of respect for people like that anymore,
Speaker 10: and if I ever did, but I don't necessarily want
Speaker 10: to focus on that too much on a daily basis
Speaker 10: because they can't walk around pistoff. Yeah, totally, So I
Speaker 10: just kind of had to let some of that go.
Speaker 10: I'm still working on that assume that'll be a lifelong
Speaker 10: process for me because they heard a lot of people
Speaker 10: out there. I don't really follow what the government does anymore.
Speaker 10: I just don't have any faith in them at all.
Speaker 10: And yeah, that's where I'm at. That's probably where I'll
Speaker 10: always be.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, Honorata did point out that the impacts are not
Speaker 3: all bad.
Speaker 7: It was a very big boom and the sound waves
Speaker 7: can still be felt all across the world because people
Speaker 7: realize that, you know, they matter, their voice matters, and
Speaker 7: with that voice they can do things and remarkable things,
Speaker 7: extraordinary things.
Speaker 1: Drilled is an original Critical Frequency production. Our senior editor
Speaker 1: for this series is Alan Brown, who also reported, wrote,
Speaker 1: and hosted this episode. Our senior producer is Martin Zaltz Bostwick.
Speaker 2: Martin also did the sound design.
Speaker 5: Who composed much of the music in this episode.
Speaker 1: Peter Duff is our audio engineer.
Speaker 2: Fact checking by Rudan Jan.
Speaker 5: Our outwork is by Matt Fleming.
Speaker 1: Our first amendment attorney is James Wheaton.
Speaker 5: Our theme song is but in the Hand by four Known.
Speaker 2: The show was created by Amy Westervelt.
Speaker 5: You can see more stories from this series, as well
Speaker 5: as background reporting on Drilled Dot media.
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