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Speaker 1: It's an unseasonably warm day in October twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 1: Rolling hills covered in golden grasses stretch on either side

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Speaker 1: of Highway eighteen oh six on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation,

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Speaker 1: and I'm riding in a truck with Doug crow Ghost.

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Speaker 1: He leads the Standing Rocks Sioo Tribes's Department of Water Resources.

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Speaker 1: Behind us is a truck pulling upontoon boat. We're with

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Speaker 1: a crew of people heading to the Missouri River about

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Speaker 1: ten miles downstream from the Dakota Access Pipeline, which Doug

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Speaker 1: calls Dapple.

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Speaker 2: We're documenting that if there's a pipeline break. Dapple's saying

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Speaker 2: that they can get these big skimmer boats on the

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Speaker 2: water to go up there to start getting rid of

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Speaker 2: the oil, and we've been saying, hell no, there's no way,

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Speaker 2: but we're.

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Speaker 3: Gonna document in any way, and we're gonna drive along

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Speaker 3: take pictures of there's some certain.

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Speaker 1: They're trying to find out if the Missouri River is

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Speaker 1: high enough so that emerging seaboats could clean up an

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Speaker 1: oil spill.

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Speaker 4: But the catches.

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Speaker 1: For our plan today to work, we have to be

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Speaker 1: able to get our boat on the river, and as

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Speaker 1: we arrive at the marina, it becomes clear that a

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Speaker 1: pontoon ride might not be happening today. Doug starts chatting

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Speaker 1: through the window with the local guy.

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Speaker 3: Are you freaking kidding me? It's he can't it's unusable.

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Speaker 4: The water level is too low.

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Speaker 3: You think you can get that pontoon in there? No

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Speaker 3: way gets stuck. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: To some degree, this proves Doug's point. He figures out,

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Speaker 1: if we can't even get the pontoon on the water,

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Speaker 1: then Energy Transfer isn't going to be able to launch big,

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Speaker 1: heavy emergency boats to skim away oil.

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Speaker 3: I drove out here last week to check it out,

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Speaker 3: and it was good. I'm about to all right, then,

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Speaker 3: little shit.

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Speaker 1: Doug's a big talker, and he's got his hands in

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Speaker 1: a lot of things. As the Standing Rock Tribe's water guy,

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Speaker 1: the Dakota Access Pipeline has been a big part of

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Speaker 1: his job. To the Standing Rock Nation, the pipeline is

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Speaker 1: among the biggest threats to its primary drinking water source,

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Speaker 1: the Missouri River, so Doug spent countless hours trying to

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Speaker 1: make sense of Energy Transfer's emergency plans what they intend

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Speaker 1: to do if the oil leaks out. He's also helped

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Speaker 1: with the tribe's ongoing legal fight against the pipeline. In

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Speaker 1: late twenty twenty four, Standing Rock is getting ready to

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Speaker 1: file a new lawsuit to stop the flow of oil,

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Speaker 1: and the water level measurements they take today are mental

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Speaker 1: help prove that the pipeline is unsafe. We get out

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Speaker 1: of the truck and inspect the water line.

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Speaker 3: Look look at how far it went down just for

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Speaker 3: this not even to be dried yet, how would that happen?

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Speaker 3: The Army Corps of Engineers, the mismanagement of the river.

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Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's legal fight against the pipeline

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Speaker 1: isn't against energy transfer, it's against the US Army Corps

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Speaker 1: of Engineers. That's the federal agency that in charge of

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Speaker 1: granting permission for the pipeline to pass through federal land,

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Speaker 1: including under the Missouri River. It was the Army Corps

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Speaker 1: that the tribe furssued back in July twenty sixteen, right

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Speaker 1: before the Standing Rock protests really kicked off. Back then,

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Speaker 1: they were trying to get the federal government to require

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Speaker 1: a deeper review of the pipeline route. Fast forward to today,

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Speaker 1: the tribe's legal fight to stop the pipeline still going on.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't until Trump came into office in twenty seventeen,

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Speaker 1: as the Standing Rock protests were already winding down, that

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Speaker 1: the Army Corps did grant permission to drill under the river.

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Speaker 1: But after the pipeline was already installed, a judge took

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Speaker 1: back that permission and said that the project does require

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Speaker 1: a deeper environmental review. Eight years after the oil started flowing,

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Speaker 1: that review and environmental impact statement still isn't finished. The

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Speaker 1: pipeline operates with no official permission from the Army Corps,

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Speaker 1: and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe is sick of it.

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Speaker 1: The Army Corps of Engineers also runs a series of

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Speaker 1: dams along the river. Dam's Standing Rock and other Indigenous

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Speaker 1: nations never wanted.

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Speaker 4: So this new.

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Speaker 1: Lawsuit DOUG is helping prepare. It's not just going to

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Speaker 1: focus on the pipeline, but rather on multiple environmental justice

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Speaker 1: issues that this nation has been putting up with for decades.

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Speaker 1: Pulling up behind us is a whole team of emergency

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Speaker 1: managers from the tribal government, as well as an elected

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Speaker 1: member of the tribal council and a reporter from a

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Speaker 1: local newspaper.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, We're bade everybody.

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Speaker 1: Doug briefs us on the plan. Since it's too shallow

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Speaker 1: for the pontoon here, we're going to head to the

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Speaker 1: next closest option for launching a boat, which is twenty

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Speaker 1: minutes away at Fort Rice.

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Speaker 3: Two things are going to happen there. One, it's gonna

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Speaker 3: be up, the water is going to be good. We're

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Speaker 3: going to get in the boat and we're going to

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Speaker 3: go to Dapple's site. Or we get down there and

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Speaker 3: it's just like this, it's unusable and we docu that

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Speaker 3: as well. All right, load up.

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Speaker 5: Then, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, in all these years covering the Standing Rock movement,

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Speaker 1: I've never actually gotten out on the water. But I

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Speaker 1: have no idea as we turn onto the highway that

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Speaker 1: I'm about to get even more intimate with the Big

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Speaker 1: Buddy than I'd bargained for.

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Speaker 4: This season of.

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Speaker 1: Drilled, we bring you Slapped the story of an indigenous

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Speaker 1: nation fighting for its water, an environmental nonprofit facing extinction,

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Speaker 1: and an energy giant using the courts to punish protesters.

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Speaker 1: I'm Alan Brown. The draft of Energy Transfers Environmental Impact

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Speaker 1: Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline was released about a

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Speaker 1: year and a half ago. And it describes the company's

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Speaker 1: version of what would happen if the pipeline. It says

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Speaker 1: that within thirteen minutes of a leak, energy Transfer would

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Speaker 1: shut down the pipeline. They'd launch their boats into the

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Speaker 1: river from a dock like we just visited, and they'd

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Speaker 1: isolate the spill with containment booms, skimmers, absorbent material, and

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Speaker 1: vacuum suction would collect the oil. If the water was

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Speaker 1: too low to launch a boat, energy Transfer would use

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Speaker 1: cranes to lower watercraft into the Missouri. And they say

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Speaker 1: they have airboats on hand. But Doug and other Standing

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Speaker 1: Rock leaders.

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Speaker 4: Don't buy it.

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Speaker 1: For one, the report was written by a company with

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Speaker 1: ties to the oil and gas industry. He tells me

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Speaker 1: about it as we drive to the next closest boat dock.

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Speaker 3: We told him that's a conflict of.

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Speaker 1: Interest making matters worse. Large sections of the emergency plans

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Speaker 1: and the spill response report are blacked out, redacted. Standing

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Speaker 1: Rock leaders say they have no ability to check the

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Speaker 1: work of Energy Transfer in the Army Corps.

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Speaker 3: How can you really comment on something you can't see?

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Speaker 3: And this is what we always said, where's the transparency?

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Speaker 1: A final decision on the Eastman. The permission to drill

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Speaker 1: under the river is expected in the next year, but

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Speaker 1: the writing is on the wall. With Donald Trump about

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Speaker 1: to become president, the Army Corps will likely grant it.

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Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux tribe decided they weren't going to

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Speaker 1: sit around and wait before filing a new lawsuit.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, ask me more questions.

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Speaker 1: As we drive, I'm noticing the way the sun is

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Speaker 1: struggling to pierce through a kind of fog.

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Speaker 6: Do you think this hayes is from the wildfires? Seriously,

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Speaker 6: that's a serious question.

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Speaker 3: Oh, oh, yeah it is.

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Speaker 1: North Dakota Governor Doug Bergham declared a state of emergency

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Speaker 1: a week ago. High temperatures, dry conditions, and wind are

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Speaker 1: creating the perfect conditions for wildfires. Earlier in the week,

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Speaker 1: when I was visiting here, I driven by fields scorched

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Speaker 1: by wildfire. The fire had meandered through agricultural land and

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Speaker 1: jumped the road. The blackened areas had the settling appearance

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Speaker 1: of an oil spill. The climate impacts of burning oil

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Speaker 1: were a key issue in the fight against the Dakota

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Speaker 1: Access Pipeline, and here in North Dakota it isn't hard

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Speaker 1: to see how the climate crisis is impacting everyday life.

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Speaker 1: Doug takes a turn on boat dock road. His team

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Speaker 1: didn't used to use this dock too often, but with

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Speaker 1: the water levels being so low, that's changed.

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Speaker 4: When did it start becoming an issue?

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Speaker 7: Oh, it's ten years, at least ten years every year

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Speaker 7: usually around this time, and then springtime it'll flood, and

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Speaker 7: in wintertime it'll go low.

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Speaker 3: And it just depends on the runoff a lot of

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Speaker 3: times too. Of Montana's headwaters if they had a good

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Speaker 3: winter and a nice runoff. Oh my god, Yes.

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Speaker 1: The headwaters of the Missouri River are in Montana. In

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, universities in the state did a study on

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Speaker 1: how climate change is impacting the river. The researchers found

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Speaker 1: that not only has Montana's snowpack in the mountains declined,

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Speaker 1: the snow that does accumulate is melting earlier in the year.

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Speaker 1: By late summer, there's less water than there used to be.

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Speaker 1: That means more drought. Over the next century, what we're

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Speaker 1: seeing today is expected to get worse. A deciding factor

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Speaker 1: for how bad the droughts and fires will get is

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Speaker 1: how many fossil fuels continue to be extracted, transported and

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Speaker 1: burned its products, like the oil carried by the Dakota

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Speaker 1: Access pipeline, that are making the climate crisis worse.

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Speaker 3: So check it out.

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Speaker 5: Kids.

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Speaker 3: If I'm going to go big one under day.

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Speaker 4: Now, if I need this jack attack.

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Speaker 1: Debate leaving my coat in the car. It's October in

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Speaker 1: North Dakota, but the temper sure is climbing above eighty degrees.

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Speaker 1: Don Holmstrom climbs out of the backseat and heads down

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Speaker 1: the ramp toward the dock. Don is the former director

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Speaker 1: of the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Board's Western Regional Office.

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Speaker 1: Now he works as a safety consultant for Standing Rock.

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Speaker 1: He pulls out a sonar depth finder device and it

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Speaker 1: says it's deep enough for us to launch will Some

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Speaker 1: of the crew sets up the pontoon. I chat with

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Speaker 1: Harold Tiger and Erica Porter, who are emergency managers.

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Speaker 8: I'm curious to.

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Speaker 1: Hear more about the wildfire.

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Speaker 5: From the reports I received, it was caused by a

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Speaker 5: combiner that was combining in the field a caught fire.

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Speaker 1: It turns out they responded to that fire I saw.

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Speaker 1: They tell me this is the time of the year

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Speaker 1: when farmers harvest. Hay All it took to spark. The

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Speaker 1: fire was a combiner hitting a rock.

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Speaker 9: And we closed down the road while that fire skipped

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Speaker 9: over Highway sixty three.

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Speaker 5: Was so bad that it's hard to see through the

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Speaker 5: smoke plne across that highway.

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Speaker 4: I guess how unusual is this?

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Speaker 6: How unusual is a wildfire like what we call it

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Speaker 6: curveball climate?

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Speaker 5: Well, and it has the drastic effect on our people.

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Speaker 5: I mean, things are not happening normally at certain times

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Speaker 5: of the year. So we need to start looking at

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Speaker 5: that and looking outside of the box to get better

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Speaker 5: prepared for those things.

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Speaker 1: The climate crisis is often called a threat multiplier. The

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Speaker 1: oil in the pipeline stands to make the climate crisis worse,

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Speaker 1: and also the climate crisis stands to make the impact

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Speaker 1: of any oil spill worse. And there's one more piece

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Speaker 1: to this puzzle that will get to in a second.

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Speaker 1: The Missouri River dams. We climb onto the pontoon. Ready,

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Speaker 1: we putter into the little bay that leads to the river.

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Speaker 1: For a second, it seems like our ning might end

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Speaker 1: before it's begun.

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Speaker 2: Are we getting stuck?

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Speaker 1: We aren't yet. Erica cranks up the pontoon.

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Speaker 4: Jams there that pontube fun.

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Speaker 1: Dawn drops the depth finder into the glassy water. As

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Speaker 1: we troll south through a basin that's wider than a

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Speaker 1: football field. Doug drives carefully navigating the braided channels that

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Speaker 1: cut pathways through muddy sandbars. The constant fluctuations of the

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Speaker 1: river mean the curves of the channels are unpredictable.

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Speaker 4: The stretch of the river that borders.

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Speaker 1: Standing Rock is called Lake Owahe. It's a reservoir that

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Speaker 1: was created in the early nineteen sixties. The Upper Missouri

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Speaker 1: River today is actually divided up by a series of dams.

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Speaker 1: That's because in the nineteen forties, the US created a

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Speaker 1: program called the pics Loane Plan. That plan is the

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Speaker 1: origin story of the Standing Rock nations poisoned relationship with

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Speaker 1: the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps wanted to build

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Speaker 1: a series of dams to control the Missouri River. The

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Speaker 1: dams were meant to ease flooding, provide power and irrigation,

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Speaker 1: and also make it easier for boats to transport people

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Speaker 1: and products. The thing is, the indigenous nations along the

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Speaker 1: river didn't want the dams. The US government built them anyway.

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Speaker 1: They flooded and destroyed entire communities, drowning grave sites, as

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Speaker 1: well as sources of food and income. People from standing

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Speaker 1: rocks say they were never adequately compensated, though it's not

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Speaker 1: clear that any price could have made the dams worth.

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Speaker 4: What was lost wiped all that up and wiped out

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Speaker 4: our cherry trees or plum trees are you know?

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Speaker 3: It was hunting grounds. And so they this army corps

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Speaker 3: of engineers when they flooded our lands, they wiped out

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Speaker 3: a way of life.

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Speaker 1: You know, Davis Redbear was born just after the dam

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Speaker 1: flood at the land, but she grew up hearing about

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Speaker 1: what happened. And as far as Doug is concerned, the

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Speaker 1: injustice of the dams is ongoing. The climate crisis may

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Speaker 1: be helping create drought conditions, but it doesn't explain how

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Speaker 1: quickly the water level is going up and down.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, so what's the deal. So the obviously the dam

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Speaker 6: the water is low. Why would they why would it

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Speaker 6: be low right now?

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Speaker 4: Why is it low right now?

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Speaker 10: Because they're trying to keep the level of the of

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Speaker 10: the Brassouri River at average, at an average level down

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Speaker 10: in Kansas and Missouri for navigations for barges.

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Speaker 1: So Yeah, the Army Corps controls the release of water

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Speaker 1: from reservoir to reservoir. They're attempting to balance a tangle

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Speaker 1: of different needs as they do this, from preventing flooding

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Speaker 1: to protecting endangered species, to letting people fish to making

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Speaker 1: sure companies can transport products. In Doug's view, the Army

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Speaker 1: Corps prioritizes the commercial needs of people outside the bounds

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Speaker 1: of the reservation Lake owahe ends up stuck in a

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Speaker 1: constant state of flux.

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Speaker 3: So I call our Lake Hawaihi the bastard reservoir of

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Speaker 3: the Pixloan Act. And it is, and you've seen it

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Speaker 3: today today is you know what you guys. I am

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Speaker 3: so glad you guys came to Davis Don because you

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Speaker 3: guys are seeing firsthand what I have to go through

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Speaker 3: almost on a weekly basis. When we go out to

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Speaker 3: do sampling on the river, you can't get out there.

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Speaker 1: When Doug and the other Standing Rock members on the

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Speaker 1: boat today think about the threats to the water, it's

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Speaker 1: about not just the pipeline but also the dam.

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Speaker 11: I mean, it's just it's so unjuff.

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Speaker 3: But I just love this. It's so beautiful.

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Speaker 4: I'm so glad we came on. I know me too,

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Speaker 4: It's so beautiful.

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Speaker 1: The Army Corps denied my request for an interview. A

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Speaker 1: spokesperson told me that the Army Corps operates the reservoirs

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Speaker 1: according to the law, with guidance from a master water

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Speaker 1: control manual. The spokesperson said water levels fluctuate seasonally based

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Speaker 1: on precipitation, runoff, and multiple congressionally authorized purposes, including flood control, navigation,

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Speaker 1: water supply, recreation, and fish and wildlife. These operations are

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Speaker 1: system wide and are not managed for any single user

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Speaker 1: or economic interest. There's another thing influencing Standing Rocks lawsuit strategy,

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Speaker 1: the Green Peace case. In its original conspiracy lawsuit, Energy

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Speaker 1: Transfer claimed that green Peace committed defamation by saying that

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Speaker 1: the pipeline would poison the Standing Rocks Shoo Tribe's water.

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Speaker 1: They also said it's defamation to say the pipeline would

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Speaker 1: catastrophically alter the climate. The threats to their water and

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Speaker 1: to the climate are two of the Standing Rocks Szo

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Speaker 1: tribe's key arguments against the pipeline. Energy Transfer suit was

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Speaker 1: suggesting these threats don't exist, and if you're going to

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Speaker 1: make claims like that in a lawsuit, then you have

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Speaker 1: to prove it. Energy Transfer would have to hand over

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Speaker 1: internal documents proving how safe the pipeline really was, but

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Speaker 1: they argued that sharing so many documents was too much

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Speaker 1: of a hassle. To avoid having to turn them over,

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Speaker 1: they dropped the claims about water and climate safety, but

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Speaker 1: Greenpeace did not drop their request for documents, and as

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Speaker 1: they continued to fight about it, some documents ended up

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Speaker 1: bubbling to the surface that weren't supposed to. A report

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Speaker 1: that was supposed to remain confidential appeared on a court

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Speaker 1: website for anyone to download. An engineering firm called Exponent

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Speaker 1: had prepared this report. It was co written by a

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Speaker 1: former Exxon engineer. Greenpeace had commissioned it as part of

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Speaker 1: its legal defense, and it described something the Standing Rocks

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Speaker 1: Too tribe had never heard about before. It said that

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Speaker 1: there had been problems when Energy Transfer's drilling contractor, Michaels,

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Speaker 1: was drilling under Lake Owahe Doug brings the pontoon to a.

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Speaker 3: Stop, so basically we're at ground zero and where there

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Speaker 3: would be a pipeline break.

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Speaker 1: That means we're floating above the Dakota Access pipeline. It's

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Speaker 1: buried ninety five feet below the lake bed. Doug explains

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Speaker 1: what the exponent report revealed. He takes us back to

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Speaker 1: January twenty seventeen, when energy transfers set up two huge

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Speaker 1: drills on either side of the river.

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Speaker 3: At the same time, we had a camp on the

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Speaker 3: other side of that cliff over there where people from

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Speaker 3: around the world were protesting to stop it, and these

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Speaker 3: guys over here were saying, gear it up, let's get

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Speaker 3: it done.

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Speaker 1: The two drills, tungsten carbi teeth, cut and ground the

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Speaker 1: rock and soil under the river into fragments, each guiding

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Speaker 1: a drill pipe behind it. The drill pad had been

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Speaker 1: transformed to resemble a military base.

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Speaker 3: If you guys remember seeing pictures, they had a berm

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Speaker 3: around the drill pad. They had these huge it looked

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Speaker 3: like Kuwait. They had armed twenty four to seven guards.

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Speaker 3: They had these big flood lights.

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Speaker 1: Over the course of a week, the two drills chewed

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Speaker 1: away pilot holes underneath either side of the river until

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Speaker 1: they met in the middle the day after Valentine's Day.

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Speaker 1: As they traveled, thick mud was pumped at high pressure

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Speaker 1: from the shore through the drill pipes and out the nozzles.

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Speaker 1: At the drill bits at the end.

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Speaker 3: And they use fluid the loop up the sediment and

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Speaker 3: the rock and it's just going and going.

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Speaker 1: The drilling mud was made of betonit, clay, and water,

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Speaker 1: along with some unknown chemical additives. Oil companies usually describe

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Speaker 1: drilling mud as being non toxic, but at times it

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Speaker 1: has been found to include harmful pollutants and it can

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Speaker 1: hurt delicate ecosystems. Drilling mud carried away the fragmented earth.

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Speaker 1: That mud and earth was supposed to flow back to

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Speaker 1: the shore into an excavated pit, but some of it

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Speaker 1: never did. The amount of drilling mud that disappeared was

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Speaker 1: enough to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools one point

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Speaker 1: four million gallons. All that drilling mud had apparently oozed

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Speaker 1: into the surrounding environment.

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Speaker 4: What does it contaminate? What does that mean to our

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Speaker 4: water intake? I mean, I got those kind of questions.

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Speaker 3: And so they don't know if it's still in or

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Speaker 3: if it's underneath the water, or if it's or went

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Speaker 3: down river. They don't know nothing. That word didn't say,

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Speaker 3: the board didn't say, so it's.

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Speaker 1: Unclear what happened to all that mud. Exponent wrote that

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Speaker 1: there's no indication Energy Transfers contractors did any water testing

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Speaker 1: dug in the Tribeer concerned that there could have been

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Speaker 1: something poisonous mixed into the mud that disappeared under the river,

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Speaker 1: which is a big problem because again, this is the

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Speaker 1: standing Rock Zioo Tribe's drinking water source. An Energy Transfer

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Speaker 1: has had issues with drilling mud before. The company was

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Speaker 1: building pipelines in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Around the same time

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Speaker 1: it was building Dapple in North Dakota. In Pennsylvania, thousands

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Speaker 1: of gallons of drilling mud leaked into wetlands. The company

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Speaker 1: didn't report it to state regulators, who found out that

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Speaker 1: some of the mud contained unapproved additives. It even polluted

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Speaker 1: tap water and caused sinkholes. The company's subsidiary, Sunoco, pleaded

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Speaker 1: no contest to fourteen criminal counts related to those drilling

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Speaker 1: mud spills. In Ohio, two million gallons of drilling mud

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Speaker 1: leaked into a wetland, and state regulators discovered that some

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Speaker 1: of it was laced with diesel, and they weren't told

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Speaker 1: about that by Energy Transfer and their contractors, and so

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Speaker 1: obviously they were pretty mad about it. This is Don Holmstrom,

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Speaker 1: the consultant who used to work at the Chemical Safety Poort.

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Speaker 1: Energy Transfer got in pretty big trouble for its drilling

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Speaker 1: mud spills. The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two that the company be banned from any contracts

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Speaker 1: with the federal government. The decision was never finalized, but

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Speaker 1: it meant that Energy Transfer was kept out of federal

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Speaker 1: contracts until earlier this year. Don has a plane to

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Speaker 1: catch and it's time to head back.

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Speaker 3: You guys got any other questions as we go? Just

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Speaker 3: asked Don. Let's let's maneuver back to the port. See

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Speaker 3: if we CANDOCT Titanic.

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Speaker 4: All right, let's go.

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Speaker 3: I need somebody to look out in the front for icebergs.

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Speaker 3: No kidding, right, pull it.

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Speaker 1: As we motor back the way we came, I think

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Speaker 1: about what I'd researched before this trip. The draft andvironmental

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Speaker 1: impact statement from the Army Corps says there's only about

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Speaker 1: a one in one thousand chance that the Dakota Access

397
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Speaker 1: Pipeline will spill under the Missouri River in a given year,

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Speaker 1: But as for the entire length of the pipeline, the

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Speaker 1: Dakota Access Pipeline has already leaked thirteen times since an

400
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Speaker 1: entered operation in twenty seventeen. The largest leak was nearly

401
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Speaker 1: two hundred gallons. The draft Environmental Impact Statement says that

402
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 1: spill risk is inherent to pipelines. You can mitigate it,

403
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Speaker 1: but you can't eliminate it. Then there's the climate crisis.

404
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Speaker 1: Scientists say that if we have any hope of avoiding

405
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Speaker 1: catastrophic climate impacts, we cannot build new fossil fuel infrastructure.

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Speaker 1: According to climate scientists, math as long as the oil flows,

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Speaker 1: the water is not protected.

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Speaker 4: In the pontoon.

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Speaker 1: We're chatting idly about the upcoming election as we motor back.

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Speaker 11: I've developed a healthy skepticism about well, even people that

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Speaker 11: you had up voting for, because maybe they're the lesser

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Speaker 11: of the.

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Speaker 4: Of the problem.

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Speaker 1: The pontoon stalls were stuck.

415
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Speaker 3: I thought we were going to be able to right there.

416
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Speaker 4: It's the same on this side. Yeah up.

417
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Speaker 1: The deep channel has turned unexpectedly into a sandbar on

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Speaker 1: either side of us.

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Speaker 3: I don't think we can go forward.

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Speaker 1: The boat is lodged in the muck of the river.

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Speaker 1: Four of our crew jump into push.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, Okate, let me know when you got ready.

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Speaker 1: Doug gets ready to rev the motor.

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Speaker 6: Ye let me know when you.

425
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Speaker 4: Read they're pushing, But this.

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Speaker 1: Thing is not moving.

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Speaker 3: Is it even budget?

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Speaker 1: It's not looking good. And here, dear listener, the audio

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Speaker 1: cuts out because the time had come for your host

430
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Speaker 1: to get intimate with the Missouri River. I roll up

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Speaker 1: my pants to my knees and jump in. Now there

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Speaker 1: are six of us pushing, and with the mud of

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Speaker 1: the Missouri River oozing between my toes, I begin to

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Speaker 1: see the standing rock. Sioux Tribe's point. How quickly could

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00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:03,880
Speaker 1: a crew really navigate these channels in an oil spill emergency?

436
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Speaker 1: And how much lower will this river drop as the

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00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: climate crisis deepens? We push again. The pontoon inches a

438
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Speaker 1: few feet forward, but it's still stuck. We keep pushing.

439
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 1: It springs forward.

440
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 3: Nothing happened. We're good to meet you. Yeah, great to

441
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Speaker 3: meet you. Travel.

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Speaker 1: Doug and Dawn consider the trip of success we'd unintentionally

443
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: illustrate at their point. Three days later, the tribe files

444
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:49,199
Speaker 1: its lawsuit on Indigenous People's Day. Months later, in the

445
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: courtroom in the winter of twenty twenty five, the things

446
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: we grappled with on the water come up in court.

447
00:26:56,400 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer wants Greenpeace to pay them back for delaying

448
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: the start of the pipeline's commercial operations. They say that

449
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: the pipeline was supposed to be pumping oil by January

450
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, but didn't start operating until June, and that

451
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 1: cost them eighty million dollars. But Greenpeace is arguing that

452
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: what actually prevented Energy Transfer from finishing the project is

453
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 1: that they didn't have the Army Corps permission to drill

454
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:28,320
Speaker 1: under the Missouri River. They didn't have the easement. Green

455
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: Peace wasn't stopping the oil from pumping. A federal agency

456
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 1: was standing in the way. If green Peace was solely

457
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 1: responsible for the easement delay, then that means that the

458
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:44,359
Speaker 1: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and its lawsuit and its calls

459
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: to action the money it poured into the pipeline fight,

460
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:51,600
Speaker 1: had no hand in the Army Corps decision. The theory

461
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: of the lawsuit doesn't match with what happened and removes

462
00:27:55,880 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: the indigenous nation from the story entirely. Energy Transfer is

463
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: also saying that it was Greenpeace's divestment campaign that forced

464
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:10,320
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer to delay its loan refinancing by about two years.

465
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 1: They say that the delay was because Greenpeace spread lies

466
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 1: about Energy Transfer. The alleged lies were meant to convince

467
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: Banks to divest from the pipeline. An Energy Transfer wants

468
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: the environmental nonprofit to pay them nearly one hundred million

469
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 1: dollars for this, except that Energy Transfer's own records conflict

470
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,320
Speaker 1: with this story. The pipeline company took careful notes when

471
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: they're board met and several sets of board meeting minutes

472
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: say that Energy Transfer decided to hold off on refinancing

473
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,760
Speaker 1: not because of anything about Greenpeace, but because the Standing

474
00:28:45,840 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: Rock Sioux Tribe was in the middle of their legal

475
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: battle with the Army Corps, and the banks wanted to

476
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 1: wait and see what would happen. Once again, Energy Transfer's

477
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: story of Standing Rock erases the role of the Standing

478
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: Rock Sioux tribe. I call up Doug, the tribe's water guy,

479
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: about what's happening with the lawsuit. He wasn't too impressed

480
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: with the fifty five thousand dollars that Energy Transferred as

481
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: Greenpeace put into the movement, or the ninety thousand dollars

482
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: that they say Greenpeace's former executive director fundraised.

483
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 3: I'm like, what are they suiting up for day to

484
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 3: do any What did they do?

485
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: He tells me the tribe took in eleven point seven

486
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: million dollars in donations from people who wanted to support

487
00:29:27,840 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 1: the pipeline resistance camps and the legal fight. He knows

488
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 1: the number because he managed the budget.

489
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 12: We paid over sixty thousand dollars just for porta potties.

490
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 4: That's right.

491
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe spent more on toilets for

492
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: a couple months than green Peace allegedly donated throughout the

493
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,880
Speaker 1: entire movement. The money came via the Standing Rock Sioux

494
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 1: Tribe's crowdfunding pages, but also an envelope sent directly to

495
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: the tribal office.

496
00:29:58,640 --> 00:30:03,240
Speaker 12: Envelopes of you know, fifty dollars envelopes with cash or

497
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 12: checks in them for twenty five dollars. Whether they donated

498
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 12: five dollars or five hundred thousand dollars, they all got

499
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 12: a thank you letter from the chairman with our ie

500
00:30:15,280 --> 00:30:19,000
Speaker 12: number and their tax break number. So we did that.

501
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 12: I want to say twenty thousand people.

502
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: To Doug, the arguments in this lawsuit just don't make sense.

503
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 12: Well, I'd say this is all a bunch of bullshit,

504
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 12: and I could tell you that nothing ever happened with

505
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 12: Greenpeace they didn't do shit. They don't have the right

506
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 12: to sit here and even talk about Dapple and definitely

507
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 12: Energy Transfer, doesn't you guy? You know, and I would

508
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 12: say this is all just a ploy to try to

509
00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 12: find a scapegoat.

510
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: Greenpeace wants to talk about that leak drilling mud in court,

511
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: but Judge Gehen says they're not allowed to. Energy Transfer

512
00:30:57,120 --> 00:31:02,320
Speaker 1: didn't answer my questions about the report. During his testimony,

513
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: the project manager, Mike Futch, said there were no problems

514
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: with the drilling, but a regulator at the North Dakota

515
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 1: Department of Environmental Quality told the North Dakota Monitor that

516
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: he was aware of some issues with drilling mud. The

517
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: regulator just didn't think it was a big deal. This

518
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,560
Speaker 1: is something we see happening virtually on every horizontal boring

519
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 1: we see.

520
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 4: He said, there's.

521
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: A world where the Dakota Access pipelines, oil and drilling

522
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:33,400
Speaker 1: mud spills are considered normal and acceptable. But decades of

523
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: experience have shown the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe that neither

524
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 1: the State of North Dakota, nor the US Army Corps

525
00:31:39,240 --> 00:31:46,680
Speaker 1: of Engineers, nor Energy Transfer are authorities they can trust.

526
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: And honestly, the tribe was not so sure they could

527
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 1: trust Greenpeace either, because there was a moment last year

528
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: when Greenpeace was offered an opportunity to avoid all of

529
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: this one that meant throwing the standing tribe under the bus.

530
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 1: That's next time on Drilled. Drilled is an original Critical

531
00:32:09,400 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: Frequency production. This season was reported and written by me

532
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,520
Speaker 1: Allen Brown. Our senior editor is Audrey Quinn. Additional editing

533
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: by Tristan attone E Grist. Our producer and sound designer

534
00:32:22,440 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: is Ray Pang, mixain mastering by Martin Saltz Austwich and

535
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:31,160
Speaker 1: Peter Duff. Fact checking by Shilpa Gindia. Our first Amendment

536
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: attorney is James Wheedon. Our Impact producer is Lindsay Crowder.

537
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: Marketing by Maggie Taylor. Original artwork for this season was

538
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: created by Victor Pascual of Digital Navajo. Our theme music

539
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 1: is by Dear Lady, and the show was created and

540
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: executive produced by Amy Westerville. The Center for Median Democracy

541
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: supported document review for the season. For related stories and

542
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 1: to support our work, check out Drilled dot Media. To

543
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:01,800
Speaker 1: follow my work, check got my newsletter Eco files at

544
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Speaker 1: a Lean Brown Dot Ghost dot io.

545
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Speaker 4: No chee che.

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547
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Speaker 10: Chew wa cho.

548
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549
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Speaker 4: Che no chill ch.

550
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Speaker 10: Chew no cheech.

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566
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