Speaker 1: It's an unseasonably warm day in October twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Rolling hills covered in golden grasses stretch on either side
Speaker 1: of Highway eighteen oh six on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation,
Speaker 1: and I'm riding in a truck with Doug crow Ghost.
Speaker 1: He leads the Standing Rocks Sioo Tribes's Department of Water Resources.
Speaker 1: Behind us is a truck pulling upontoon boat. We're with
Speaker 1: a crew of people heading to the Missouri River about
Speaker 1: ten miles downstream from the Dakota Access Pipeline, which Doug
Speaker 1: calls Dapple.
Speaker 2: We're documenting that if there's a pipeline break. Dapple's saying
Speaker 2: that they can get these big skimmer boats on the
Speaker 2: water to go up there to start getting rid of
Speaker 2: the oil, and we've been saying, hell no, there's no way,
Speaker 2: but we're.
Speaker 3: Gonna document in any way, and we're gonna drive along
Speaker 3: take pictures of there's some certain.
Speaker 1: They're trying to find out if the Missouri River is
Speaker 1: high enough so that emerging seaboats could clean up an
Speaker 1: oil spill.
Speaker 4: But the catches.
Speaker 1: For our plan today to work, we have to be
Speaker 1: able to get our boat on the river, and as
Speaker 1: we arrive at the marina, it becomes clear that a
Speaker 1: pontoon ride might not be happening today. Doug starts chatting
Speaker 1: through the window with the local guy.
Speaker 3: Are you freaking kidding me? It's he can't it's unusable.
Speaker 4: The water level is too low.
Speaker 3: You think you can get that pontoon in there? No
Speaker 3: way gets stuck. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: To some degree, this proves Doug's point. He figures out,
Speaker 1: if we can't even get the pontoon on the water,
Speaker 1: then Energy Transfer isn't going to be able to launch big,
Speaker 1: heavy emergency boats to skim away oil.
Speaker 3: I drove out here last week to check it out,
Speaker 3: and it was good. I'm about to all right, then,
Speaker 3: little shit.
Speaker 1: Doug's a big talker, and he's got his hands in
Speaker 1: a lot of things. As the Standing Rock Tribe's water guy,
Speaker 1: the Dakota Access Pipeline has been a big part of
Speaker 1: his job. To the Standing Rock Nation, the pipeline is
Speaker 1: among the biggest threats to its primary drinking water source,
Speaker 1: the Missouri River, so Doug spent countless hours trying to
Speaker 1: make sense of Energy Transfer's emergency plans what they intend
Speaker 1: to do if the oil leaks out. He's also helped
Speaker 1: with the tribe's ongoing legal fight against the pipeline. In
Speaker 1: late twenty twenty four, Standing Rock is getting ready to
Speaker 1: file a new lawsuit to stop the flow of oil,
Speaker 1: and the water level measurements they take today are mental
Speaker 1: help prove that the pipeline is unsafe. We get out
Speaker 1: of the truck and inspect the water line.
Speaker 3: Look look at how far it went down just for
Speaker 3: this not even to be dried yet, how would that happen?
Speaker 3: The Army Corps of Engineers, the mismanagement of the river.
Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's legal fight against the pipeline
Speaker 1: isn't against energy transfer, it's against the US Army Corps
Speaker 1: of Engineers. That's the federal agency that in charge of
Speaker 1: granting permission for the pipeline to pass through federal land,
Speaker 1: including under the Missouri River. It was the Army Corps
Speaker 1: that the tribe furssued back in July twenty sixteen, right
Speaker 1: before the Standing Rock protests really kicked off. Back then,
Speaker 1: they were trying to get the federal government to require
Speaker 1: a deeper review of the pipeline route. Fast forward to today,
Speaker 1: the tribe's legal fight to stop the pipeline still going on.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until Trump came into office in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: as the Standing Rock protests were already winding down, that
Speaker 1: the Army Corps did grant permission to drill under the river.
Speaker 1: But after the pipeline was already installed, a judge took
Speaker 1: back that permission and said that the project does require
Speaker 1: a deeper environmental review. Eight years after the oil started flowing,
Speaker 1: that review and environmental impact statement still isn't finished. The
Speaker 1: pipeline operates with no official permission from the Army Corps,
Speaker 1: and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe is sick of it.
Speaker 1: The Army Corps of Engineers also runs a series of
Speaker 1: dams along the river. Dam's Standing Rock and other Indigenous
Speaker 1: nations never wanted.
Speaker 4: So this new.
Speaker 1: Lawsuit DOUG is helping prepare. It's not just going to
Speaker 1: focus on the pipeline, but rather on multiple environmental justice
Speaker 1: issues that this nation has been putting up with for decades.
Speaker 1: Pulling up behind us is a whole team of emergency
Speaker 1: managers from the tribal government, as well as an elected
Speaker 1: member of the tribal council and a reporter from a
Speaker 1: local newspaper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, We're bade everybody.
Speaker 1: Doug briefs us on the plan. Since it's too shallow
Speaker 1: for the pontoon here, we're going to head to the
Speaker 1: next closest option for launching a boat, which is twenty
Speaker 1: minutes away at Fort Rice.
Speaker 3: Two things are going to happen there. One, it's gonna
Speaker 3: be up, the water is going to be good. We're
Speaker 3: going to get in the boat and we're going to
Speaker 3: go to Dapple's site. Or we get down there and
Speaker 3: it's just like this, it's unusable and we docu that
Speaker 3: as well. All right, load up.
Speaker 5: Then, you.
Speaker 1: Know, in all these years covering the Standing Rock movement,
Speaker 1: I've never actually gotten out on the water. But I
Speaker 1: have no idea as we turn onto the highway that
Speaker 1: I'm about to get even more intimate with the Big
Speaker 1: Buddy than I'd bargained for.
Speaker 4: This season of.
Speaker 1: Drilled, we bring you Slapped the story of an indigenous
Speaker 1: nation fighting for its water, an environmental nonprofit facing extinction,
Speaker 1: and an energy giant using the courts to punish protesters.
Speaker 1: I'm Alan Brown. The draft of Energy Transfers Environmental Impact
Speaker 1: Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline was released about a
Speaker 1: year and a half ago. And it describes the company's
Speaker 1: version of what would happen if the pipeline. It says
Speaker 1: that within thirteen minutes of a leak, energy Transfer would
Speaker 1: shut down the pipeline. They'd launch their boats into the
Speaker 1: river from a dock like we just visited, and they'd
Speaker 1: isolate the spill with containment booms, skimmers, absorbent material, and
Speaker 1: vacuum suction would collect the oil. If the water was
Speaker 1: too low to launch a boat, energy Transfer would use
Speaker 1: cranes to lower watercraft into the Missouri. And they say
Speaker 1: they have airboats on hand. But Doug and other Standing
Speaker 1: Rock leaders.
Speaker 4: Don't buy it.
Speaker 1: For one, the report was written by a company with
Speaker 1: ties to the oil and gas industry. He tells me
Speaker 1: about it as we drive to the next closest boat dock.
Speaker 3: We told him that's a conflict of.
Speaker 1: Interest making matters worse. Large sections of the emergency plans
Speaker 1: and the spill response report are blacked out, redacted. Standing
Speaker 1: Rock leaders say they have no ability to check the
Speaker 1: work of Energy Transfer in the Army Corps.
Speaker 3: How can you really comment on something you can't see?
Speaker 3: And this is what we always said, where's the transparency?
Speaker 1: A final decision on the Eastman. The permission to drill
Speaker 1: under the river is expected in the next year, but
Speaker 1: the writing is on the wall. With Donald Trump about
Speaker 1: to become president, the Army Corps will likely grant it.
Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux tribe decided they weren't going to
Speaker 1: sit around and wait before filing a new lawsuit.
Speaker 3: Anyway, ask me more questions.
Speaker 1: As we drive, I'm noticing the way the sun is
Speaker 1: struggling to pierce through a kind of fog.
Speaker 6: Do you think this hayes is from the wildfires? Seriously,
Speaker 6: that's a serious question.
Speaker 3: Oh, oh, yeah it is.
Speaker 1: North Dakota Governor Doug Bergham declared a state of emergency
Speaker 1: a week ago. High temperatures, dry conditions, and wind are
Speaker 1: creating the perfect conditions for wildfires. Earlier in the week,
Speaker 1: when I was visiting here, I driven by fields scorched
Speaker 1: by wildfire. The fire had meandered through agricultural land and
Speaker 1: jumped the road. The blackened areas had the settling appearance
Speaker 1: of an oil spill. The climate impacts of burning oil
Speaker 1: were a key issue in the fight against the Dakota
Speaker 1: Access Pipeline, and here in North Dakota it isn't hard
Speaker 1: to see how the climate crisis is impacting everyday life.
Speaker 1: Doug takes a turn on boat dock road. His team
Speaker 1: didn't used to use this dock too often, but with
Speaker 1: the water levels being so low, that's changed.
Speaker 4: When did it start becoming an issue?
Speaker 7: Oh, it's ten years, at least ten years every year
Speaker 7: usually around this time, and then springtime it'll flood, and
Speaker 7: in wintertime it'll go low.
Speaker 3: And it just depends on the runoff a lot of
Speaker 3: times too. Of Montana's headwaters if they had a good
Speaker 3: winter and a nice runoff. Oh my god, Yes.
Speaker 1: The headwaters of the Missouri River are in Montana. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, universities in the state did a study on
Speaker 1: how climate change is impacting the river. The researchers found
Speaker 1: that not only has Montana's snowpack in the mountains declined,
Speaker 1: the snow that does accumulate is melting earlier in the year.
Speaker 1: By late summer, there's less water than there used to be.
Speaker 1: That means more drought. Over the next century, what we're
Speaker 1: seeing today is expected to get worse. A deciding factor
Speaker 1: for how bad the droughts and fires will get is
Speaker 1: how many fossil fuels continue to be extracted, transported and
Speaker 1: burned its products, like the oil carried by the Dakota
Speaker 1: Access pipeline, that are making the climate crisis worse.
Speaker 3: So check it out.
Speaker 5: Kids.
Speaker 3: If I'm going to go big one under day.
Speaker 4: Now, if I need this jack attack.
Speaker 1: Debate leaving my coat in the car. It's October in
Speaker 1: North Dakota, but the temper sure is climbing above eighty degrees.
Speaker 1: Don Holmstrom climbs out of the backseat and heads down
Speaker 1: the ramp toward the dock. Don is the former director
Speaker 1: of the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Board's Western Regional Office.
Speaker 1: Now he works as a safety consultant for Standing Rock.
Speaker 1: He pulls out a sonar depth finder device and it
Speaker 1: says it's deep enough for us to launch will Some
Speaker 1: of the crew sets up the pontoon. I chat with
Speaker 1: Harold Tiger and Erica Porter, who are emergency managers.
Speaker 8: I'm curious to.
Speaker 1: Hear more about the wildfire.
Speaker 5: From the reports I received, it was caused by a
Speaker 5: combiner that was combining in the field a caught fire.
Speaker 1: It turns out they responded to that fire I saw.
Speaker 1: They tell me this is the time of the year
Speaker 1: when farmers harvest. Hay All it took to spark. The
Speaker 1: fire was a combiner hitting a rock.
Speaker 9: And we closed down the road while that fire skipped
Speaker 9: over Highway sixty three.
Speaker 5: Was so bad that it's hard to see through the
Speaker 5: smoke plne across that highway.
Speaker 4: I guess how unusual is this?
Speaker 6: How unusual is a wildfire like what we call it
Speaker 6: curveball climate?
Speaker 5: Well, and it has the drastic effect on our people.
Speaker 5: I mean, things are not happening normally at certain times
Speaker 5: of the year. So we need to start looking at
Speaker 5: that and looking outside of the box to get better
Speaker 5: prepared for those things.
Speaker 1: The climate crisis is often called a threat multiplier. The
Speaker 1: oil in the pipeline stands to make the climate crisis worse,
Speaker 1: and also the climate crisis stands to make the impact
Speaker 1: of any oil spill worse. And there's one more piece
Speaker 1: to this puzzle that will get to in a second.
Speaker 1: The Missouri River dams. We climb onto the pontoon. Ready,
Speaker 1: we putter into the little bay that leads to the river.
Speaker 1: For a second, it seems like our ning might end
Speaker 1: before it's begun.
Speaker 2: Are we getting stuck?
Speaker 1: We aren't yet. Erica cranks up the pontoon.
Speaker 4: Jams there that pontube fun.
Speaker 1: Dawn drops the depth finder into the glassy water. As
Speaker 1: we troll south through a basin that's wider than a
Speaker 1: football field. Doug drives carefully navigating the braided channels that
Speaker 1: cut pathways through muddy sandbars. The constant fluctuations of the
Speaker 1: river mean the curves of the channels are unpredictable.
Speaker 4: The stretch of the river that borders.
Speaker 1: Standing Rock is called Lake Owahe. It's a reservoir that
Speaker 1: was created in the early nineteen sixties. The Upper Missouri
Speaker 1: River today is actually divided up by a series of dams.
Speaker 1: That's because in the nineteen forties, the US created a
Speaker 1: program called the pics Loane Plan. That plan is the
Speaker 1: origin story of the Standing Rock nations poisoned relationship with
Speaker 1: the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps wanted to build
Speaker 1: a series of dams to control the Missouri River. The
Speaker 1: dams were meant to ease flooding, provide power and irrigation,
Speaker 1: and also make it easier for boats to transport people
Speaker 1: and products. The thing is, the indigenous nations along the
Speaker 1: river didn't want the dams. The US government built them anyway.
Speaker 1: They flooded and destroyed entire communities, drowning grave sites, as
Speaker 1: well as sources of food and income. People from standing
Speaker 1: rocks say they were never adequately compensated, though it's not
Speaker 1: clear that any price could have made the dams worth.
Speaker 4: What was lost wiped all that up and wiped out
Speaker 4: our cherry trees or plum trees are you know?
Speaker 3: It was hunting grounds. And so they this army corps
Speaker 3: of engineers when they flooded our lands, they wiped out
Speaker 3: a way of life.
Speaker 1: You know, Davis Redbear was born just after the dam
Speaker 1: flood at the land, but she grew up hearing about
Speaker 1: what happened. And as far as Doug is concerned, the
Speaker 1: injustice of the dams is ongoing. The climate crisis may
Speaker 1: be helping create drought conditions, but it doesn't explain how
Speaker 1: quickly the water level is going up and down.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so what's the deal. So the obviously the dam
Speaker 6: the water is low. Why would they why would it
Speaker 6: be low right now?
Speaker 4: Why is it low right now?
Speaker 10: Because they're trying to keep the level of the of
Speaker 10: the Brassouri River at average, at an average level down
Speaker 10: in Kansas and Missouri for navigations for barges.
Speaker 1: So Yeah, the Army Corps controls the release of water
Speaker 1: from reservoir to reservoir. They're attempting to balance a tangle
Speaker 1: of different needs as they do this, from preventing flooding
Speaker 1: to protecting endangered species, to letting people fish to making
Speaker 1: sure companies can transport products. In Doug's view, the Army
Speaker 1: Corps prioritizes the commercial needs of people outside the bounds
Speaker 1: of the reservation Lake owahe ends up stuck in a
Speaker 1: constant state of flux.
Speaker 3: So I call our Lake Hawaihi the bastard reservoir of
Speaker 3: the Pixloan Act. And it is, and you've seen it
Speaker 3: today today is you know what you guys. I am
Speaker 3: so glad you guys came to Davis Don because you
Speaker 3: guys are seeing firsthand what I have to go through
Speaker 3: almost on a weekly basis. When we go out to
Speaker 3: do sampling on the river, you can't get out there.
Speaker 1: When Doug and the other Standing Rock members on the
Speaker 1: boat today think about the threats to the water, it's
Speaker 1: about not just the pipeline but also the dam.
Speaker 11: I mean, it's just it's so unjuff.
Speaker 3: But I just love this. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 4: I'm so glad we came on. I know me too,
Speaker 4: It's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: The Army Corps denied my request for an interview. A
Speaker 1: spokesperson told me that the Army Corps operates the reservoirs
Speaker 1: according to the law, with guidance from a master water
Speaker 1: control manual. The spokesperson said water levels fluctuate seasonally based
Speaker 1: on precipitation, runoff, and multiple congressionally authorized purposes, including flood control, navigation,
Speaker 1: water supply, recreation, and fish and wildlife. These operations are
Speaker 1: system wide and are not managed for any single user
Speaker 1: or economic interest. There's another thing influencing Standing Rocks lawsuit strategy,
Speaker 1: the Green Peace case. In its original conspiracy lawsuit, Energy
Speaker 1: Transfer claimed that green Peace committed defamation by saying that
Speaker 1: the pipeline would poison the Standing Rocks Shoo Tribe's water.
Speaker 1: They also said it's defamation to say the pipeline would
Speaker 1: catastrophically alter the climate. The threats to their water and
Speaker 1: to the climate are two of the Standing Rocks Szo
Speaker 1: tribe's key arguments against the pipeline. Energy Transfer suit was
Speaker 1: suggesting these threats don't exist, and if you're going to
Speaker 1: make claims like that in a lawsuit, then you have
Speaker 1: to prove it. Energy Transfer would have to hand over
Speaker 1: internal documents proving how safe the pipeline really was, but
Speaker 1: they argued that sharing so many documents was too much
Speaker 1: of a hassle. To avoid having to turn them over,
Speaker 1: they dropped the claims about water and climate safety, but
Speaker 1: Greenpeace did not drop their request for documents, and as
Speaker 1: they continued to fight about it, some documents ended up
Speaker 1: bubbling to the surface that weren't supposed to. A report
Speaker 1: that was supposed to remain confidential appeared on a court
Speaker 1: website for anyone to download. An engineering firm called Exponent
Speaker 1: had prepared this report. It was co written by a
Speaker 1: former Exxon engineer. Greenpeace had commissioned it as part of
Speaker 1: its legal defense, and it described something the Standing Rocks
Speaker 1: Too tribe had never heard about before. It said that
Speaker 1: there had been problems when Energy Transfer's drilling contractor, Michaels,
Speaker 1: was drilling under Lake Owahe Doug brings the pontoon to a.
Speaker 3: Stop, so basically we're at ground zero and where there
Speaker 3: would be a pipeline break.
Speaker 1: That means we're floating above the Dakota Access pipeline. It's
Speaker 1: buried ninety five feet below the lake bed. Doug explains
Speaker 1: what the exponent report revealed. He takes us back to
Speaker 1: January twenty seventeen, when energy transfers set up two huge
Speaker 1: drills on either side of the river.
Speaker 3: At the same time, we had a camp on the
Speaker 3: other side of that cliff over there where people from
Speaker 3: around the world were protesting to stop it, and these
Speaker 3: guys over here were saying, gear it up, let's get
Speaker 3: it done.
Speaker 1: The two drills, tungsten carbi teeth, cut and ground the
Speaker 1: rock and soil under the river into fragments, each guiding
Speaker 1: a drill pipe behind it. The drill pad had been
Speaker 1: transformed to resemble a military base.
Speaker 3: If you guys remember seeing pictures, they had a berm
Speaker 3: around the drill pad. They had these huge it looked
Speaker 3: like Kuwait. They had armed twenty four to seven guards.
Speaker 3: They had these big flood lights.
Speaker 1: Over the course of a week, the two drills chewed
Speaker 1: away pilot holes underneath either side of the river until
Speaker 1: they met in the middle the day after Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1: As they traveled, thick mud was pumped at high pressure
Speaker 1: from the shore through the drill pipes and out the nozzles.
Speaker 1: At the drill bits at the end.
Speaker 3: And they use fluid the loop up the sediment and
Speaker 3: the rock and it's just going and going.
Speaker 1: The drilling mud was made of betonit, clay, and water,
Speaker 1: along with some unknown chemical additives. Oil companies usually describe
Speaker 1: drilling mud as being non toxic, but at times it
Speaker 1: has been found to include harmful pollutants and it can
Speaker 1: hurt delicate ecosystems. Drilling mud carried away the fragmented earth.
Speaker 1: That mud and earth was supposed to flow back to
Speaker 1: the shore into an excavated pit, but some of it
Speaker 1: never did. The amount of drilling mud that disappeared was
Speaker 1: enough to fill two Olympic sized swimming pools one point
Speaker 1: four million gallons. All that drilling mud had apparently oozed
Speaker 1: into the surrounding environment.
Speaker 4: What does it contaminate? What does that mean to our
Speaker 4: water intake? I mean, I got those kind of questions.
Speaker 3: And so they don't know if it's still in or
Speaker 3: if it's underneath the water, or if it's or went
Speaker 3: down river. They don't know nothing. That word didn't say,
Speaker 3: the board didn't say, so it's.
Speaker 1: Unclear what happened to all that mud. Exponent wrote that
Speaker 1: there's no indication Energy Transfers contractors did any water testing
Speaker 1: dug in the Tribeer concerned that there could have been
Speaker 1: something poisonous mixed into the mud that disappeared under the river,
Speaker 1: which is a big problem because again, this is the
Speaker 1: standing Rock Zioo Tribe's drinking water source. An Energy Transfer
Speaker 1: has had issues with drilling mud before. The company was
Speaker 1: building pipelines in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Around the same time
Speaker 1: it was building Dapple in North Dakota. In Pennsylvania, thousands
Speaker 1: of gallons of drilling mud leaked into wetlands. The company
Speaker 1: didn't report it to state regulators, who found out that
Speaker 1: some of the mud contained unapproved additives. It even polluted
Speaker 1: tap water and caused sinkholes. The company's subsidiary, Sunoco, pleaded
Speaker 1: no contest to fourteen criminal counts related to those drilling
Speaker 1: mud spills. In Ohio, two million gallons of drilling mud
Speaker 1: leaked into a wetland, and state regulators discovered that some
Speaker 1: of it was laced with diesel, and they weren't told
Speaker 1: about that by Energy Transfer and their contractors, and so
Speaker 1: obviously they were pretty mad about it. This is Don Holmstrom,
Speaker 1: the consultant who used to work at the Chemical Safety Poort.
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer got in pretty big trouble for its drilling
Speaker 1: mud spills. The US Environmental Protection Agency proposed in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two that the company be banned from any contracts
Speaker 1: with the federal government. The decision was never finalized, but
Speaker 1: it meant that Energy Transfer was kept out of federal
Speaker 1: contracts until earlier this year. Don has a plane to
Speaker 1: catch and it's time to head back.
Speaker 3: You guys got any other questions as we go? Just
Speaker 3: asked Don. Let's let's maneuver back to the port. See
Speaker 3: if we CANDOCT Titanic.
Speaker 4: All right, let's go.
Speaker 3: I need somebody to look out in the front for icebergs.
Speaker 3: No kidding, right, pull it.
Speaker 1: As we motor back the way we came, I think
Speaker 1: about what I'd researched before this trip. The draft andvironmental
Speaker 1: impact statement from the Army Corps says there's only about
Speaker 1: a one in one thousand chance that the Dakota Access
Speaker 1: Pipeline will spill under the Missouri River in a given year,
Speaker 1: But as for the entire length of the pipeline, the
Speaker 1: Dakota Access Pipeline has already leaked thirteen times since an
Speaker 1: entered operation in twenty seventeen. The largest leak was nearly
Speaker 1: two hundred gallons. The draft Environmental Impact Statement says that
Speaker 1: spill risk is inherent to pipelines. You can mitigate it,
Speaker 1: but you can't eliminate it. Then there's the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: Scientists say that if we have any hope of avoiding
Speaker 1: catastrophic climate impacts, we cannot build new fossil fuel infrastructure.
Speaker 1: According to climate scientists, math as long as the oil flows,
Speaker 1: the water is not protected.
Speaker 4: In the pontoon.
Speaker 1: We're chatting idly about the upcoming election as we motor back.
Speaker 11: I've developed a healthy skepticism about well, even people that
Speaker 11: you had up voting for, because maybe they're the lesser
Speaker 11: of the.
Speaker 4: Of the problem.
Speaker 1: The pontoon stalls were stuck.
Speaker 3: I thought we were going to be able to right there.
Speaker 4: It's the same on this side. Yeah up.
Speaker 1: The deep channel has turned unexpectedly into a sandbar on
Speaker 1: either side of us.
Speaker 3: I don't think we can go forward.
Speaker 1: The boat is lodged in the muck of the river.
Speaker 1: Four of our crew jump into push.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okate, let me know when you got ready.
Speaker 1: Doug gets ready to rev the motor.
Speaker 6: Ye let me know when you.
Speaker 4: Read they're pushing, But this.
Speaker 1: Thing is not moving.
Speaker 3: Is it even budget?
Speaker 1: It's not looking good. And here, dear listener, the audio
Speaker 1: cuts out because the time had come for your host
Speaker 1: to get intimate with the Missouri River. I roll up
Speaker 1: my pants to my knees and jump in. Now there
Speaker 1: are six of us pushing, and with the mud of
Speaker 1: the Missouri River oozing between my toes, I begin to
Speaker 1: see the standing rock. Sioux Tribe's point. How quickly could
Speaker 1: a crew really navigate these channels in an oil spill emergency?
Speaker 1: And how much lower will this river drop as the
Speaker 1: climate crisis deepens? We push again. The pontoon inches a
Speaker 1: few feet forward, but it's still stuck. We keep pushing.
Speaker 1: It springs forward.
Speaker 3: Nothing happened. We're good to meet you. Yeah, great to
Speaker 3: meet you. Travel.
Speaker 1: Doug and Dawn consider the trip of success we'd unintentionally
Speaker 1: illustrate at their point. Three days later, the tribe files
Speaker 1: its lawsuit on Indigenous People's Day. Months later, in the
Speaker 1: courtroom in the winter of twenty twenty five, the things
Speaker 1: we grappled with on the water come up in court.
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer wants Greenpeace to pay them back for delaying
Speaker 1: the start of the pipeline's commercial operations. They say that
Speaker 1: the pipeline was supposed to be pumping oil by January
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, but didn't start operating until June, and that
Speaker 1: cost them eighty million dollars. But Greenpeace is arguing that
Speaker 1: what actually prevented Energy Transfer from finishing the project is
Speaker 1: that they didn't have the Army Corps permission to drill
Speaker 1: under the Missouri River. They didn't have the easement. Green
Speaker 1: Peace wasn't stopping the oil from pumping. A federal agency
Speaker 1: was standing in the way. If green Peace was solely
Speaker 1: responsible for the easement delay, then that means that the
Speaker 1: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and its lawsuit and its calls
Speaker 1: to action the money it poured into the pipeline fight,
Speaker 1: had no hand in the Army Corps decision. The theory
Speaker 1: of the lawsuit doesn't match with what happened and removes
Speaker 1: the indigenous nation from the story entirely. Energy Transfer is
Speaker 1: also saying that it was Greenpeace's divestment campaign that forced
Speaker 1: Energy Transfer to delay its loan refinancing by about two years.
Speaker 1: They say that the delay was because Greenpeace spread lies
Speaker 1: about Energy Transfer. The alleged lies were meant to convince
Speaker 1: Banks to divest from the pipeline. An Energy Transfer wants
Speaker 1: the environmental nonprofit to pay them nearly one hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars for this, except that Energy Transfer's own records conflict
Speaker 1: with this story. The pipeline company took careful notes when
Speaker 1: they're board met and several sets of board meeting minutes
Speaker 1: say that Energy Transfer decided to hold off on refinancing
Speaker 1: not because of anything about Greenpeace, but because the Standing
Speaker 1: Rock Sioux Tribe was in the middle of their legal
Speaker 1: battle with the Army Corps, and the banks wanted to
Speaker 1: wait and see what would happen. Once again, Energy Transfer's
Speaker 1: story of Standing Rock erases the role of the Standing
Speaker 1: Rock Sioux tribe. I call up Doug, the tribe's water guy,
Speaker 1: about what's happening with the lawsuit. He wasn't too impressed
Speaker 1: with the fifty five thousand dollars that Energy Transferred as
Speaker 1: Greenpeace put into the movement, or the ninety thousand dollars
Speaker 1: that they say Greenpeace's former executive director fundraised.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what are they suiting up for day to
Speaker 3: do any What did they do?
Speaker 1: He tells me the tribe took in eleven point seven
Speaker 1: million dollars in donations from people who wanted to support
Speaker 1: the pipeline resistance camps and the legal fight. He knows
Speaker 1: the number because he managed the budget.
Speaker 12: We paid over sixty thousand dollars just for porta potties.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe spent more on toilets for
Speaker 1: a couple months than green Peace allegedly donated throughout the
Speaker 1: entire movement. The money came via the Standing Rock Sioux
Speaker 1: Tribe's crowdfunding pages, but also an envelope sent directly to
Speaker 1: the tribal office.
Speaker 12: Envelopes of you know, fifty dollars envelopes with cash or
Speaker 12: checks in them for twenty five dollars. Whether they donated
Speaker 12: five dollars or five hundred thousand dollars, they all got
Speaker 12: a thank you letter from the chairman with our ie
Speaker 12: number and their tax break number. So we did that.
Speaker 12: I want to say twenty thousand people.
Speaker 1: To Doug, the arguments in this lawsuit just don't make sense.
Speaker 12: Well, I'd say this is all a bunch of bullshit,
Speaker 12: and I could tell you that nothing ever happened with
Speaker 12: Greenpeace they didn't do shit. They don't have the right
Speaker 12: to sit here and even talk about Dapple and definitely
Speaker 12: Energy Transfer, doesn't you guy? You know, and I would
Speaker 12: say this is all just a ploy to try to
Speaker 12: find a scapegoat.
Speaker 1: Greenpeace wants to talk about that leak drilling mud in court,
Speaker 1: but Judge Gehen says they're not allowed to. Energy Transfer
Speaker 1: didn't answer my questions about the report. During his testimony,
Speaker 1: the project manager, Mike Futch, said there were no problems
Speaker 1: with the drilling, but a regulator at the North Dakota
Speaker 1: Department of Environmental Quality told the North Dakota Monitor that
Speaker 1: he was aware of some issues with drilling mud. The
Speaker 1: regulator just didn't think it was a big deal. This
Speaker 1: is something we see happening virtually on every horizontal boring
Speaker 1: we see.
Speaker 4: He said, there's.
Speaker 1: A world where the Dakota Access pipelines, oil and drilling
Speaker 1: mud spills are considered normal and acceptable. But decades of
Speaker 1: experience have shown the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe that neither
Speaker 1: the State of North Dakota, nor the US Army Corps
Speaker 1: of Engineers, nor Energy Transfer are authorities they can trust.
Speaker 1: And honestly, the tribe was not so sure they could
Speaker 1: trust Greenpeace either, because there was a moment last year
Speaker 1: when Greenpeace was offered an opportunity to avoid all of
Speaker 1: this one that meant throwing the standing tribe under the bus.
Speaker 1: That's next time on Drilled. Drilled is an original Critical
Speaker 1: Frequency production. This season was reported and written by me
Speaker 1: Allen Brown. Our senior editor is Audrey Quinn. Additional editing
Speaker 1: by Tristan attone E Grist. Our producer and sound designer
Speaker 1: is Ray Pang, mixain mastering by Martin Saltz Austwich and
Speaker 1: Peter Duff. Fact checking by Shilpa Gindia. Our first Amendment
Speaker 1: attorney is James Wheedon. Our Impact producer is Lindsay Crowder.
Speaker 1: Marketing by Maggie Taylor. Original artwork for this season was
Speaker 1: created by Victor Pascual of Digital Navajo. Our theme music
Speaker 1: is by Dear Lady, and the show was created and
Speaker 1: executive produced by Amy Westerville. The Center for Median Democracy
Speaker 1: supported document review for the season. For related stories and
Speaker 1: to support our work, check out Drilled dot Media. To
Speaker 1: follow my work, check got my newsletter Eco files at
Speaker 1: a Lean Brown Dot Ghost dot io.
Speaker 4: No chee che.
Speaker 7: No chew che.
Speaker 10: Chew wa cho.
Speaker 8: No jewe che.
Speaker 4: Che no chill ch.
Speaker 10: Chew no cheech.
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