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"Our people call it the black snake because it is evil," says Tressa Welch, as thunder clouds steamroll the blue sky over the plains of Wolf Point. "And like snakes they come out of nowhere, they slither and strike unknown."

She faces southwards where, a couple of miles away, forks of lightning crack over the Missouri River. The 2m acre Fort Peck Indian Reservation straddles this winding water source, providing sustenance for the almost 7,000 Assiniboine and Sioux tribe here and thousands of others throughout north-east Montana. It is the river that Welch and other Native American activists on the reserve say the Keystone XL oil pipeline - or the "black snake" - will corrupt.

The river maintains the deer, the fish, the native plants, sweet grasses and sacred sage. "Anything that threatens my way of life and my spiritual well-being, I consider myself at war with," she says, her two-year-old daughter by her side. "I will do whatever it takes."

Although the XL is expected to cross the Missouri just outside of the reservation, it will do so about 40 miles upstream of the tribes' multimillion-dollar water treatment plant, which supplies clean water to communities throughout the entire region. A leak at this junction,they say, could be catastrophic. The project's backers insist it will be safe.

The gargantuan underground pipeline is set to carry a daily load of 830,000 barrels of oil over 1,204 miles, from the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada - where it enjoys the support of the prime minister, Justin Trudeau - across the US border into eastern Montana. It will travel down to South Dakota, eventually linking with the first Keystone pipeline, which was completed in 2010, in southern Nebraska. The route connects not just countries and states, but three US presidencies. First proposed by the private Canadian infrastructure giant TransCanada during George W Bush's final months in office, the project was eventually rejected by the Obama administration in 2015, only to be resurrected almost as soon Donald Trump was sworn in at the beginning of this year.

Its potential pathway crosses 56 rivers and streams, dozens of farms and ranches, one of the world's largest groundwater sources and comes close to a handful of Native American reserves, exposing the deep divisions and unlikely alliances within these rural communities after nearly a decade of struggle, which were entrenched even further by a bitterly divisive presidential election.

Framed as a victory over government regulation and a win for jobs creation by the Trump administration and those who support the project, critics characterize the reversal as a win for a foreign business over environmentalism and private land rights.

As the prospect of construction looms, The Guardian spent one recent week travelling along the proposed US route of the XL, meeting with those who will be directly affected by the expansion. The journey starts at the Fort Peck reserve, about 80 miles from the Canadian border and the first concentrated population in its pathway, where Tressa Welch and her group of "water protectors" believe it is a duty endowed upon them by their ancestors to resist the construction.

The men here are preparing the land for the Sun Dance festival in June, when the community will gather to pray for good health, fast without water for four days and offer parts of their flesh. "We give a little piece of ourself back to Mother Earth, because she supplies everything to us," Welch says.

As for many of the young tribal members on this reserve, the election of Trump and the rebirth of Keystone has brought with it a renewed connection to history and culture through activism.

Only a few years ago, the 26-year-old had worked as a land surveyor carrying out contract work for large oil companies. After she saw the protest camps opposing the Dakota Access pipeline, arguably the landmark environmental struggle of the Obama administration and a likely precursor to the future struggle over the XL, she felt compelled to travel to the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. She stood on the frontlines as protesters were water cannoned by police officers in subzero cold last winter. Their hard fought victory was almost instantly reversed by the election of Trump, but the experience changed her life nonetheless.

It is likely that the Fort Peck reservation will be the first frontier of physical opposition to the XL, should a series of recent oppositional lawsuits fail and the final route proposal in Nebraska be approved. Already this year, Welch and others here have marched 85 miles along the banks of the Missouri and protested peacefully outside a planned meeting between the tribal council and TransCanada, which was eventually called off.

TransCanada insist it has consulted with all parties along the XL route including Native American tribal leaders.

Glasgow locator

But less than an hour down the highway in the old railroad town of Glasgow, the sentiment is the polar opposite. Here the city is almost cut in half by the railway track. The town's station, a single storey white bricked depot, sits at the centre of the Amtrak Empire Builder line, which runs over 2,000 miles and connects Chicago to the Pacific Northwest.

Jeff Swanson and RJ Winderl, who both own ranch land the XL will cross, sip coffee and pour over the papers at the local John Deere retailer, which serves as a hub for ranchers who come to sit among friends and peruse the large green tractors and combine harvesters on sale outside.

The city is 92% white, in a county that voted 70% for Trump, and there is a sense of resentment expressed by some here for "the Indians" on the reserve.

"They're mad because it didn't go through their reservation, so they're not getting payment off it," says Swanson, slamming down his fists. "It's greed, that's all it is."

The cattle rancher signed an easement with TransCanada years ago, which left him with a one off payment of $15,000 (just $1.21 a day if the project fulfils its 50 year lifespan) in exchange for the use of a quarter of a mile of his pasture land. But Swanson says his support for the project was never about the money. It was politics.

He saw the Obama administration's veto of the project as government overreach and reiterates the essence of one Trump banner claims in support of it: energy independence. "Our country needs oil. Why import from the Middle Eastern countries when we can take it right from our Canadian neighbor?"

There are only two kinds of pipelines. The ones that are leaking and the ones that are going to leak.

The reality however, dictated by cascading domestic crude prices in the US, is that the majority of final product from the XL will probably be exported to foreign markets after it is processed at refineries on the Gulf Coast. But that doesn't seem to bother the pair.

Perhaps they share the concerns of those on the reserve about the potential of a leak?

"Well the oil comes out of the ground, so it should be good for it," says Winderl. "They're going to double pipe it anyway. There's no way it will leak."

***

The next stop is about 150 miles south, across the Fort Peck dam. Back in 1933, the construction of this colossal hydraulic system, the largest in the US, brought over 10,000 jobs to the region after president Franklin Roosevelt commissioned it as part of the New Deal.

It is lambing season here, just outside the city of Glendive, and sheep farmer Dena Hoff finds it painful to hear of Winderl's confidence in the pipeline's integrity. "It's just not true," she says.

The dregs of a few surviving snowdrifts are melting in the sun and some of Hoff's flock are out to pasture a few metres from where, in January 2015, around 40,000 gallons of crude oil, traveling from Canada to southern Montana, escaped from the aging Poplar pipeline straight into the Yellowstone River. She watched from her farmhouse as recovery crews drilled holes through the ice in a failed attempt to contain the leak.

The oil contaminated Glendive's water treatment plant, polluting the drinking water for upwards of 6,000 people with dangerous levels of the benzene, a known carcinogen. People went without water for days and some in town still distrust the city's water supply. Hoff recalls that time with evident disgust, arguing city officials were in no way prepared for the leak.

The Keystone, too, will cross under the Yellowstone River about 13 miles from her farm but still upstream of the town's water treatment plant. At 36 inches wide, it is three times more voluminous than the Poplar pipeline and will carry a far dirtier, more corrosive substance, dilbit, which transports the viscous bitumen crude and natural gas liquids. According to independent studies, this would make a spill much more dangerous and any cleanup operation more complicated. Extracting tar sands also emits considerably more greenhouse gases than regular crude.

A widely cited independent study in 2011, authored by John Stansbury an engineering professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln found that TransCanada had significantly underestimated the likely number of significant spills (defined as those greater than 50 barrels) over the XL's lifetime. The company had projected a total of 11 over 50 years. Stansbury, citing a wide range of miscalculations, revised this number by almost ten times to 91.

The academic concluded that in a worst-case leak under the Yellowstone, 165,000 barrels of oil (6.9 million gallons) could escape the pipeline. At the XL's crossing under the Missouri an extreme break could lead to over 122,000 barrels (5.1 million gallons) escaping.

This week Stansbury told the Guardian he stands by his conclusions, arguing that TransCanada's most recent environmental impact statement suffered from the same flaws he identified in 2011.

TransCanada spokesman Terry Cunha said: "We disagree with all of the claims made by Mr Stansbury", and pointed to what the company describes as "state of the art" leak detection systems they intend to deploy along the XL route, which they maintain is safe.

The US state department, who in March issued a permit approving the pipeline, estimated that the probability of a leak conveying enough oil to reach a protected waterbody was once in every 542 years.

For Hoff, the risk is clear. "There are only two kinds of pipelines," she says. "The ones that are leaking and the ones that are going to leak."

However, Dennis Zander, a Republican county commissioner in Glendive, who stands outside the county courthouse in pair of striking off-yellow Ostrich leather boots, accepts the 2015 Poplar leak was "an inconvenience" but has no fears at all about the XL passing close to town. He says emergency services here have learned from past mistakes, and expects the pipeline will bring with it an annual revenue of $5m from additional county property taxes. According to TransCanada, the project would lead to $55.6m in local property taxes in the 27 US counties the pipeline is set to traverse during the first year of operation.

Zander won't say how these additional funds will be spent in Glendive.

The city, like Glasgow, is overwhelmingly white, inside a county that voted at an even higher rate for Trump. The poverty level here is close to the national average as the city reaped the rewards of the Bakken oil boom in the neighboring state of North Dakota, which peaked in 2013. Along rows of unremarkable houses it is the city's backdrop that is most striking.

Glendive is surrounded by the majestic badland formations of the Makoshika State park, where dozens of pristine dinosaur fossils, preserved by the ice age, have been discovered. Xander points to these discoveries as proof to dispute the overwhelmingly scientific evidence of manmade climate change. The climate is always changing, he says. "I think we're naive [to think] that we can have that much effect on mother nature."

He is by no means the last local official along the route to espouse such views.

The state department estimates the XL could transport enough oil to send up to 27.4m metric tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the earth's atmosphere each year, the equivalent of the annual emissions from almost eight coal-fired power plants. Advocates say even this high-end projection is a dramatic underestimation.

Along the 60-mile drive south, the winding roads that scale the badland formations, give way to vast plains where wild antelope and deer cast long shadows as they bound. The town of Baker, surrounded by large oil pumpjacks that rotate in seeming unison, marks the last major population centre on the XL's route in Montana.

Baker locator

Here, TransCanada plan to open a large man camp to house up to 1,200 migrant construction workers that will effectively double the population of the town. Mayor JoDee Pratt, who like Xander denies the existence of human-induced climate change, is preparing to welcome these temporary residents. She looks forward to the additional revenue they will bring to the town, which has enjoyed its fair share of boom and bust since the discovery of nearby oil and natural gas deposits at the turn of the twentieth century.

In recent days a field officer for the Montana department of emergency services came to Baker and Pratt, eager to discuss the potential fallout from the pipeline construction, which barring any permit setbacks, will commence in 2019. The mayor only wanted to know about one thing: protesters.

While events at Standing Rock may have awakened a new generation like Tressa Welch on the Fort Peck reserve, here, in a county that voted 86% for Trump, the events inspired a sense of pervasive fear. "When I saw it I was afraid for people's lives. I was ashamed of what they [protesters] were doing," she says.

More afraid than the consequences of a potential large scale leak?

Pratt nods. "Did you see what a mess they left? The amount of garbage. I was appalled."
Part two of this three-part series will be published on Wednesday: a dispatch from South Dakota, where officials are moving to curb protests and Republican ranchers are among the Keystone XL pipeline's unlikely opponents.

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Life on the Keystone XL route: where opponents fear the 'black snake'

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"Our people call it the black snake because it is evil," says Tressa Welch, as thunder clouds steamroll the blue sky over the plains of Wolf Point. "And like snakes they come out of nowhere, they slither and strike unknown." She faces southwards where, a couple of miles away, forks of lightning crack over the Missouri River.

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Doc choisi : http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37863955 - « What’s behind the controversy ? »

Objectifs

Débat avec :

-          Environmental activists - TBD

-          Native Americans - Standing Rock Sioux Tribe

VS

-          Trump Administration

-          Energy Transfer Partners (ETP)

Objectifs du document

Différenciation en termes de guidage du nom des colonnes.

Anticipation

1.       Par le titre : controversy

Wordcloud sur « controversy » (point of view, opinion, difference, argument, position, problem, disagreement…)

2.       Dakota Pipeline: What’s behind the controversy?

What’s a pipeline?

-          Strategie d’inférence : decomposition du mot

-          Carte (du doc) : objectif = contextualiser & faciliter la CE qui vient après

Name the two states on the map.

What does the red line represent?

Phase de recherche

Différenciation (classé en function des compétences des élèves) :

Travail de groupe sur les différentes position / détails du projet

Synthèse de la recherche : arguments pour / contre --> tableau facilitateur d'expression orale

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Dakota pipeline activity

Regrouper les docs selon le point de vue pour / contre

Pour :

-          Energy transfer

-          Judge rejects the request…

-          Trump

Contre :

-          Petition

-          Pipeline protester…

-          Article police arrest

-          (Protest song)

Un document par groupe : individuellement dégager les mots-clefs mise en commun pour dégager le point de vue, les arguments…
Mélange des groupes: chacun rend compte de son document, le reste du groupe pose des questions remplit un tableau (titre, source, date, point de vue, argument)
Vérification des acquis + vocabulaire: quizz

Tâche finale: débat avec rôles (jeune indien, vieil indien, policier, juge...)

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Zatalexcan
ANTICIPATION :
Travail sur le doc interactive map en classe inversée.
Webquest sur l'histoire des amérindiens (dates clés)
Observation de 3 dates (1776 / 1840 / 2010) => Description de la carte + hypothèses sur la réduction du territoire occupé par les Indiens.
Mise en commun en classe avec en recap quelques highlights (gold rush / treaties / negociation / rebellion / living conditions).
Elaboration d'une timeline (avec Thinglink)
RECHERCHE (groupes de 4)
Dakota pipeline (enjeux, conséquences, pétition)

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Découverte article: Dakota Pipeline US Judge... Phases 1 et 2 

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Découverte article: Dakota Pipeline US Judge... Phases 1 et 2 

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Croiser 3 approches différentes du même document pour une compréhension  fine.

1ére étape: 6 groupes de 4 .
Groupes 1 et 2 doivent repérer les differents acteurs mentionnés et leur position
Groupes 3 et 4 doivent retrouver l'avancée des travaux
Groupes 5 et 6 doivent repérer les aspects juridiques et politiques

Aides proposées: Fiches de vocabulaire (ou word cloud) plus ou moins avancées.

Etape 2: Deux experts de chaque approche se réunissent dans 4 groupes de 6. L'objectif est de remplir un "placemat" puis de faire une synthèse au milieu.

Etape 3: Quizz pour vérifier la compréhension de tous.

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Travail sur le doc "Army Halts Construction of Dakota Access Pipeline" : 3 supports : l'image de la vidéo sans le son, la vidéo avec l'image et le son et l'article (à couper)

Groupes de 6 avec répartition des rôles suivants :
- questioner + note taker (sur vidéo sans son)
- information giver and encourager (sur vidéo avec son)
- word master + culture connector (sur texte)

Pour la mise en commun/mémorisation, quiz Kahoot !

Dans le but de créer un clip vidéo incitant à signer une pétition.

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This interactive map, produced by University of Georgia historian Claudio Saunt to accompany his new book West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, offers a time-lapse vision of the transfer of Indian land between 1776 and 1887. As blue "Indian homelands" disappear, small red areas appear, indicating the establishment of reservations. (Above is a GIF of the map's time-lapse display; visit the map's page to play with its features.)

The project's source data is a set of maps produced in 1899 by the Bureau of American Ethnology. The B.A.E. was a research unit of the Smithsonian that published and collected anthropological, archaeological, and linguistic research on the culture of North American Indians, as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

While the time-lapse function is the most visually impressive aspect of this interactive, the "source map" option (available on the map's site) offers a deep level of detail. By selecting a source map, and then zooming in to the state you've selected, you can see details of the map used to generate that section of the interactive. A pop-up box tells you which Native nation was resident on the land, and the date of the treaty or executive order that transferred the area to the government, as well as offering external links to descriptions of the treaty and of the tract of land.

In the site's "About" section (reachable by clicking on the question mark), Saunt is careful to point out that the westward-moving boundaries could sometimes be vague. Asked for an example, he pointed me to the 1791 treaty with the Cherokee that ceded the land where present-day Knoxville, Tenn. stands. The treaty's language pointed to landmarks like "the mouth of Duck river," a broad approach that left a lot of room for creative implementation. When dealing with semi-nomadic tribes, Saunt added, negotiators sometimes designated a small reservation, "rather than spelling out the boundaries of the cession."

This vagueness benefited the government's purposes in crafting treaties and executive orders. "Greater legality and more precision," Saunt argues, "would have made it impossible to seize so much land in so short a time."

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Interactive Time-Lapse Map Shows How the U.S. Took More Than 1.5 Billion Acres From Native Americans

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This interactive map, produced by University of Georgia historian Claudio Saunt to accompany his new book West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 , offers a time-lapse vision of the transfer of Indian land between 1776 and 1887. As blue "Indian homelands" disappear, small red areas appear, indicating the establishment of reservations.

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OCETI SAKOWIN CAMPGROUND, N.D. ― Federal authorities have halted construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline amid growing protests that were expected to draw some 2,000 U.S. military veterans.

The Department of the Army has denied the final easement required for the $3.8 billion project to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, it announced Sunday. Instead, it will conduct an Environmental Impact Statement to examine the impacts and explore alternative routes, it said.

"Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do," Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Army's assistant secretary for civil works, said in a statement. "The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternative routes for the pipeline crossing."

The 1,172-mile pipeline is being built to carry Bakken oil from North Dakota to an existing oil terminal in Illinois. Most of it is completed, except for a 20-mile section near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The tribe and demonstrators have raised concerns about the threat the pipeline poses to water and sacred Native American sites. The tribe has also argued, in a lawsuit to stop the pipeline's completion, that the project violates federal laws and its environmental impact has not been fully studied.

In a statement, Standing Rock Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II applauded the news.

" We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing," he said.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian Country "will be forever grateful to the Obama Administration for this historic decision," Archambault added. He noted his hope that the incoming Trump administration would respect the decision.

"My hands go up to all the water protectors who have stood up to protect tribal treaty rights and to protect Mother Earth," National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby said in an emailed statement. "Thank you for Standing For Standing Rock."

Within hours of the announcement, Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for America's oil and natural gas industry, called on Trump to " reject the Obama administration's shameful actions to deny this vital energy project, restore the rule of law in the regulatory process, and make this project's approval a top priority as he takes office in January."

In a joint statement release late Sunday, project developers Energy Transfer Partners LP and Sunoco Logistics Partners LP said the pipeline has " done nothing but play by the rules " for more than three years, and that the action by the Obama administration is "purely political."

"The White House's directive today to the [Army Corps of Engineers] for further delay is just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency," the companies said.

They added that they remain "fully committed" to completing the pipeline, without rerouting around Lake Oahe. "Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way," they said.

Philip George, 37, from the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in Ontario, Canada, was among the demonstrators gathered Sunday at Standing Rock. He described the victory as "bittersweet," something "due to our people for the hundreds of years of genocide and oppression."

"This fight is part of what's going on here for centuries," he told The Huffington Post. "I'm glad they denied the easement, but I don't know how long this victory will last with Donald Trump being elected president. I'm not sure if he will respect our people and respect our culture. Money can corrupt a man's heart."

George added that he sees this as a small victory in the grand scheme of things and believes there is much more work to do regarding indigenous representation and nation-to-nation relations. "The federal government needs to respect our ability to govern ourselves, our land and who we are," he said.

Lance King, 44, of Kyle, South Dakota, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, has traveled to Standing Rock twice to join in the demonstrations. His most recent visit has lasted two weeks.

King said he was "excited" and "happy" about the Army's decision, which he sees as a "victory for the American people."

"Everything was up in the air. I don't think anyone saw this coming," he told HuffPost. "There was a high rate of excitement and worry, so we didn't see this ― but we stuck with our prayers."

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch said that in light of Sunday's decision, the Department of Justice would continue to monitor the situation.

" The department remains committed to supporting local law enforcement, defending protestors' constitutional right to free speech and fostering thoughtful dialogue on the matter," she said. "We recognize the strong feelings that exist in connection with this issue, but it is imperative that all parties express their views peacefully and join us in support of a deliberate and reasonable process for de-escalation and healing."

Conservation groups quickly celebrated the news.

"Today, the voices of an indigenous people were heard," Natural Resources Defense Council president Rhea Suh said. "The rights of a sovereign nation were respected."

Greenpeace spokeswoman Lilian Molina praised the decision, but noted that the incoming Trump administration " must respect today's decision and recognize the will of the people to stop this disastrous pipeline. The fight doesn't end today."

Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune said he looked forward to further environmental review of the pipeline.

"History has taught us that it is never a question whether a pipeline will spill, but rather a question of when," he said. "A comprehensive environmental review will show that this dirty and dangerous project will threaten the safety of every community it cuts through."
Photographer Josh Morgan contributed reporting from North Dakota. This story has been updated to include statements from the American Petroleum Institute and Energy Transfer Partners.

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Army Halts Construction Of Dakota Access Pipeline

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OCETI SAKOWIN CAMPGROUND, N.D. ― Federal authorities have halted construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline amid growing protests that were expected to draw some 2,000 U.S. military veterans. The Department of the Army has denied the final easement required for the $3.8 billion project to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, it announced Sunday.

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On Wednesday, as protesters near the Dakota Access Pipeline began to break down their shelters and leave the area, Brooklyn singer Holly Miranda released a song, a cover of an obscure late-'70s science-fictional folk song, that she'd been working on for two months in support of those leaving.

For the protest song "Midnight Oil," Miranda enlisted 28 people - including Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead, TV On The Radio's Kyp Malone, Ani DiFranco and Saturday Night Live castmember Sasheer Zamata - to really blow out the choral arrangement that closes the song. Unlike many star-heavy songs of solidarity in the past, "Midnight Oil" is lovely, focused and (actually) uplifting.

"Despite there being so many worthy causes in dire need of help, when we looked at where the biggest fire was Standing Rock seemed the only choice," Miranda said in a statement released alongside the song. Proceeds from "Midnight Oil" will be donated to continuing efforts against the pipeline.

The song is taken from Lumiére, a very strange and beautiful album released by folk singer Cris Williamson in 1978, that Miranda found in a shop in the mountains of upstate New York. Speaking , which premiered the track, Miranda said she is "filled with admiration" for the "Midnight Oil" creator. "The more I began to research her, it seemed crazy that I had never heard of her - an out musician and activist who has made 33 records."

From here, as protestors' former dwellings smolder, legal challenges to the pipeline, arguing against both its construction and the pumping of oil through it, are already winding through the court system.

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Holly Miranda, Ani DiFranco Release Standing Rock Protest Song

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On Wednesday, as protesters near the Dakota Access Pipeline began to break down their shelters and leave the area, Brooklyn singer Holly Miranda released a song, a cover of an obscure late-'70s science-fictional folk song, that she'd been working on for two months in support of those leaving.

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President Donald Trump signed executive actions to advance approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines on Tuesday, reversing two Obama-era efforts to curb the controversial projects, CNN reports.

Trump shortened the regulatory process for pipeline construction as well as the environmental-review process. "If we intend to fix our country, our bridges, our roadways, we can't be in an environmental process for 15 years," the president said.

Trump intends to begin construction on both pipelines after renegotiations, saying the projects will be massive job-creators - an oft-repeated, but overstated, claim about the pipelines. He did not acknowledge the potential environmental or human impact of the construction.

During his White House tenure, Obama stalled construction on the Keystone XL pipeline for years before finally rejecting the project outright in November 2015. Proposed by the Canadian company TransCanada, the pipeline would carry 800,000 barrels of oil from Canadian oil sands to the Gulf Coast.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, meanwhile, sparked massive protests that peaked last fall over its proximity to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation. In December, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would not grant an easement for the Dakota pipeline and would instead "explore alternate routes."

Trump's decision has drawn criticism from environmental activists. According to The New York Times, environmentalist Bill McKibben said the fight to stop both projects would continue: "The last time around, TransCanada was so confident they literally mowed the strip where they planned to build the pipeline, before people power stopped them. People will mobilize again."

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Trump Reverses Obama Orders on Keystone XL, Dakota Access Pipelines

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President Donald Trump signed executive actions to advance approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines on Tuesday, reversing two Obama-era efforts to curb the controversial projects, CNN reports. Trump shortened the regulatory process for pipeline construction as well as the environmental-review process.

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Local law enforcement officers have arrested some people who chose not to evacuate federal land near part of the Dakota Access Pipeline north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Most protesters had left earlier. At dusk, police moved back, and said they would not enter the camp at that time.

The governor of North Dakota had set Wednesday as the evacuation deadline for the largest protest camp, which is on a flat area north of the Cannonball River. He cited flooding concerns.

Protesters supporting members of the Standing Rock Sioux, many of whom believe the pipeline's route under a section of the Missouri River known as Lake Oahe will endanger drinking water, have been living on the land for six months or more. They have erected shelters and organized supply systems for food and water, even as winter brought freezing temperatures and feet of snow.

As the 3 p.m. ET deadline approached, some demonstrators prayed while others took down some shelters and set fire to things they were not carrying out. Rain falling on law enforcement and demonstrators turned to fat snowflakes.

"It looks like a trash pile. But it's getting picked up and every spot is starting to look better and better as we work together," Dotty Agard of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe told Amy Sisk of Inside Energy while sorting through abandoned goods.

"One man used a four-wheeler to help get a car out of the deep mud, and another person rode a snowmobile through the dirt," The New York Times reported from the area. "Some semipermanent structures had been burned, apparently an effort to demolish them ahead of the deadline. A fire burned, black smoke rising in the cold air, while some people roamed the area."

The newspaper reported that "state officials have offered meals, lodging, a medical exam and a bus ticket to anywhere in the 48 contiguous states for protesters who left by Wednesday afternoon but needed help getting home."

According to live video posted to the Lakota People's Law Project Facebook page, a group from the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, which borders the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, leased land a few miles away and were welcoming people who left the evacuated area.

Not far from the area being evacuated, crews for the company Energy Transfer Partners are drilling a hole for the pipeline to carry oil under the Missouri River. Construction had been stalled for months, as lawsuits challenging the permitting process for the pipeline made their way through the courts.

In December, the Obama administration announced it would not allow construction to go forward until the Army Corps conducted a full environmental review of the route. It was a win for the protest movement.

The Corps officially began the review process in January, opening up the pipeline route plan to public comments, but that process ground to a halt when President Trump signed an executive memorandum directing the Corps to expedite the permitting consideration.

The Corps subsequently approved the river crossing on Feb. 7, and suspended its environmental review.

Construction resumed.

Even as protest camps clear out, the Standing Rock Sioux and their allies have doubled down on their legal fight against the pipeline. Since the president's executive action, numerous lawsuits have been filed seeking to halt construction or block oil from flowing through the pipeline should it be completed.

In an amicus brief filed in U.S. District Court earlier this month, the leadership of the 16 federally recognized Indian tribes located in North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska - a group known as The Great Plains Tribal Chairmen's Association - wrote in opposition to the pipeline.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, they argued, cannot be understood without considering the history of the federal government abusing tribal sovereignty:

"From this history, a pattern emerges wherein the United States consistently utilizes the legal narrative of the time to segregate, take from, and discriminate against Indian tribes. [The Dakota Access Pipeline] is simply the latest example of Native peoples of the Great Plains being subjected to varying legal standards and shifting political winds to justify the subordination of Indian treaty rights to non-Indian pecuniary interests.

"... In addition to the irreparable harm to the free exercise of Native religious beliefs ... there is also irreparable harm in the form of historical trauma and psychological distress which stems from the consistent failure of the United States to live up to its obligations under its Treaties with Indian tribes generally, and under its Treaties with the Great Sioux Nation here specifically. Treaties matter."

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Protesters Leave Dakota Access Pipeline Area; Some Stay And Are Arrested

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Local law enforcement officers have arrested some people who chose not to evacuate federal land near part of the Dakota Access Pipeline north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Most protesters had left earlier. At dusk, police moved back, and said they would not enter the camp at that time.

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Stop Dakota Access Pipeline Construction

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Army Blocks Dakota Access Pipeline Construction After Protests

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Obama Blocks Current Route of the Dakota Access Pipeline

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President Barack Obama on #NoDAPL and Dakota Access Pipeline

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President Barack Obama is asked about the Dakota Access Pipeline and the #NoDAPL movement at Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) town hall in Laos. September 7, 2016. From the transcript: Q I'm from the state of Sabah in Malaysia. My question is, in solidarity with the indigenous people in -- not my country, but in America itself.

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Only a few dozen people remained at the Dakota Access pipeline protest encampment on Wednesday night after the state's eviction deadline saw most of the activists leave voluntarily amid a show of force from law enforcement in riot gear.

Ten activists were arrested on the road near the camp, but police did not enter the camp, according to the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, who spoke at a press conference Wednesday evening. Burgum said the eviction had gone "very smoothly" and that he expected the government to have "unfettered access to the camp starting tomorrow".

The closure of Oceti Sakowin, the central camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, by officials in the state marks yet another blow to the movement that attracted indigenous activists and environmentalists from across the globe to demonstrate against the oil pipeline.

In the final hours, some holdouts set fires to structures at the camp where thousands have built tipis, yurts, huts and massive shelters in recent months.

According to police officials and a witness, an explosion also ignited at the camp during the tense standoff with police. A seven-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl were taken in an ambulance to a hospital for burns, according to the Morton County sheriff's office. The 17-year-old was airlifted to Minnesota with "severe" burns, according to Burgum.

The cause of the explosion and severity of the injuries remain unclear. Sean Sullivan, a navy veteran from California, who recently returned to Standing Rock with a group of vets, said he saw the explosion inside a tipi and he helped the two to safety.

"I was 25ft away," he said by phone. "There was a lot of screaming and panic."

As the afternoon deadline passed, a group remained at camp, some singing and praying as police closed in. A sheriff's spokeswoman told the Guardian that police had begun taking activists into custody after 4pm local time and that roughly ten people had been arrested.

"Some people are trying to do final cleanup, and there are still people there who are going to remain until they are removed," Stephanie Big Eagle, a member of the Yankton Sioux tribe, said Wednesday morning."I'm worried for their safety, we all are. We're praying for them."

After leaving Oceti, she and others gathered on Wednesday morning at Sacred Stone, a separate anti-pipeline camp nearby.

Law enforcement officers set up extensive blockades and checkpoints in the area, following orders from Burgum and US army corps of engineers officials that the camp be evacuated. Dave Archambault II, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which is leading the courtroom fight to block the pipeline, has also supported the evacuation effort, sparking an intense backlash from other activists.

State and tribal officials have claimed that they fear flooding could endanger campers and possibly contaminate the nearby Missouri river, though the activists, who call themselves water protectors, have argued that the government is trying to quash the huge movement against the $3.7bn oil pipeline.

"Just because we're getting removed from that area doesn't mean it's over," said Big Eagle. "We just have to continue to work together as a whole for this common cause, which is protection of Mother Earth."

The eviction comes less than a month after Donald Trump ordered an expedited approval of the pipeline, reversing the Obama administration's last-minute decision to halt the project. The Standing Rock tribe and its supporters have long argued that the pipeline, which is routed upstream of the reservation, threatens its water supply and sacred sites.

Sioux leaders argue that indigenous people have treaty rights to the land where the Oceti camp is located - on property that the army corps now controls.

"People are crying and leaving in their cars," said Sullivan, describing those he saw who chose to leave before the arrests. "It's very emotional."

Law enforcement - which has faced widespread criticism for using excessive force during demonstrations - has begun aggressively prosecuting and investigating the remaining indigenous activists since Trump's inauguration.

"I'm praying for no loss of life. I'm praying that no one gets hurt," said Floris White Bull, a 33-year-old Standing Rock member who stayed at her home just south of the camps on Wednesday. "I know for a fact that every single person that's going to be forcibly removed ... is going to be traumatized and suffer distress. That's not easy."

North Dakota officials said the government would give hotel and meal vouchers to activists who vacated, along with a bus ticket out of state.

"We're saving taxpayer dollars any time we can buy a bus ticket and a hotel room rather than put people through the legal system," Burgum said.

Ernesto Burbank, a member of the Diné tribe in Arizona, who has been at the camps on and off since last August, said many were surprised to see that someone had set a structure on fire. He said he didn't support people setting fires on sacred grounds, but understood people's emotions were high.

"These are individual people dealing with PTSD, dealing with sleep deprivation ... people constantly being intimidated by officers," he said by phone from Sacred Stone on Wednesday morning. "They are losing a place that is home. They don't know how else to channel their frustration."

Burbank, 35, said he hoped the momentum of Standing Rock, which attracted an unprecedented gathering of indigenous tribes, would not be lost.

"We can defeat the black snake," he said, referencing the nickname for the pipeline that many use at Standing Rock. "It may not be today or tomorrow, but we can."

White Bull said she hoped the campaign to push banks to divest from the pipeline would continue even if the Oceti camp was removed.

"I think it's just the beginning of a global awakening," she said, noting that similar camps had emerged in other communities to battle pipelines. "People are becoming more conscious of their choices and their own voice ... and realizing the power in unity."
Topics

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Police make arrests at Standing Rock in push to evict remaining activists

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Only a few dozen people remained at the Dakota Access pipeline protest encampment on Wednesday night after the state's eviction deadline saw most of the activists leave voluntarily amid a show of force from law enforcement in riot gear.

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"It's about our rights as native people to this land. It's about our rights to worship. It's about our rights to be able to call a place home, and it's our rights to water" 

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"It's about our rights as native people to this land. It's about our rights to worship. It's about our rights to be able to call a place home, and it's our rights to water" 

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In North Dakota, work has stopped on one section of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Still, over the weekend protesters continued to stream into camps set up near the construction site.

One protest camp is about an hour's drive south of Bismarck. A prairie there is covered with tepees, tents and RVs. Flags from tribes around the country line the dirt road into the camp.

"We brought a ton of water, sleeping bags, mats to sleep on," says Jessie Weahkee of Albuquerque. She traveled 17 hours from Albuquerque to bring a moving truck full of donations for the hundreds of people who are now living at the camp.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposes the pipeline because the route crosses sacred sites and burial places. They're also concerned that if the pipeline ruptures it could pollute local drinking water.

Weahkee says her family faced a similar situation back home. They opposed plans to build a highway through Petroglyph National Monument, but they lost that battle. So she's here - hoping the Standing Rock Sioux can win this one.

For her, this protest is about more than opposing an oil pipeline. "It's about our rights as native people to this land. It's about our rights to worship. It's about our rights to be able to call a place home, and it's our rights to water," she says.

The company Energy Transfer Partners thought it had all the approval it needed to build the 1,172-mile-long, $3.78 billion pipeline.

Last Friday, a federal judge rejected a request from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to stop construction. But then the Obama administration stepped in and stopped construction on federal land. In a statement, the administration also asked the company to voluntarily stop construction within 20 miles of the section on federal land.

The tribe says the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers should have done a better job consulting with tribal leaders before approving construction. Now the Corps will go back and determine whether it should reconsider any of the conclusions the agency made that led to approving the pipeline.

The administration's decision was a win for the tribe and its supporters, but it's just a temporary halt to construction. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe wants a permanent halt.

Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to NPR's request for an interview. A group that supports the pipeline, Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, was critical of the Obama administration's move in a statement, calling it "deeply troubling" and saying it could have a chilling effect on infrastructure development in the U.S.

If the protests stall the pipeline's completion, the big losers could be oil drillers in North Dakota. Because of a production boom, they are producing more oil than the state can use and that pushes down the prices they get.

The Dakota Access pipeline would transport about 470,000 barrels of crude a day from western North Dakota down to central Illinois. Without the pipeline, drillers may have to discount the price they get for oil so it could be shipped by train.

And beyond that pipeline, supporters point out that shipping crude by pipeline is almost always safer than shipping it by train.

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N.D. Pipeline Protester: 'It's About Our Rights As Native People'

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In North Dakota, work has stopped on one section of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Still, over the weekend protesters continued to stream into camps set up near the construction site. One protest camp is about an hour's drive south of Bismarck. A prairie there is covered with tepees, tents and RVs.

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Dakota Access Pipeline Protests Continue On Thanksgiving Day

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Opponents of a 1,200-mile oil pipeline from North Dakota are marking this Thanksgiving Day at the site of a planned river crossing near Lake Oahe. Protesters say the pipeline could damage local drinking water sources and Native American heritage sites. The pipeline's developers say the project will have big economic benefits.

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A US judge has rejected a request from two Native American tribes to halt construction on the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline.

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A US judge has rejected a request from two Native American tribes to halt construction on the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline.

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A US judge has rejected a request from two Native American tribes to halt construction on the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline.

The final stretch of the $3.8bn (£3bn) pipeline is being built under a North Dakota reservoir.

The Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes have filed a lawsuit against the pipeline, saying it endangers their drinking water.

They also say the pipeline will damage sacred burial sites.

Trump backs Keystone XL and Dakota Access

Dakota Pipeline: What's behind the controversy?

The pipeline, when complete, is expected to transport about 470,000 barrels of crude oil a day from North Dakota to a terminal in Illinois, where it can be shipped to refineries.

The developer, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) has completed most of the pipeline, and began work on the final section after the army gave it permission to proceed on Wednesday.

The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River tribes asked for a temporary injunction against construction, pending a lawsuit against the pipeline.

They argued that the pipeline would hurt their water supply, and prevent them from practicing religious ceremonies at the lake.

However, developer ETP and the army argued against an emergency injunction, saying there was time for the lawsuit to be heard before oil began to flow through the pipeline.

Construction on the pipeline had stalled for months due to opposition from protesters.

Thousands of predominantly Native American protesters have demonstrated against the pipeline's construction and set up camps along the final stretch.

Nearly 700 people have been arrested since protests first began last year, according to law enforcement officials.

The Obama administration announced in September that it would not allow the project to proceed, but Donald Trump overturned the decision in one of his first acts as US president.

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A US judge has rejected a request from two Native American tribes to halt construction on the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline. The final stretch of the $3.8bn (£3bn) pipeline is being built under a North Dakota reservoir. The Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes have filed a lawsuit against the pipeline, saying it endangers their drinking water.