Dennis Ward
APTN National News
Thousands of supporters of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota are anxiously awaiting for a U.S. Federal Court judge to deliver a key ruling on the Dakota Access pipeline whether the construction project will be stopped.
People at the camp say the four-state, $3.8 billion dollar project which would carry over 500,000 barrels per day of fracked oil from the Bakken shale fields in North Dakota to Illinois threatens the area’s drinking water source and has already disrupted sacred sites.
The camp has been in place since April. Last Saturday there was a clash between demonstrators s and pipeline company security forces using dogs and pepper spray.
Ahead of Friday’s decision, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrympl called in the National Guard to augment the local county and police force. The National Guard was seen Friday manning a barricade on the highway that leads to the Sacred Stone camp.
Although a ruling on an injunction is expected sometime Friday, some are calling for U.S. President Barack Obama to intervene.
Obama visited Standing Rock in 2014.
Cara Currie Hall, an Obama supporter who campaigned for him during the 2012 election, met the president at the time.
“He has the executive authority to intervene and live up to his words,” said Currie Hall. “Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to be like everybody else, you know. It’s all rhetoric.”
Currie Hall said what’s happening in Standing Rock is changing the dialogue on energy resources and Indigenous Nations.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said he’d rule by the end of Friday on the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s request to block the project.
The lead developer, Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, says modern technology allows quick detection of leaks. Pipeline supporters also say it would cut the amount of oil that travels by train.
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