By Michael Howell
About one hundred “water protectors” demonstrated in Hamilton last Tuesday in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and their resistance to the North Dakota Access Pipeline Project. Similar actions took place in towns and cities across the country in response to a call for support from the tribe.
Energy Transfer Partners, the company installing the pipeline, has announced its intentions to finish the project despite the protests. One more permit from the Army Corps of Engineers is needed to allow for tunneling beneath Lake Oahe on the Missouri River. Tribal members are concerned about the desecration of sacred sites and artifacts and the threat posed to the tribe’s drinking water. Tensions continue to mount at the site in North Dakota. According to news reports, last Sunday water cannons and tear gas were used on demonstrators, injuring as many as 160 people. One arrest was made.
Sarah Monson, one of the organizers of the Hamilton demonstration, said that she and Suzanne Shope decided when they heard the tribe’s call for support to put an invitation on Facebook for people to meet at the corner of Highway 93 and Main Street in Hamilton.
“The response was incredible,” said Monson.
Monson said that the tribal members at Standing Rock are being abused.
“They have been shot with rubber bullets, sprayed with pepper spray, and hosed down in cold water in freezing temperatures,” she said. “Everyone I have spoken to that has gone there has the same story – these are PEACEFUL PEOPLE trying desperately to protect a water source that millions of people use. They are holding dances, prayer ceremonies, and refusing to move out of the way of a company who will poison them and millions of other people.”
Monson said that pipelines leak and break so it’s not a matter of ‘if’ the pipeline leaks, only a matter of when.
“It is everyone’s basic human right to have access to clean water – and that right should never be taken away,” said Monson. “We need to protect this Earth, we need to support what these brave men and women are doing to protect their water. I think the fact that treaties are being broken again is bringing a lot of people out. We can’t go on just repeating history like this and trampling on native people’s rights.”