CANNON BALL, NORTH DAKOTA-- On September 4, 2016, over Labor Day Weekend, thousands of people over 200 Native Nations remain gathered at Sacred Stone Camp to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. If built, the Pipeline would carry crude oil upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Construction of the pipeline has already begun in some areas and has damaged sacred sites.
The clearing of land by the Dakota Access Pipeline corporation on September 3rd has irreparably harmed Native historic and sacred sites. “Dakota Access Pipeline and Energy Transfer Partners brazenly used bulldozers to destroy our burial sites, prayer sites and culturally significant artifacts,” Tribal Chairman David Archambault II said. Working on a Saturday, the corporation scraped away soil and damaged sacred sites along a 150 foot corridor running more than a mile. This happened the day after Standing Rock Sioux notified officials in Washington, DC, of the existence and importance of those sites.
Photo by Emma Cassidy | Survival Media Agency