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CONSTRUCTION began yesterday on an oil pipeline through Native American land that has sparked huge protests in the US.
About 50 protests erupted on Wednesday night, including one outside the White House, after Energy Transfer Partners announced it was to start building.
Earlier on Wednesday the US Army Corps of Engineers, the federal authority on the Lakota Sioux’s Standing Rock reservation, gave approval for the $3.8 billion (£3 billion) project.
Work was stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux — leading to mass mobilisation against the pipeline — as well as a prolonged court battle between the developer and the Army Corps of Engineers that oversees the federal land where the last segment of the pipeline is now being laid.
The Cheyenne River Sioux asked a federal judge yesterday to stop the Lake Oahe work while a lawsuit filed earlier by the two tribes against the pipeline proceeds. Attorney Nicole Ducheneaux said in court documents that the pipeline “will desecrate the waters upon which Cheyenne River Sioux tribal members rely.”
The army pledged in December to examine an alternative route around the reservation, but late last month President Donald Trump instructed the engineer corps to approve the original route.
North Dakota Republican Senator John Hoeven, announcing the go-ahead for the scheme, said: “Now, we all need to work together to make sure the project is completed safely and with as little disruption to the community as possible.”
Protesters in Chicago targeted a bank, and another group went to an Army Corps of Engineers office in New York City but was asked to leave when they started filming without a permit.
Several people were arrested for blocking public access to a federal building in San Francisco.
“Today begins the next phase of mass resistance to Donald Trump’s toxic Dakota Access pipeline,” said Indigenous Environmental Network executive director Dallas Goldtooth.
“This is our land, our water, our health, and our culture at stake — and if Donald Trump thinks we will give all of that up without a fight he is wrong.”
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