Meet the Texas billionaire and GOP donor behind the North Dakota pipeline controversy

[guno]

Hopefully these pale faces get what is due them


Over the Labor Day weekend, security guards for a petro pipeline company used attack dogs and pepper spray against Native Americans resisting construction of a $3.8 billion pipeline through North Dakota, a project they say is desecrating land sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and putting critical water supplies at risk of contamination.

If completed, the Dakota Access Pipeline would carry crude from the nearby Bakken oilfields to Illinois, where it would meet an existing pipeline that would transport the oil to Texas. That's the home state of the billionaire and major Republican political donor behind the project: Kelcy Warren, chair of Energy Transfer Equity of Dallas, a company that's No. 65 on this year's Fortune 500 list.

Meet the Texas billionaire and GOP donor behind the North Dakota pipeline controversy

 

[waltky]

Pipeline is less hazardous than transport by train...

The Real Story: The Dakota Access Pipeline
October 24, 2016 - The Dakota Access pipeline is a 1700 kilometer (1100 Mile) pipeline that is intended to transport the 400,000 barrels of oil that are coming from the Bakken and Three Forks oil fields in the U.S. State of North Dakota every day. Currently most of that oil is transported by train.

The oil is a product of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in the region and the pipeline would make it's way across four U.S. states, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, then end up in Patoka, Illinois. From there, other pipelines can re-route it all over the country to shipping ports and refineries.

Protesters demonstrate against the Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access oil pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota​

The company building the pipeline is Dakota Access LLC, and they are an offshoot of a larger company called Energy Transfer that controls about 114,000 kilometers (71000 m) of pipeline that crisscrosses the United States. The company has been building the pipeline since 2016 and according to Catherine Collentine from the Sierra Club it's more than half complete. Currently most of the oil in the region is transported to market by rail, and Dakota access says "there are other pipelines in the area..." but this new pipeline will ease an overburdened rail system, "thus increasing overall safety to the public and environment."

Why the protests?

But no doubt you've also heard or read something about the protests that are taking place around the building of the pipeline. This weekend dozens of people were arrested when they trespassed on private property that is in the pipelines right of way. Local police also confirmed that a drone flying above the scene of the protests was shot at by law enforcement officials. What is going on here? Well These protests, the pipeline and the pipeline building process involved is worth taking some time to understand. Because we here at VOA think it says a lot about the good and bad of American infrastructure, and democracy.

Proposed route for the Dakota Access Pipeline​

Native Americans have been protesting the building of the pipeline for nearly two years. But they ratcheted up in intensity in July when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers granted the builders a permit allowing the pipeline to cross under the Missouri River at a place called Lake Oahe, which is just about half a mile North of the the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation. The Indians are protesting for a number of reasons. The first is that they get their water from the Missouri River and any oil spill puts their supply at risk. Second, the construction will dig up, and in fact may already have dug up areas the Sioux claim are sacred archaeological and burial sites. And finally, the Standing Rock Sioux say they weren't consulted by the Army Corps when they were investigating the pipeline.

MORE

 

[Claudette]

Yup and were those Native Americans on the construction site??

 

[guno]

Yup and were those Native Americans on the construction site??

Native Americans resisting construction of a $3.8 billion pipeline through North Dakota, a project they say is desecrating land sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux .

The big fight over the Dakota Access Pipeline, explained

 

[westwall]

Hopefully these pale faces get what is due them


Over the Labor Day weekend, security guards for a petro pipeline company used attack dogs and pepper spray against Native Americans resisting construction of a $3.8 billion pipeline through North Dakota, a project they say is desecrating land sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and putting critical water supplies at risk of contamination.

If completed, the Dakota Access Pipeline would carry crude from the nearby Bakken oilfields to Illinois, where it would meet an existing pipeline that would transport the oil to Texas. That's the home state of the billionaire and major Republican political donor behind the project: Kelcy Warren, chair of Energy Transfer Equity of Dallas, a company that's No. 65 on this year's Fortune 500 list.

Meet the Texas billionaire and GOP donor behind the North Dakota pipeline controversy

And lookey here the shrilary is all in favor of it going through. I wonder how much cash she demanded for her surrender

 

[ABikerSailor]

You know, there are several reasons why I'm against this pipeline.............

Number one, it goes through Native American lands that were promised to them by this government, and it's THEIR LAND. They should have a right to say what is and isn't allowed there. Eminent domain be damned, because it's not being used for government purposes but rather for commercial enterprises to make money for a few.

And the second reason is because it goes across the Ogalala Aquifer, which supplies water for almost all of the midwest, both drinking and agriculture. If that oil was to leak, because it's tar sands oil, it will SINK in water, and contaminate the whole thing.

No. We don't need another pipeline, especially where they want to put it.