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Oahe dam and DAPL pipeline
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/09/us/dakota-access-pipeline-protests.html?_r=0
Fifty years ago, hers was one of hundreds of Native American families whose homes and land were inundated by rising waters after the Army Corps of Engineers built the Oahe Dam along the Missouri River, part of a huge midcentury public-works project approved by Congress to provide electricity and tame the river’s floods.
To Ms. Bailey, 76, and thousands of other tribal members who lived along the river’s length, the project was a cultural catastrophe, residents and historians say. It displaced families, uprooted cemeteries and swamped lands where tribes grazed cattle, drove wagons and gathered wild grapes and medicinal tea.
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“Even though it’s been more than half a century, they still feel this loss,” said Michael L. Lawson, the author of “Dammed Indians,” a history of the government’s dam projects along the Missouri. He said about 56,000 acres of Standing Rock Sioux land had been condemned for the dams and 190 families relocated. Theirs was one of 23 reservations affected by the project.
“Just about every part of their economy and living situation was impacted,” Mr. Lawson said. “They lost their most important resources in the bottom lands.”
To Ms. Bailey, 76, and thousands of other tribal members who lived along the river’s length, the project was a cultural catastrophe, residents and historians say. It displaced families, uprooted cemeteries and swamped lands where tribes grazed cattle, drove wagons and gathered wild grapes and medicinal tea.
~~~
“Even though it’s been more than half a century, they still feel this loss,” said Michael L. Lawson, the author of “Dammed Indians,” a history of the government’s dam projects along the Missouri. He said about 56,000 acres of Standing Rock Sioux land had been condemned for the dams and 190 families relocated. Theirs was one of 23 reservations affected by the project.
“Just about every part of their economy and living situation was impacted,” Mr. Lawson said. “They lost their most important resources in the bottom lands.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oahe_Dam
As a result of the dam's construction the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation lost 150,000 acres (61,000 hectares) bringing it down to 2,850,000 acres (1,150,000 ha) today. Standing Rock Reservation lost 55,993 acres (22,660 ha) leaving it with 2,300,000 acres (930,000 ha). Much of the land was taken by eminent domain claims made by the Bureau of Reclamation. Over and above the land loss, most of the reservations' prime agricultural land was included in the loss. The loss of this land had a dramatic effect on the Indians who lived on the reservations. Most of the land was unable to be harvested (to allow the trees to be cut down for wood, etc.) before the land was flooded over with water.[4] One visitor to the reservations later asked why there were so few older Indians on the reservations, and was told that "the old people had died of heartache" after the construction of the dam and the loss of the reservations' land.[5] As of 2015, poverty remains a problem for the displaced populations in the Dakotas, who are still seeking compensation for the loss of the towns submerged under Lake Oahe, and the loss of their traditional ways of life.[6]
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/08/15/dakota-access-pipeline-standoff-mni-wiconi-water-life-165470
On July 26, 2016 the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was stunned to learn that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had given its approval for the pipeline to run within a half-mile of the reservation without proper consultation or consent. Also, the new 1,172 mile Dakota Access Pipeline will cross Lake Oahe (formed by Oahe Dam on the Missouri) and the Missouri River as well, and disturb burial grounds and sacred sites on the tribe’s ancestral Treaty lands, according to Dakota Access, LLC.
Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners will build, own and operate the proposed $3.78 billion Dakota Access Pipeline and plans to transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil fracked from the Bakken oil fields across four states to a market hub in Illinois. The pipeline—already facing widespread opposition by a coalition of farmers, ranchers and environmental groups—will cross 209 rivers, creeks and tributaries, according to Dakota Access, LLC.
Standing Rock Sioux leaders say the pipeline will threaten the Missouri River, the tribe’s main source of drinking and irrigation water, and forever destroy burial grounds and sacred sites.
Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners will build, own and operate the proposed $3.78 billion Dakota Access Pipeline and plans to transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude oil fracked from the Bakken oil fields across four states to a market hub in Illinois. The pipeline—already facing widespread opposition by a coalition of farmers, ranchers and environmental groups—will cross 209 rivers, creeks and tributaries, according to Dakota Access, LLC.
Standing Rock Sioux leaders say the pipeline will threaten the Missouri River, the tribe’s main source of drinking and irrigation water, and forever destroy burial grounds and sacred sites.
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