Hundreds of protesters have joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in their effort to block construction of the pipeline they say threatens water supplies and sacred sites. Follow our live coverage.
Here’s what’s happening:
- Seattle Times environment reporter Lynda Mapes and Times photographer Alan Berner are on the ground through the end of the week to report on protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline near Bismarck, N.D.
- Hundreds of protesters have joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in their effort to block construction of the pipeline they say threatens water supplies and sacred sites.
- American Indian tribes in Washington state on Tuesday called on President Obama to overhaul the way the federal government consults with tribes on fossil-fuel export and other projects. Also on Tuesday, the Obama administration asked for the second time that Energy Transfer Partners stand down on the Dakota Access Pipeline, to no avail.
- Read our primer on what’s going on with the oil pipeline. And here’s what we’re reading about the project and the region’s history.
- Read news updates from Thursday.
This is a live account of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests on Oct. 28.
Update, 2:58 p.m.:
The Morton Country Sheriff’s Department streamed a live press conference.
— Andrew MacRae
Update, 1:41 p.m.:
Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has issued a statement regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline calling for “path forward that serves the broadest public interest.”
— Andrew MacRae
Update, 12:35 p.m.:
Former presidential candidate and current Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has sent a letter to President Obama asking that he “intervene to protect Native Americans peacefully protesting.” In his letter, he also requests that pipeline construction be suspended “until the Army Corps of Engineers completes a full cultural and environmental review.”
— Andrew MacRae
Update, 11:42 a.m.:
The standoff between protesters and law-enforcement officers has been defused by an elder who persuaded protesters to dismantle barricades, throw rocks piled on the road back into the river, and walk away from a fight with police from six states mobilized against them.
Dragging plywood to the side of the road, demonstrators with faces sooted from burned trucks they used as a barricade worked steadily to reopen Highway 1806.
“I didn’t want anybody to get killed, that would have broken my heart,” said Miles Allard, 68, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa elder who negotiated the truce.
His long white hair blew in the wind as he stood on the bridge that police had pushed demonstrators back to in a show of force that started Thursday morning. The confrontation went on through the night and lasted until the stand-down shortly after 1 p.m. local time Friday.
Law-enforcement officers remained on the scene, weapons down, waiting for demonstrators to clear the bridge so it could be inspected for safety, the smoking wrecks of burned trucks hauled away and the road reopened for traffic.
“I am a common man, a man of prayer. We live our lives in peace and nonviolence,” Allard said.
As an elder he said he felt he had to step in as tensions appeared to be mounting to a final showdown. “I’m an elder, simple as that,” Allard said. “They either listen to me or they shouldn’t be here,” he said of demonstrators, who call themselves Water Protectors.
A lifelong resident of the Standing Rock reservation, he said the tribe is not backing down from its opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“If we use violence we will lose. The only way to win this is by prayer.”
— Lynda Mapes, Seattle Times environment reporter
Update, 11:24 a.m.:
Despite spotty cellphone coverage, and what some of the commenters on social media have called a “media blackout,” more than 20,000 people were tuning in to the Dakota Pipeline Protest yesterday via Facebook Live video.
The service has exploded in popularity due in part to Buzzfeed’s experiments. One frequent streamer from the Standing Rock protest site is a man identified as Atsa E’sha Hoverer.
He has already posted several live streams today; however, the cell service seems to be disrupting continuous feeds.
— Andrew MacRae
Update, 10:58 a.m.:
Tribal members are tearing down their barricade on Highway 1806, throwing rocks back down into the river. They are standing down in the conflict.
— Lynda Mapes, Seattle Times environment reporter
Update, 10:30 a.m.:
Tensions remain high in Cannon Ball, N.D., Friday morning, as the standoff between protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline and police continues.
Law-enforcement officers have brought five armored personnel carriers to the scene and placed a concrete barricade across Highway 1806, facing off against demonstrators blocking the road opposite them with two still-smoking trucks they have burned down to the bare metal.
Officers are now marching down the highway toward demonstrators, and three school buses wait in the distance to transport those detained or arrested.
Authorities are warning protesters that if they do not disperse they will be removed by force.
The Morton County Sheriff’s Department said 141 people were arrested Thursday after officers began pushing protesters from private land owned by the pipeline developers.
— Lynda Mapes, Seattle Times environment reporter