0:02

We're continuing our series today on

0:04

the increasing global criminalization

0:06

of protest. It's a

0:08

look at what's happening now

0:11

with the protest that the

0:13

fossil fuel industry, politicians and

0:15

police often cite

0:17

as the reason that we

0:19

need new laws against protest

0:21

in the United States. Standing

0:25

Rock. The protests on

0:27

the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North

0:29

and South Dakota took place from April 2016

0:31

to February 2017. The

0:36

Standing Rock Sioux tribe and thousands

0:38

of allies protested against a project

0:40

called the Dakota Access Pipeline or

0:43

DAPL, a 1,172 mile long pipeline

0:45

running from the Bakken oil

0:50

fields in western North Dakota to

0:53

southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri

0:56

and Mississippi rivers. Many

1:00

members of the Standing Rock tribe and

1:02

surrounding communities said the pipeline was a

1:04

serious threat to the region's drinking water.

1:08

The construction also directly threatened

1:10

burial grounds and cultural sites

1:12

of historic importance. Although you'll

1:14

hear in this episode that

1:16

both the company in charge of the

1:18

project, Energy Transfer, and

1:20

the U.S. government have at various

1:22

times claimed otherwise. The

1:26

DAPL fight has been a real roller

1:28

coaster, and it might surprise some of

1:30

you to hear that despite

1:32

the fact that construction on the pipeline

1:35

was completed in April 2017, the

1:39

Army Corps of Engineers only just

1:41

this year, in September 2023,

1:43

six years later, released

1:48

its Environmental Impact Statement, or

1:50

EIS, on the project. You

1:54

might remember that back in 2016, December 2016

1:56

to be exact, The

2:00

Army Corps of Engineers announced that they

2:02

would deny the easement to drill

2:04

under the Missouri River and

2:07

would conduct an EIS. Energy

2:10

transfer criticized the Obama administration

2:12

when that came out, calling

2:15

it political interference, and saying that

2:17

further delay in the consideration of

2:19

this case would add millions of

2:22

dollars more each month in costs

2:24

that could not be recovered. When

2:27

former President Trump took office just

2:30

a month later in January 2017,

2:32

he issued an executive order overturning

2:35

everything that the Army Corps had

2:37

said, and lifting all blocks

2:40

to pipeline construction. The

2:42

tribe sued, and in 2020 a

2:44

U.S. federal judge ruled with them.

2:47

They said the government had

2:49

not studied the pipeline's effects

2:51

on the quality of the

2:53

human environment enough. They

2:55

ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to

2:57

go ahead with its Environmental Impact Review.

3:00

There was a lot of legal back

3:02

and forth after that, but ultimately all

3:04

the courts agreed on the need for

3:06

an environmental review. That includes the Supreme

3:08

Court. Despite all of

3:10

those rulings, the pipeline has

3:12

remained operational this whole time, transporting

3:15

over 500,000 barrels per day. After

3:23

it released the draft EIS in

3:25

September this year, the Army Corps

3:28

of Engineers scheduled a public hearing

3:30

on it in Bismarck, North Dakota

3:32

in November. Our

3:34

senior editor for this series, Allie

3:36

Brown, who's been reporting on Standing

3:39

Rock and BAPL since 2016, was

3:41

there to hear what everyone had to say. Today

3:44

she brings us that story, and

3:47

also a look at the impact

3:49

that anti-protest tactics used to shut

3:51

down what was happening at Standing

3:54

Rock, and lots of other

3:56

protocols since then, have had on communities.

4:00

whether we should start to think about

4:02

those impacts as part of an environmental

4:04

impact as well, particularly when

4:06

we're looking at indigenous communities

4:09

for whom these tactics

4:11

really trigger historical generational

4:13

trauma. The public

4:15

comment period for this environmental impact statement

4:18

closes next week, December 13th, 2023. Welcome

4:23

back to Drilled, the real

4:25

free speech thread. I'm

4:28

Amy Westervelt. After the break, Aline Brown

4:30

takes us to North Dakota. Hey,

4:33

it's Amy. If

4:41

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more. I

9:47

know, I was just gonna say the same thing. True.

9:51

I'm in North Dakota, on a hill

9:53

overlooking the Cannonball River. I'm

9:56

surrounded by rolling land dusted

9:58

with snow, under a gray

10:00

sky. This land

10:02

is unseated treaty territory, meaning

10:05

it was never given up or seeded

10:07

by the Ochchatee Shaquan people that have

10:09

lived here for generations. I'm

10:12

standing with a handful of water protectors from

10:14

the tribal nation of Standing Rock over

10:17

a small fire. Army

10:19

Corps of Engineers is doing what they call

10:22

corralling. So it's gonna be a single line

10:24

in and they're gonna

10:26

corrallis end. There's gonna be booths with

10:28

curtains and a stenographer and

10:30

a mic. It's not gonna be like your typical hearing

10:32

that we're used to. Today,

10:35

water protectors are being invited by the

10:37

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to

10:39

a public hearing to share their comments on

10:41

the draft environmental impact statement for

10:44

the Dakota Access Pipeline, known

10:46

as DAPL. The pipeline

10:49

has been operating since 2017. And

10:53

then you make it as personal as possible.

10:56

You talk about how or where you grew

10:58

up and how the Missouri River is connected

11:01

to you. For

11:03

over seven years, the people gathered here have

11:05

been fighting to stop the pipeline. Some

11:08

of them camped on this very spot in 2016

11:11

in a resistance camp that was a jumping off

11:13

point for direct action protests

11:15

meant to stop construction. Police

11:19

and private security responded with

11:21

dogs, tear gas,

11:24

water hoses, aerial surveillance,

11:27

infiltration of their movement spaces,

11:30

radio eavesdropping, and mass

11:32

arrests. Like

11:34

we do know and we did confirm that

11:37

private security is

11:41

there along with North Dakota law enforcement.

11:44

After the pipeline was complete, the camps

11:46

shut down and the cameras left. But

11:50

Standing Rock and other tribes continued to

11:52

fight in court. In

11:54

2020, a judge agreed with the tribes.

11:57

He revoked the permit that allowed the pipeline to...

12:00

the Missouri River and he

12:02

ordered an environmental impact statement.

12:04

That report is

12:06

seven years late but

12:08

it also represents one of the few

12:10

pathways left to stop the pipeline. I

12:13

can't speak for any other

12:15

elder but I'm kind of

12:18

getting up there and I just want to say I'm

12:20

really proud of all of you. Really proud

12:23

of all of you and that's all I

12:25

can say. I'm always proud

12:27

of all of you. Catch you.

12:40

And we're off. I'm in a line of

12:42

about one, two, three,

12:45

four, five, six cars.

12:47

We've got our

12:49

blinkers on and we're headed

12:51

to the public hearings.

12:55

Right now our cars are crossing over the

12:58

precise site where the Dakota Access

13:00

Pipeline is buried. At a certain

13:04

point there were encampments all

13:06

the way up to that

13:08

spot where the pipeline route

13:10

is. Eventually that was

13:12

pushed back but the place where

13:15

you know over

13:17

10,000 people were camped at one point

13:19

is right where folks had a fire

13:21

and were praying. I

13:27

had a chance to read the EIS before I came out

13:29

here. After years

13:32

of researching the environmental harms associated

13:34

with pipelines like this one, I

13:36

was pretty surprised to hear the Army Corps

13:38

suggest that removing the pipeline would

13:41

be more environmentally harmful than

13:43

allowing the oil to continue pumping under

13:45

one of Standing Rock's primary drinking water

13:47

sources. The

13:49

EIS says that a major spill under

13:52

the Missouri River is remote to

13:54

unlikely. As for

13:56

climate change, this document claims that

13:58

allowing the pipeline to continue on operating

14:00

as it is, would quote, not

14:03

generate any direct greenhouse gas

14:05

emissions with the exception of

14:07

a minor amount of emissions

14:09

associated with pipeline maintenance activities.

14:12

That's because the Army Corps is only

14:14

taking into account the emissions generated by

14:17

the pipeline itself, not by

14:19

the activity it enables, burning

14:21

fossil fuels. Finally,

14:27

it claims there are simply no

14:29

historic properties, like sacred sites,

14:31

for example, in the

14:33

area being studied. A couple

14:36

of nights before the hearing, I sat

14:38

down with Onorata Defender and Jonathan Edwards

14:40

to talk about the EIS. Onorata

14:43

is a journalist for the local

14:45

Corsons Sioux County news messenger, and

14:47

Jonathan is a former paramedic. They're

14:50

siblings and both members of the Standing

14:52

Rock Sioux tribe. And

14:54

they organized some of the first grassroots

14:56

meetings about the pipeline, held in

14:59

an unheated movie theater, here

15:01

in the reservation town of McLaughlin,

15:03

South Dakota. We

15:05

ate pizza at a Senex gas station with a small

15:07

table in the back. Have

15:12

you guys had a chance to look

15:15

at the draft environmental impact statement? You

15:20

have. What do you think

15:22

about it? I think

15:24

it's bull duty. It's

15:27

severely lacking in everything. It

15:32

is not a real environmental

15:34

impact statement. I

15:37

haven't read it, so. But I would

15:40

imagine it's just something that's copied and pasted

15:42

from another EIS that

15:44

they did somewhere else in another part of the

15:46

country. I don't

15:48

think it'll adequately address our

15:50

treaty rights, our sovereignty, the

15:52

effect to the water,

15:55

when the thing breaks. On

16:00

the spill response team, we

16:04

had asthma classes a

16:06

couple years ago, and yeah, we're

16:09

screwed here if there's an oil spill.

16:13

I was curious about another kind of impact that

16:15

I knew the pipeline had had. I've

16:18

spent years digging into reams of

16:20

public records and leaked documents describing

16:22

the way the pipeline company and its private

16:25

security contractor, TigerSwan, worked

16:28

with police to repress the movement. The

16:31

EIS didn't mention the emotional and

16:33

physical trauma of police repression. It

16:35

didn't mention the long-running community divisions

16:38

that a project like this can inflict.

16:41

Those kinds of long-term impacts

16:43

are common around the world

16:45

when corporations and governments force

16:47

through large polluting projects, and

16:49

they typically go unacknowledged by

16:52

regulatory processes. I

16:54

wondered what kind of

16:56

impact all that law enforcement

16:58

presence and private security presence in

17:00

a way that that is an

17:03

extension of the pipeline. What

17:06

impact has that had on, continued impact

17:08

has that had on people who were

17:10

subject to it? I know

17:13

a number of people that have

17:15

PTSD still, that suffer

17:17

from PTSD still from

17:20

what they went through because

17:23

of how TigerSwan and the police

17:25

handled everything. For

17:28

Jonathan, fighting the pipeline deepened his

17:30

distrust of public agencies that are

17:32

supposed to keep people safe. For

17:35

him, this was an intensified version of

17:37

the everyday criminalization that he

17:39

faced as a Lakota man

17:41

in white communities bordering the

17:43

reservation. I'm in a

17:45

group that's most likely to be killed by police,

17:49

Native American males, more

17:52

so than African American males.

17:55

So I think it's just

17:57

something that you expect to... personally

18:00

that I expected and it

18:04

was, it's just normal, I guess, unfortunately.

18:09

Like, gassed us, shot at us,

18:11

beat people,

18:13

you know, pointing loaded weapons

18:15

at unarmed women and children. Lot

18:20

of tear gas, asthma

18:24

now. I've

18:27

never had any breathing problems before, before I

18:30

went off there, but yeah, there's

18:33

just a lot of tear gas and

18:36

mind you for standing on our

18:38

own land. Well,

18:41

and I guess what, you know, I'm kind of thinking

18:43

about is like, if resistance

18:46

to a pipeline under

18:49

the conditions that were, in the

18:51

reality that we're living in with climate change,

18:53

with leaks, with all these things, if resistance

18:55

is inevitable and

18:57

if resistance means like this

19:01

kind of police repression, then

19:04

like isn't PTSD and the trauma

19:06

that comes with those kinds

19:08

of police confrontations. Also like

19:10

an impact of the pipeline? Yeah,

19:13

most definitely they are. Yeah,

19:17

I never thought of it that way, but now

19:19

that you bring it up, yeah, most definitely is.

19:23

Because unfortunately, I mean, these people, I

19:26

mean, they're going to be haunted for the rest

19:28

of their days. We're all going to be haunted

19:30

for the rest of our days on

19:33

the travesties that were committed there. Onorata

19:36

is clear on what she'd like to see

19:39

happen. I

19:41

would love to see them remove it. They say

19:43

that there's going to be, it would be worse.

19:46

That's what they say throughout the whole

19:48

environmental impact statement basically is that it'd

19:50

be worse for the wildlife,

19:53

it'd be worse for the habitat, it'd be

19:55

worse for the fish,

19:57

for us to... remove

20:00

the pipeline and I believe that's

20:02

so false. That's the unsharrest thing

20:05

I've ever heard. I mean they already

20:07

disrupted all of this by putting it in.

20:09

So why is it now

20:14

a big deal to remove it? She's

20:17

describing one of the strangest things about

20:19

the document. Since the

20:21

pipeline is already built, the EIS

20:23

is backward. It describes

20:25

the severe environmental harms that

20:27

would come from removing the

20:30

pipeline, which one has

20:32

to assume are basically the same harms

20:34

that would have come from putting the

20:36

thing in. I

20:39

figured Onorata and Jonathan would be at

20:41

the EIS hearing, but

20:44

Bismarck is an hour and a half away

20:46

from the town where they helped start this

20:48

movement. Onorata wasn't sure if

20:50

she'd have gas money and her

20:52

van's heat was broken. It was 25

20:55

degrees outside. Back

20:58

on the road, our caravan eventually arrived

21:01

at the Radisson, where two

21:03

days of public hearings were about to begin.

21:06

I catch up with Standing Rock tribal chair

21:08

Janet Alkire in the lobby. The

21:11

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has already dropped

21:13

out as a cooperating agency on

21:16

the EIS, and I

21:18

want to understand why. When

21:20

this pre-draft came

21:22

out, it showed

21:24

on the cover of this book

21:26

that we were a cooperating agency

21:28

with our logo. And

21:31

when they opened up, they're like,

21:33

hey, don't, you're

21:36

not giving us anything. You're redacting

21:38

everything. How is this cooperating? I

21:41

don't want our logo on this

21:43

document. I'm not supporting this document.

21:46

The pages on spill response are

21:48

heavily redacted. Janet

21:50

and others suspect it has to

21:53

do with the independent contractor that

21:55

drafted much of the EIS. came

22:00

down in 2020, the tribes

22:02

asked that, can we, since

22:06

we're in a cooperating agency, are

22:10

you going to allow us

22:12

to have some kind of say in

22:16

who this independent company is gonna

22:18

be? Months later, with little

22:21

fanfare, Army Corps

22:23

announced that they'd hired Environmental

22:26

Resources Management. Environmental

22:28

Resources Management has been accused

22:30

of conflicts of interest before, including

22:33

when it was hired by the State Department

22:35

to help draft the EIS for

22:38

the controversial Keystone XL tar sands

22:40

oil pipeline in 2012. Reporters

22:45

and environmental organizations uncovered a whole

22:47

tangle of red flags, including that

22:49

some of the Environmental Resources Management

22:51

experts who worked on the

22:54

EIS had previously worked

22:56

for the pipeline's parent company,

22:58

TransCanada, and for other

23:00

companies with a stake in KXL's construction.

23:04

There were so many red flags, in

23:06

fact, that the State Department's Office of

23:08

Inspector General investigated. Ultimately,

23:12

they concluded that none of it

23:14

amounted to a violation of the

23:16

department's conflict of interest policy. To

23:19

many critics, that was just an

23:21

indication of how truly broken the

23:23

system was. Environmental

23:26

Resources Management again came under fire

23:28

in 2018, when

23:30

another government agency, the Federal

23:32

Energy Regulatory Commission, hired

23:34

the company to monitor construction of

23:37

Enbridge's Atlantic Bridge natural gas

23:39

project. Records obtained

23:41

by DSMOG showed the agency was

23:43

aware that Environmental Resources Management had

23:45

a business relationship with Enbridge, but

23:48

hired them anyway. Environmental

23:52

Resources Management is a member of

23:55

the American Petroleum Institute,

23:57

which has long been an ardent supporter.

24:00

order of the pipeline. It's

24:02

also a member of the American

24:04

Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an

24:07

industry association that helped draft

24:09

new anti-protest laws, which

24:11

swept the nation in the wake of

24:14

the pipeline protests near the Standing

24:16

Rock Reservation in 2016 and 2017. Environmental resources management

24:22

did not respond to a request

24:24

for comment. We

24:29

knew there was a conflict of interest.

24:31

We all know what a conflict of

24:33

interest is, you know, and

24:36

so, but it, we

24:38

were just disregarded in that

24:41

decision. Yeah, and just

24:44

like we said today, everything is, box

24:46

has been checked off already. So,

24:51

and so, it sounds like the option

24:53

that the tribe prefers is sealing

24:56

it off and leaving it in

24:58

the riverbed. Okay, right, sealing it

25:00

off. We chose that

25:03

option basically not to destroy

25:05

the riverbed, you know. As

25:09

the hearing kicked off, the Army Corps laid

25:11

out the possible outcomes this EIS process could

25:13

have. At the end

25:16

of the day, after the comment period closes

25:18

on December 13th, the agency

25:20

will have to decide again whether it's going

25:22

to sign off on the pipeline's route, known

25:24

as an easement, under the Missouri River.

25:50

The federal charges, which is the applicant to

25:52

go to express LLCs, The

26:00

first alternative would be to grant the

26:03

easement with additional mitigation measures. The

26:18

last alternative as a result

26:20

of public scoping cuts was to

26:22

look at alternatives that reroute the

26:24

pipeline. In the room is

26:26

a microcosm of the movement. The

26:29

space is dominated by water protectors from

26:32

Standing Rock and other neighboring tribes. There's

26:34

also a duel of police officers. Water

26:37

protectors already recognized one of them as

26:39

an officer who was behind the razor

26:41

wire at the front line. There

26:44

are a few burly men who later tell

26:46

me they are pipeliners there to advocate in

26:48

favor of the pipeline for their union. And

26:51

there's a handful of white guys who don't quite

26:53

look like they fit in. I

26:56

figure they must be police or private security.

26:59

Of course, it's hard to learn exactly who

27:01

anyone is, because this is

27:03

not the public hearing we were all

27:05

expecting. Public comments

27:07

are to be submitted privately to

27:10

stenographers sitting behind curtain boots. Water

27:13

protectors had hoped to deliver their remarks in

27:15

front of the pipeline executives who built the

27:17

project. With no microphone

27:19

provided, they took to the bullhorn. Apparently,

27:24

the perpetrators aren't

27:26

going to be here to listen to us because they

27:29

don't have a backbone to move.

27:31

So my comment is what you're going

27:33

to do right here. Hold

27:36

on because I'm not afraid

27:38

to say no. We're

27:40

not being given a mic, but that's okay. We'll

27:42

bring our own. And when

27:45

you're able to push people behind

27:47

curtain, there's

27:49

no accountability. And

27:52

our voices lose their power when we're

27:54

here in numbers. There's people here and

27:57

we're here wanting to talk. The

28:02

Army Corps attempted to respond to the complaints.

28:05

The next day, commenters had the option

28:07

to either go into the booths or

28:09

deliver their testimony by microphone. I

28:12

catch up with Tim Donaghy, the research

28:14

manager for Greenpeace USA, after he speaks

28:16

at the mic. Greenpeace

28:19

and a handful of water protectors are

28:21

still fighting a lawsuit from energy transfer,

28:24

which claims that Greenpeace orchestrated the movement

28:27

as a way to encourage donations. The

28:30

company has used the lawsuit to go

28:32

after all kinds of indigenous people and

28:35

environmental justice advocates via subpoenas. It's

28:37

what some critics call judicial harassment.

28:41

But Tim isn't here today to talk about that. He's

28:44

focused on the EIS's shortcomings where it

28:46

comes to the climate crisis. Oftentimes

28:49

in environmental impact statements

28:51

they'll say, well, essentially, if

28:53

we're not going to drill the oil

28:55

here, it'll come from somewhere else. So

28:57

it'll just be perfectly substituted. And because

28:59

of that assumption, they say, well, there's

29:01

no climate impact from approving this project

29:03

or disapproving it because it's going to be the same

29:06

no matter what. And I think that kind of flies

29:08

in the face of basically what the science has shown

29:10

about oil markets, which is that there's not going to

29:12

be 100% new oil coming on, but it's not

29:16

going to be 0% either. It's going to be kind of somewhere

29:18

in the middle. And a lot of the studies have

29:20

kind of shown that it's roughly around 50%

29:22

of the oil will be

29:24

replaced. But that means that building a pipeline

29:27

like Dakota Access is going to boost

29:30

the oil supply, it's going to

29:32

boost oil consumption, and as a result, it's

29:34

going to increase global greenhouse gas emissions. And

29:38

obviously, we're in a climate crisis

29:40

and we simply just can't do

29:42

this anymore. We can't continue to

29:45

be facilitating more and more oil and gas extraction

29:47

at a time when we need to be using

29:49

less of it. So it's just like slamming on

29:51

the brakes and the gas pedal at the same

29:54

time. The courts in the last couple of years

29:56

have said that's not a

29:58

good analysis and anyway requires

30:00

that you do more than that. And

30:02

then the other flaw I would say

30:04

in this particular analysis is they're kind

30:06

of implicitly assuming a business as usual

30:08

baseline scenario where they're saying, oh for

30:10

decades to come we're going to be

30:13

using lots of oil. And I think

30:15

you know there's already like countries are

30:17

pledging to do better on climate,

30:19

there's a continuing conversation about how are we going

30:21

to reduce emissions. I think it's

30:23

just not credible to say that nothing is going

30:25

to happen over the next couple of years. Obviously

30:27

we need to go faster but neither

30:30

we shouldn't also just be assuming that oil demand is

30:32

going to stay high all the way out for you

30:34

know decades to come. Across

30:37

the room I see Julie Fedorchak,

30:40

a member of the North Dakota Public Service

30:42

Commission which issued another key

30:45

permit for the pipeline. She's

30:47

a reliable advocate for the oil and gas

30:49

industry and I was curious what she'd

30:51

say about the process including how it

30:53

handled the question of climate impacts. We

30:56

had three public hearings, actually four if

30:59

you consider the one for optimization. And

31:03

you know had a very exhaustive review looking

31:05

at all of the impacts to the environmental

31:08

impacts, all the river crossings, all the

31:10

water bodies, wetlands, cultural

31:12

resources, unstable

31:17

areas like the whole gamut. So

31:20

I think that you know all of those

31:22

reviews were done effectively and that's

31:24

what the law requires and so we

31:26

need to support the law. So I'm

31:28

just curious about how that review process

31:30

that you're talking about addressed the climate

31:33

crisis and the impact of the fuel

31:35

that this pipeline is carrying on the

31:38

climate. Actually that's not part of the

31:40

law in North Dakota. We don't have

31:42

to review that. It's in fact we're

31:44

prohibited from including that in our review

31:47

of these kinds of infrastructure projects. So

31:50

the company wasn't required to provide any data

31:52

of that nature. Although

31:54

federal agencies like the Army Corps are

31:57

required by law to consider climate impacts

32:00

State laws vary significantly. As

32:02

far as I could tell, the

32:04

environmental regulatory process has not fully

32:06

accounted for the climate impacts of

32:08

the Dakota Access Pipeline. The

32:12

hearing was winding down, and when Nia

32:14

Locke got up to speak. She's

32:17

the Standing Rock tribal member who had given

32:19

us the logistical rundown as we prepared to

32:21

caravan out here. She's really flowing like that.

32:25

One of the things that hurt me personally is

32:29

that the American people, the

32:32

American people, have been changed. We're

32:36

at the local media here from Chandler. We've

32:39

got the Army Department here and the color

32:41

numbers for the security. We're

32:46

in the medical department. In

32:49

2016, we're in the hottest terrorist and

32:53

aerial to monitor

32:55

us. There's

32:58

two people in the state of Tennessee. It's

33:01

enough to be able to speak and play for

33:03

Canada. We just put out

33:06

an announcement level. We're

33:08

approval rights out there, and then we're light about.

33:12

And then I watched friends and family. I

33:15

even watched our big tribal chairman say,

33:18

hey, you're a general, get arrested. When

33:21

Nia and I talked more about it in the

33:23

hallway, I just find

33:25

it really interesting that people now have

33:28

a criminal record for

33:32

standing up and speaking the truth. Prior

33:35

to 2016, I was a very

33:37

innocent Lakota language teacher,

33:39

and I only had historical trauma

33:42

from congressional decisions

33:44

that were made from

33:47

boarding schools, militarization in

33:49

the 1800s. The

33:52

Dakota wars have all impacted my life,

33:55

but it was all historical trauma, meaning

33:58

it wasn't my lived experience. And it

34:01

was my ancestors, it was my grandparents,

34:03

it was my aunt, my uncle that

34:06

has experienced the

34:08

historical trauma brought on by the United States

34:10

government. And

34:13

so in 2016, I

34:16

actually got to live through warfare

34:19

because North Dakota, the Army

34:21

Corps of Engineers, the

34:24

Obama administration, Trump

34:26

administration, Biden administration

34:28

continue to allow

34:30

Dakota Access Pipeline to be

34:33

built and operating illegally right now. And

34:36

how it was built was by

34:38

using warfare tactics on innocent

34:40

people that were telling the truth. And

34:44

so the impact, you

34:47

know, there's PTSD, there's

34:49

triggers, there's a

34:51

lot of emotional trauma. The

34:56

NIA's experience aligns with what psychologists

34:58

predicted would happen. In

35:01

October 2017, the Society

35:03

of Indian Psychologists, which

35:05

exists to support the psychological

35:08

well-being of American Indians, put

35:10

out a statement about police and private

35:13

security's actions at Standing Rock. The

35:16

statement said, civilians in

35:18

the movement would likely have

35:20

developed normative paranoia and fear

35:23

relative to these increasing stressors

35:25

placed on them over time.

35:28

It would be likely that those who

35:31

remained at the camps over long periods

35:33

of time could begin to question who

35:35

could be trusted or communicated with and

35:38

develop ruminations and recurring thoughts

35:41

regarding their safety. And

35:43

they also noted, given that

35:45

we know a great number of

35:47

Native American people participated in the

35:50

movement, and that multi-generational trauma and

35:52

the ongoing effects of colonialism have

35:54

left their mark, it is likely

35:56

to have triggered normative fear and

35:58

recurrence of traumatic fear. I

36:05

asked the Army Corps press guy, Steve

36:07

Wolf, about what Waniya said. I

36:11

had read a piece about how Army Corps

36:13

brought in some extra security

36:16

for this hearing. Was

36:18

it private security? No, it was no private

36:20

security. I'm aware of. We've hired no private

36:23

security. Okay. And so what—

36:25

I mean, you see uniformed police officers here,

36:27

so. And I forgot

36:29

a lot else to say about that. Okay. So

36:32

the news reports about Army Corps bringing

36:35

in security with law enforcement? So

36:38

this is a private property. I

36:41

think people have seen what has happened in the past

36:43

with this project. I would

36:45

certainly imagine they're a bit concerned. If

36:47

you had a private enterprise, would you

36:49

be concerned? I

36:52

asked one of the out-of-place white guys if he

36:54

was security. And he replied

36:56

that no, he worked for law enforcement. I

36:59

also called the Radisson to see if they'd hired

37:01

security. But they didn't return

37:03

my calls and messages. Finally,

37:06

I sent Steve an email, just to

37:08

clarify. His reply was

37:10

pretty vague. He said, When

37:13

we approach private sector organizations, such

37:15

as a hotel, to conduct a

37:17

public meeting, we cannot simply

37:20

dictate to them how their facility might

37:22

be used for this purpose. He

37:24

continued, Ultimately, the U.S.

37:26

Army Corps of Engineers must agree to

37:29

and pay for the requirements of a

37:31

given facility to host

37:33

a public function for our

37:35

environmental analysis process. He

37:37

added, What you witnessed

37:39

firsthand is that no law enforcement

37:42

action was taken against

37:44

anyone expressing their views or attendance

37:46

at these two public meetings. Freedom

37:49

of assembly and freedom of expression

37:51

were alive and well at these

37:54

meetings. end

38:00

up seeing honorada at the hearing. Her

38:02

uncle, who is an elder, gave her a

38:04

ride. And I watched the two of

38:06

them go into the booth and submit their

38:09

testimony. At 9 o'clock

38:11

PM, they prepared to travel the

38:13

hour and a half back home on

38:15

the dark country highway. Regardless

38:18

of the outcome of the EIS

38:20

process, she and Jonathan and other water

38:22

protectors who were on the ground will

38:25

continue to carry the weight of what happened

38:27

at Standing Rock. It

38:29

was really upsetting to stand there and

38:31

watch the people that are in uniform,

38:34

whom, some of whom I used to work

38:36

alongside up in Bismarck and they're there shooting

38:39

at you and they're shooting tear gas and

38:41

rubber bullets and... It's

38:47

upsetting and, yeah, it's

38:50

upsetting. Very

38:52

upsetting. I have

38:55

a lot of respect for people

38:57

like that anymore, if I ever

39:00

did. But

39:04

I don't necessarily want to focus on that

39:06

too much on a daily basis because we

39:08

walk around pissed off all day. Yeah,

39:11

totally. Can

39:14

I have some of that go? Still working

39:16

on that? I assume that'll be a lifelong

39:18

process for me because they

39:20

hurt a lot of people out there. I

39:24

don't really follow what the government does anymore. I

39:26

just don't have any faith

39:28

in them at all. Yeah,

39:33

that's where I'll always

39:36

be, unfortunately. Onorata

39:40

did point out that the impacts are

39:42

not all bad. There's

39:44

a very big boom and the

39:46

sound waves can still be felt all

39:49

across the world because people

39:52

realize that they

39:54

matter, their voice matters, and with that

39:56

voice they can do things, remarkable

39:59

things. Drilled

40:09

is an original critical frequency

40:11

production. Our senior editor

40:13

for this series is Aline Brown,

40:15

who also reported, wrote, and hosted

40:18

this episode. Our senior

40:20

producer is Martin Zaltz-Ostermich. Martin

40:23

also did the sound design, who composed much

40:25

of the music in this episode. Peter

40:27

Duff is our audio engineer. Fact-checking

40:30

by Wudan Yan. Our

40:32

artwork is by Matt Fleming. Our

40:35

First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton.

40:37

Our theme song is Bird in

40:39

the Hand by Four Nones. This show

40:41

was created by Amy Westervold. You can

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well as background reporting, on Drilled.media. You

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