It ' s a lot less distressful to just abandon those babies than your own too . <| sep |> TLDR Explain some common misconceptions for people who don ' t live near this protest . Nor am I trying to cause any argument because I ' m neither pro or antiDAPL . The oil company , Energy Transfer Partners , is nearly complete in building an underground pipeline that goes from North Dakota , through South Dakota , into Iowa , and finally ending in Illinois . You are correct about the purpose of the protests being that the pipeline crosses under the Missouri River south of Bismarck . Several lawsuits have been filed between multiple entities in regards to the pipeline , its construction , the injunctions put in place , etc . This is as much a legal matter as it has been an environmental one . Energy is a huge part of the North Dakota economy . Oil , coal , and wind energies provide a large percentage of the jobs in the state after agriculture . The pipeline reportedly could transfer 50 % of North Dakota ' s daily crude oil production more efficiently and safely on average than if done by train or by truck . So , granted , completion of the pipeline would positively effect the local economy . The route of the pipeline does not cross onto any reservation land and was approved by all agencies that needed to be involved during the planning stages . The Standing Rock Sioux tribe had been made aware of the proposed route prior to construction beginning and no apparent issues that I ' ve heard about were taken by them . The land that the pipeline goes through belongs to either private landowners , or in the case of the location of the # NoDAPL protests near Cannonball , ND , the US Army Corps of Engineers . Surveys and due diligence were undertaken by several agencies such as the USGS and state entities to locate any sites of cultural significance which I believe came up with nothing initially despite what protestors are saying . I could be wrong about that , though , and it ' s possible further investigation had uncovered something of significance . The government , meaning the State of North Dakota , is not equipped to handle a civil incident of this size and duration . They are rotating in law enforcement from all over the state on a volunteer basis from any department who can spare some officers . When the average police department in ND is about 12 officers , it ' s very tough to maintain order at a large protest 2 , 000 people at times that has lasted several months . This is why several law enforcement agencies from other states have sent officers to assist with mutual aid . The North Dakota National Guard is present but in a nonenforcement capacity . As for tactics used on the Sunday night incident at Backwater Bridge which involved about 400 protestors to varying degrees of peacefulness ranging from nonviolent to actively aggressive , I know only that protestors had attempted to break through and flank the police line on either side after removing burned out vehicles that had been left on the bridge . Said vehicles had been set on fire by protestors several weeks ago and the state DOT had closed the bridge citing structural concerns to the bridge following the vehicles being been set on fire . The protestors argue that closing the bridge denied their ability to move north to protest at the construction sites . The protestors also started several fires and local fire departments almost all are volunteer rural fire departments responded to put out the fires . The use of water cannons by police is not entirely accurate protestors were sprayed with water from the hose on one of those fire trucks a common tactic in a riot to keep large crowds from getting out of hand . It was 26 degrees that night and I ' m positive that a water hose would not have been used had fire trucks not been present . Rubber bullets and pepper spray , again , commonly used to keep a riot under control . I use the word riot in the legal sense , not the colloquial sense . North Dakota Century Code defines it Riot means a public disturbance involving an assemblage of five or more persons which by tumultuous and violent conduct creates grave danger of damage or injury to property or persons or substantially obstructs law enforcement or other government function . EDIT Here is a radio interview with the deputy manning the water hose that night d e p u t y s p r a y e d n o d a p lprotestersfirehosespeaks ? u t m c a m p a i g n c o s c h e d u l e u t m s o u r c e f a c e b o o k p a g eutmmediumSayAnythingBlog . comutmcontentAudio % 20 Deputy % 20 Who % 20 Sprayed % 20 % 23 NoDAPL % 20 Protesters % 20 With % 20 Fire % 20 Hose % 20 Speaks % 20 Out , % 20 Says % 20 Officers % 20 Faced % 20 Slingshots % 20 And % 20 RacismThe law enforcement presence is not there by choice . None of the miscellaneous officers , nor Morton County Sheriff ' s Office who is bearing the brunt of it , want to be there . I don ' t think any individual officer cares if the pipeline goes in or not . They are there to maintain law and order . But they mostly just want the civil unrest to be done with like the majority of North Dakota residents . But I can completely understand how it would appear that they are protecting the pipeline company . It should be noted that Dave Archambault tribal chairman and the members of the Standing Rock tribal council voted 100 on November 1 st to remove the protest camp on tribal land because of the unrest unruly protestors have caused . Roughly just 78 % of people arrested over the course of the 100 day long protest have been residents of North Dakota , the remaining 9293 % of them have been from out of state . I hope that this helps explain some issues in a mostlyunbiased way .