Protesters Leave Dakota Access Pipeline Area; Some Stay And Are Arrested

Local law enforcement officers have arrested some people who chose not to evacuate federal land near part of the Dakota Access Pipeline north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The last activists at the Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp torched their tents and the entrance to the site Wednesday in the final hours leading up to an Army-ordered evacuation deadline — one last act of defiance to end the 10-month-long protest at Standing Rock. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe issues a statement saying Energy Transfer Partners demolished an area that contained "significant Native artifacts and sacred sites" when construction crews bulldozed a two-mile-long area near the Lake Oahe river crossing and north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The Army says it has been directed to expedite the review process for the easement request, and that "the Assistant Secretary for the Army Civil Works will make a decision on the pipeline once a full review and analysis is completed in accordance with the [president's] directive." Doug Burgum last week called for the Oceti Sakowin protest camp — located on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation — to be evacuated by Wednesday, Feb. 23., claiming ecological damage at the camp and rising post-winter floodwaters. After President Donald Trump signed a January executive order approving work on the final stretch of the pipeline, the Standing Rock Sioux and the Cheyenne tribes filed an emergency request to halt construction, maintaining that the pipe will damage their waters and land.
The protestors in the area of the Dakota Access Pipeline are evicted, clearing the way for the oil pipeline through Canada and the United States to be built.