On December 4th, the US Army ruled that the Dakota Access Pipeline, planned to run underneath the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s water source, would not be allowed to cross the Missouri River. In the wake of the decision, community leaders and authorities encouraged protesters — who prefer to be called water protectors — to claim their victory, and disband. Yet many still remain, camping on the river’s edge, worried that the pipeline operator might ignore the order to halt construction. They point to a concrete and razor-wire barricade that has become a focal point for the community here as a sign that their fight is not yet won.
“It cuts us off from the shortest route to major hospitals and other emergency services.”
The barricade stands on the Backwater Bridge between the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota and the closest big city. Massive concrete blocks typically used to wall off lanes of traffic span the bridge’s northern end, linked with razor wire and lit by floodlights. More blocks run lengthwise down the the snow-covered bridge, askew where a white car plowed into them. The car is still there.
The county sheriff’s department erected the barricade at the end of October, ostensibly because the Backwater Bridge had been damaged by fires during protests against the pipeline. The roadblock is now nearly two months old, and it continues to choke travel in and out of the reservation and protest camps. The state has started taking steps to remove it, but it could be at least another month before the barricade is taken down. That means another month of delays and detours on snow-slicked roads as people travel from the camps to get supplies, or reach hospitals.
++aerial shot of the 1806 bridge 1/4 mile north of the prayer camps. the bridge is still blocked with razor sharp wire,…
Posted by Cempoalli Twenny on Sunday, December 18, 2016
At the end of November, the former governor of North Dakota, Jack Dalrymple, called for a mandatory evacuation of the camps. That’s why the roadblock is such a problem — because part of that evacuation order also restricted state agencies from providing emergency services to those remaining in the camps for the winter. The order still stands under North Dakota’s new governor, Doug Burgum, who took office on December 15th — according to the governor’s communications director Mike Nowatzki. What this means is that protesters who need urgent medical care will need to leave the camps under their own power to find it — and the fastest route to care is blockaded.