What Standing Rock Teaches Us About Environmental Racism And Justice

Access to clean, safe, and affordable drinking water is not just a concern of developing countries but of communities in our own backyard. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North and South Dakota, for instance, relies on Lake Oahe, a 231-mile reservoir along the Missouri River, as its primary water source. In July 2016, the US Army Corps of Engineers approved the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a 1,172-mile duct that will carry crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois when completed, which will run underneath the Missouri River less than a mile north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, including through the tribe’s sacred, ancestral lands. Given concerns about having oil-related infrastructure near major water sources, especially after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 (the largest oil spill in US waters), members of the tribe have been vigorously defending their rights to safe, clean water. Their struggle has caught the attention of major advocacy organizations around the world and indigenous tribes in other nations. After a brief reprieve in December 2016 when the Obama administration blocked further construction of the DAPL, the Trump administration now supports continued construction of the pipeline. Safety concerns related to oil pipelines are well documented. The Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration’s 20-year incident trends reveal that from 1997 to 2016 an estimated 5,679 significant incident...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Featured Health Equity Population Health Public Health Quality Clean Water Rule Dakota Access Pipeline DAPL enironmental racism environmental equity Environmental Health Environmental Protection Agency Native Americans Standing R Source Type: blogs