Chumash and City Stand with Standing Rock Sioux
Protection of Water Source and Cultural Resources at Stake
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is on a quest for environmental justice and spiritual freedom. A minor miracle in Santa Barbara is helping the tribe get there, in the form of a City Council resolution, which is now part of a wave of global support pouring into North Dakota.
For people not following the Dakota Access Pipeline project, a months-long showdown is taking place just outside of the Standing Rock Reservation, which spans North and South Dakota, where self-identified “water protectors” are literally holding their ground against construction crews building a 1,100-mile pipeline that would pass over sensitive landscapes including treaty-protected land containing recognized cultural resources.
A rupture in the pipeline, located near or under 209 rivers or tributaries of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, would pour fracked oil into the drinking water supply of the local Sioux and if carried downstream contaminate the water of millions of people in the Midwest.
