Standing Rock Sioux Reservation Case Study

In 2014, President Obama visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. While there, he read aloud these words from Chief Sitting Bull: “Let’s put our minds together to see what we can build for our children.”

Today, it is the children of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who have put their minds together to help envision a safe future for themselves and who are leading an international campaign to protect their drinking water — and the drinking water of 17 million people downstream — from the threats posed by the Dakota Access oil pipeline, which would cross the Missouri River less than a mile upstream of their reservation.

What you need to know about the Dakota Access pipeline protests

Embed Copy Share

Play Video3:08

Perhaps inspired by these young people, thousands of people, predominantly from tribes around the country, have gathered in peaceful demonstration and prayer near the pipeline construction site while the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe pursues legal options to protect itself.

And at this moment, the debate over the pipeline has come down to this: a simple yes-or-no decision by the Army Corps of Engineers as to whether the crude oil pipeline can cross a thin slice of federal land at

Initial federal permits, and partnership with affected tribes, were treated as a “check the box” exercise. Nowhere was there a careful analysis of how much the Missouri River crossing threatened water quality and tribal treaty rights. Nowhere was there a thoughtful public discussion of whether a new major oil pipeline should be placed in a river providing drinking water to 17 million people. And one had to pore over hundreds of pages of technical data to learn that the original route of the pipeline crossed the river just north of Bismarck, N.D. — a capital city that is nearly 90 percent white — and was moved to Standing Rock only when regulators expressed concern over the risk of a spill to the city’s water