A Texas pipeline company is constructing an oil pipeline that would cross under the Missouri River, threatening the drinking water supply for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. We here in our beautiful Connecticut River valley are directly connected to the sacred waters of the Sioux.
Our prevailing westerly winds bring evaporation from Oahe reservoir on the border of the Standing Rock Reservation to our valley. The water protectors of the Hunkpapa Dakota people have joined with river keepers, farmers and environmentalists from all over to protect the drinking water supply of 11 million people downstream in the Missouri River watershed.
Their spiritual elders are leading them in a peaceful and prayerful manner. As we witness the violence and desecration perpetrated upon the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in a corporation’s attempt to bring Bakken crude oil to the world market, a mix of memories floods into my mind.
Seeing a private security company using abused dogs, one so skinny its ribs were sticking out, to bite and terrorize peaceful water protectors at a construction site reminded me of newspaper pictures I saw as a child of police in Birmingham, Alabama, doing the same to peaceful civil rights demonstrators.
As a young man in Germany, I witnessed firsthand how the petrochemical industry will destroy a community. Water protection is a global issue that affects us all.
I hope we can support the Great Sioux Nation as its members protect not only the waters of the 1852 Fort Laramie Treaty Territory, but also the waters of life for all of us.
To find out how to help, visit standingrock.org or honorearth.org.
Hans Wilhelm Leo
Northampton