I grew up on the waters of Lake Oahe and the Missouri River. The water is clean. Above the Oahe Dam, in Lake Oahe, the water is pristine. On calm days, the water is so clear you can see down until is simply gets too dark from the depth. When we camped, my friends and I loved washing our hair in the lake. Our long hair felt so silky and clean. We felt silky and clean. submerged in and rinsing with pure mountain runoff, we were at one with mother nature, the heavens, all of it.
The Reservior is huge. Spanning more than 231 miles from Pierre, SD to Bismark. It's volume s around 25 million acre feet. (An acre foot is enough water to cover a football field at 1 foot deep)...At the time it was built, it was the largest earth dam in the world. Now it's 14th. My dad lied about his age to work on the dam construction.
Anyway, the water and the land around Lake Oahe are amazing, pure, raw and beautiful. People use the water as their drinking water source, ranchers use the water source for their livestock, farmers irrigate water from the reservoir to their crops. The 2,250 miles of shoreline are raw and healthy for environmental conservation and maintaining healthy environmental ecosystems. People fish, hunt and live off the waters of the reservoir. In a world where most parts of the planet covet clean water... we've got enough to cover 25 million football fields in a foot of it. And it's cleaner than water anywhere else.
And this clean water is used as power.. the Oahe Dam, which run 9,300 feet wide, controls the water that creates hydro-electric power, supplying millions of people in the central united states with the electric energy to live their lives. "The Oahe Dam has become the largest producer of hydro-elecric energy on the Missouri River".
It's precious land and resources and the thought of a pipe full of oil crossing the reservoir seems like one of the most absurd things I've heard in my life. Why on earth do that? Why on earth put the crops, the people, the environment at risk? In the event of a breached line, the damage will be irreparable in our lifetime or our children.
We know the money will roll in for the oil companies, why can't they figure out a different plan? They've found the money to pay security forces for the past 4 months...clearly they have money coming down the pike. Why risk the pristine water? In the event of a breach, we've seen from others, the habitat for the wild animals is gone, the water sources for communities is gone, the lifestyle of the people along the water is gone. In the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a breach would drastically effect crop production and the health of livestock - in a band of the country whose grains and meats feed the world. And what happens to the turbines in the hydro-electric dam when they are contaminated with oil? An explosion? And then what? Loss of power to millions for unknown amounts of time because they are on the grid attached to the dam?
Sometimes I feel like the DAPL is well planned, planted terrorism. Clearly, this area has been off limits - the maps show clearly that this is a special area. Various lines have been build around the area for years... yet this area remains clear. Why risk the clean air, the clean water, the clean energy? It makes no sense. One leak and tragedy, catastrophe. Why put a pipe of oil under the heart of our country, pumping clean water through the center of it? I just don't get it.
I'm grateful to the Indigenous people of the world for coming together to stand up for the water in North Dakota. If they hadn't, the line would be quietly placed. In a land where cows outnumber people, it's difficult to make a sound that anyone else can hear. But the natives have banded together and man is it beautiful.
When I heard about this pipeline getting the go ahead from the Corps of Engineers, I asked a friend who works for the MN DNR waterfowl division what the flyway was saying about it. He had just returned from a flyway meeting, so I figured they spoke of this project. He hadn't heard of it. And neither had is constituents from other states. Normally, when construction along wetland takes place, the project must meet the needs of state by state environmental assessments. In lieu of the DNR environmental assessments, from what I understand, DAPL merely applied for easements by the Corps of Engineers, something that is legal, but sneaky and lame.. and they applied under the same category of construction that a telephone company might use to set up telephone poles. Slightly different risk don't you think - a telephone pole falling into the river as opposed to a hole in a pipeline pouring oil into the river? But the Corps supported the plan. And there were no environmental assessments completed. Why? According to my friend at the DNR, the answer is simple - the project never would have been given the go ahead. It is senseless to put the environment at that extreme of a risk.
Dear Dakota Access,
Please re-evaluate and take the more expensive route in order to er on the side of humanity, life, people, earth, water. This water you're messing with is artery of our nation... and your plan to insert a continuous catheter of oil beneath the heart of it is pure evil. Don't worry, you'll keep making money. And in the long run it will cost you much less than paying hundreds of millions in fruitless clean-up efforts, ruining the lives of people along the water shed and forever negatively changing course of history. You're already paying out the nose for militia security. Why not use money for positive? It's never too late to change course. Do it! Please.
Here's a pretty crude map of pipeline ruptures in the past 5 years. It's not if, it's when. Don't play with the environment. We'll never get it back.
