Dear
Mr. Owen
The paragraphs below constitute my
comments regarding the proposed crossing of the Missouri
River/Lake Oahe at the site currently proposed by the
Dakota Access Pipeline owners.
Let it be known by the U. S. Army
Corps of Engineers, the
Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil
Works, and a matter of public record, that I the
undersigned oppose the granting of easement for Dakota
Access Pipeline to cross underneath the Missouri
River/Lake Oahe at the location proposed by Dakota
Access Pipeline, for the following reasons:
1. THE OBVIOUS FIRST
RESPONSE: The obvious first response to
whether or not the Dakota Access Pipeline should be
allowed to cross under Lake Oahe / Missouri River is
"Mni Wiconi" Water Is Life. There is a reason why that
phrase became the call to action that it has become.
Water is life, and all life depends on water for
survival. It's the most fundamental and necessary
element for life of any kind to survive on this planet.
As the Creator's appointed caretakers of Mother Earth,
it behooves all human beings on the planet of every
racial and ethnic background and every skin color to do
their part to maintain the quality of the water and to
protect all of our natural resources from ruin or
destruction not only for our generation, but for future
generations; our children and their children, ad
infinitum. That is exactly what the Water Protectors are
doing who oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline's crossing
under Lake Oahe/Missouri River, especially at the
specific location where the Dakota Access Pipeline seeks
to cross. The Dakota
Access Pipeline poses too great a risk on several
levels, and it should not be allowed to cross underneath
Lake Oahe or the Missouri River; especially where Dakota
Access Pipeline is poised to cross.
2. POTENTIAL FOR
CONTAMINATION OF THE STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE'S
DRINKING WATER: The current location where the
Dakota Access Pipeline intends to cross under Lake Oahe
is within one-half mile of the Standing Rock Sioux
Tribe's water inlet, which is used for drinking and
other life-sustaining purposes.
A crude oil leak from the Dakota
Access Pipeline will almost immediately contaminate the
water going into the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's water
inlet, and will also contaminate the pipe leading to the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's water purification
facilities, as well as the purification facility itself,
including the medium or media used to filter and clarify
the water.
Such contamination would necessitate
complete shut-down and dismantling of the purification
facility and the pipes that deliver water to the
facility. It would also necessitate construction of a
completely new purification facility and a new water
inlet location--if a satisfactory location could be
found at a safe distance upstream from the pipeline's
planned point of crossing. This is an expense that the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe should never be required to
bear, and it is a scenario that the Standing Rock Sioux
Tribe should never have to endure for the sake of lining
the pockets of oil executives and shareholders, or the
executives and shareholders of any industry that will
potentially permanently contaminate any waterway on this
continent.
This is an unacceptable scenario, and
one that is likely to occur given the oil pipeline leaks
in North Dakota and other states just within the past
year alone. As the Water Protectors at Standing Rock
have said repeatedly, it is not a matter of IF a leak
occurs, but WHEN it occurs.
3. VIOLATION OF TREATY
RIGHTS; RIVER AND LAKE BED SURFACE AND SUBSURFACE
RIGHTS: The current location where the Dakota
Access Pipeline intends to cross under Lake Oahe is not
public or private land. It is land belonging to the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Oceti Sakowin.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe council
member Phyllis Young has stated on several occasions
that when the land was flooded to create Lake Oahe,
flooding land that was a prime part of the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe, the agreement between the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe and the U.S. government was that the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe retained all rights to the
lake bed and the Missouri River bed, which includes ALL
surface and subsurface rights.
By retaining all rights, surface and
subsurface, the lake and river beds are the property of
a sovereign nation, and are due the same consideration
as land in any other sovereign nation. Because the land
is the property of a sovereign nation under all treaties
between the U.S. government and the Standing Rock Sioux
Tribe and Oceti Sakowin, the United States government
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers do not have the
legal right to grant an easement to drill to Dakota
Access Pipeline without first securing permission, in
writing and in a lawful manner, from the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe and/or the Oceti Sakowin.
It must be remembered that the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers is not the owner of the land,
but merely the Maintenance Crew that ensures the quality
of the water that flows into and through Lake Oahe, and
that ensures compliance with treaties and other
agreements between the U.S. government, the Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe, and Oceti Sakowin. With the Standing
Rock Sioux Tribe's retention of ALL SURFACE AND
SUBSURFACE RIGHTS, the authority of the U. S. Army Corps
of Engineers ends where the welfare, wishes, and legal
rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Oceti
Sakowin begin.
To go forward with granting an
easement without the expressed permission of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Oceti Sakowin would be
to violate existing treaties, as well as violating U.S.
and international laws governing sovereignty of nations.
4. POTENTIAL FOR PERMANENT
LETHAL CONTAMINATION OF THE WATER, LAKE BED, AND
MISSOURI RIVER BED: The current location where
the Dakota Access Pipeline intends to cross under Lake
Oahe not only puts the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's water
quality, water rights, and sovereign rights in jeopardy,
it also threatens the water quality of an estimated 18
million people downstream, as well as all plants,
animals, birds, and insects that depend on the water
from Lake Oahe and the Missouri River from the point of
Dakota Access Pipeline's crossing southward.
In addition to rendering the waters
of the Missouri river and reservoirs south of the Dakota
Access Pipeline's proposed crossing unfit for
consumption and unfit to sustain life along the river's
east and west banks, a spill has the potential of
permanently contaminating the lake and river bed beyond
any hope of recovery. There are numerous examples of oil
and chemical spills into waterways that have permanently
rendered river and creek beds permanently contaminated
and the water that flows through those beds toxic to all
life forms, resulting in dead, contaminated, highly
toxic water and the death of plant and animal life along
their banks. This is not a hypothetical scenario. It has
played out many times across the continental United
States.
Example: There is a creek that
runs through the city of Dalton, Georgia, named Mill
Creek, where in the 1960s local carpet mills, spread
mills, and other manufacturers in Dalton dumped fabric
dye and other chemicals, which poisoned the water and
killed all aquatic life and plants along the creek's
banks. The water was deadly to animal and human life who
were unfortunate enough to ingest it.
Shortly after the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency in December 1970, the
new government agency ordered all businesses to stop
dumping chemicals and dyes into Mill Creek. After the
businesses complied, the EPA then ordered track hoes and
other earth excavating equipment to dig several feet
below the surface of the creek bed, deepening the creek,
in an effort to remove all toxic chemicals that had
contaminated the creek bed and restore the creek to a
viable waterway capable of sustaining wildlife and
stopping the creek's contamination of the larger
waterway into which Mill Creek flowed.
The results of the cleanup efforts
were a dismal failure. In spite of all the efforts to
restore Mill Creek, the water is still toxic to all life
forms to this day.
The EPA eventually stopped further
efforts to restore Mill Creek, and the water remains
unusable. Water from that creek has also contaminated
water as far south as Rome, Georgia, and maybe farther
south. We know about its contaminating the water at
Rome, Georgia, because Rome sued Dalton for
contaminating the upstream water that, in turn,
contaminated Rome's water.
Mill Creek, in Dalton, Georgia, is
just one of many examples that can be found across the
continental United States of spills, intentional and
accidental, that permanently contaminated waterways to
the point of being unfit for consumption and unfit for
irrigation of crops.
5. ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM:
The behavior of the Dakota Access Pipeline and Energy
Transfer Partners and of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, when it initially granted the go-ahead to
construct the pipeline along its present route and
potential point of crossing; and their complete
disregard for the welfare, rights, wishes, and potential
impact upon the lives and health of the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe, Oceti Sakowin, and an estimated 18 million
people, both Indigenous American and non-Indigenous, who
live downstream from the proposed point of crossing at
Lake Oahe and depend upon the water from the Missouri
River for life and sustenance is nothing short of
environmental racism.
Those actions, in effect, send a
message that because the members of the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe and those of Oceti Sakowin are Indigenous
People, they are insignificant, and their lives, health,
and welfare mean nothing. The one potentially redeeming
action for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was to deny
the easement to cross under Lake Oahe and demand a full,
comprehensive Environmental Impact Study before a final
decision was made whether or not to grant the easement.
To prove to the American people and
to the nations of the world that the United States
government and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are not
racist, and to show that the United States Government
will honor its treaties and international agreements
with other sovereign nations, the only justifiable
course of action will be to deny Dakota Access Pipeline
the easement to cross under Lake Oahe for the legal
reasons cited regarding the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
and Oceti Sakowin's surface and subsurface rights of the
lake and river bed.
6. VIOLATIONS OF THE NATIVE
AMERICAN GRAVES PROTECTION AND REPATRIATION ACT (NAGPRA,
1990), AND THE AMERICAN INDIAN RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ACT
(AIRFA, 1978): During the construction of the
pipeline in defiance of the 20 mile buffer set by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in its 04 November 2016
request to Dakota Access Pipeline to stop construction,
an estimated 38 burials and non-burial sacred sites were
destroyed by those constructing the pipeline, which the
pipeline company tried to hide from the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe and from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
and which constitutes multiple violations of the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990,
and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978
(amended in 1994).
There is reason to believe that
the Dakota Access Pipeline's boring underneath Lake Oahe
may, if it has not already, disturb other burial sites
and non-burial sacred sites. Waiting to see and trying
to repair the damage after the damage is done is not an
option. The only acceptable solution is to not disturb
the ancestors' burials and the non-burial sacred sites
in the first place.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers'
views on things sacred and the sanctity of ancestral
graves, and the spiritual views of the owners and
employees of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Energy Transfer
Partners, et al, are irrelevant. What does matter where
Dakota Access Pipeline is concerned are the spiritual
beliefs, the importance of non-burial sacred sites, and
the sanctity of ancestral burials to the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe and Oceti Sakowin.
It is a prosecutable crime in
non-Indigenous society, on the local and national level
to intentionally disturb or destroy people's graves in a
conventional cemetery. It is also a prosecutable crime
in non-Indigenous societies to desecrate or destroy any
non-burial spiritual site, such as a church or grounds
upon which the church is built. It is a felony crime,
prosecutable by law--a violation of NAGPRA--to
intentionally desecrate or destroy, or take funerary
objects or human remains from an Indigenous American
(American Indian) grave. It is a felony crime,
prosecutable by law--a violation of AIRFA--to
intentionally desecrate or destroy a site or object that
is a non-burial sacred site or a sacred object..
The likelihood of encountering and
destroying both burials and non-burial sacred sites
while boring underneath Lake Oahe is a real life risk
that the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe should not have to
take, especially in light of the estimated 38 desecrated
and/or destroyed burial sites and other non-burial
sacred sites that the Dakota Access Pipeline has
intentionally and maliciously destroyed since at least
03 September 2016, when it intentionally destroyed known
sacred and burial sites and set dogs on the unarmed
Indigenous Americans who tried to stop the bulldozer
drivers from destroying the sites.
7. HASTY CONSTRUCTION AND CONCERN FOR FAULTY
WELDED JOINTS: As a pipe welder, steel worker,
and machine fabricator with more than 50 years
experience, it is my contention that the haste with
which the Dakota Access Pipeline was thrown together,
especially after the 04 November 2016 request to halt
construction 20 miles from the bore site on both sides
of Lake Oahe, did not allow sufficient time for the
welded pipe joints to be x-rayed and cleared. It also
did not allow sufficient time for proper welds. There
was only time for hasty welds and little or no visual
examination and no x-rays of the joints to ensure that
they were solid and that there were no underbead cracking
or slag pits and other glitches in the welds. As part of
the Environmental Impact Study, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers should have people on-site and require the
Dakota Access Pipeline to x-ray each and every weld on
both sides of Lake Oahe for at least 30 miles from
the proposed crossing site.
Furthermore, if any of the pipes were welded in sub-zero
weather, there is a danger that welding under those
conditions can cause underbead cracking due to the high
temperature of the weld arc and the sub-zero temperature
of the pipe that is being welded. The difference in the
two temperatures is extreme enough that the results are
unpredictable, and there is a more than 50 percent chance
that underbead cracking will occur, putting those joints
at very high risk of failure. Welds that have underbead
cracking can rupture and break away from the parent
metal altogether under conditions of high pressure or
extreme temperatures. Under no circumstances should pipe
welded under extreme weather conditions be allowed to
cross under any waterway, especially a waterway that is
as crucial to so many people's lives as the Missouri
River is. We know that most of the pipe laid since 04
November 2016 was welded under extreme weather
conditions.
CONCLUSION:
This concludes my comments regarding why the Dakota
Access Pipeline should not be allowed to cross under
Lake Oahe/Missouri River, and why alternative routes
should be implemented that do not threaten the primary
water source for millions of people and countless birds,
animals, plants, fish, and insects.
Thank you for considering my comments
and the points that I have made here.
I look forward to the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers' ultimate and permanent denial of the
easement for Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under the
Missouri River at its current proposed location. I look
forward, too, to hearing that the Environmental Impact
Study will receive the careful attention and thorough
action that it deserves.
Mni Wiconi!
Sincerely yours
Thomas "Al" Swilling
[Address withheld]
Email: [email withheld]
