Environment

Iowa Tribe joins fight against oil pipeline on aboriginal territory

Thursday, March 24, 2016

A map shows the Dakota Access Pipeline Project through Iowa. Image from Energy Transfer Partners

The Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska is objecting to the Dakota Access Pipeline, a multi-state project that is being opposed in Indian Country.

The tribe, whose homeland is in Iowa, said it has never been consulted about the controversial pipeline. Just last week, the Iowa Utilities Board granted the permit, subject to conditions that do not mention sacred sites or cultural resources.

"All we ask is that the process of all the legal authorities, federal, state, and local, be followed and completed properly, fully and in serious consideration of indigenous sacred and traditional sites before the Iowa Utility Board finalizes and issues its permit," Lance Foster, the tribe's historic preservation officer, wrote in a letter to the board on Wednesday.

The Meskwaki Tribe previously called on the board to reject the pipeline. The route crosses aboriginal and treaty-ceded lands along an 18-county route that traverses the entire state.

Tribes in North Dakota and South Dakota are also fighting the project, the Native Sun News reported. Some are comparing it to the Keystone XL Pipeline that drew national attention before President Barack Obama killed it last November.

The 1,100-mile pipeline would start in the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota and would cross South Dakota before entering Iowa and ending in Illinois. The company behind the project, Energy Transfer Partners, said it will comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and other historic and environmental preservation laws.

Get the Story:
Iowa tribe objects to Bakken pipeline process (The Des Moines Register 3/24)
Iowa Utilities Board won’t expedite Dakota Access construction (The Bakken Magazine 3/23)