Audrey Caro Gomez
A small group of people gathered at the gate of Foster Dam on Tuesday, Nov. 15, to sing a sacred water song.
They were there in a show of solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux who are protesting at the proposed site of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota.
The 1,168-mile-long crude oil pipeline would threaten the tribe’s “environmental and economic well-being, and would damage and destroy sites of great historic, religious, and cultural significance,” according to a lawsuit the tribe filed against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The group from Illahee Spirit Runners arrived in Sweet Home at around 5 p.m. Tuesday following a prayer walk in Corvallis. Protests were also held in Eugene on Tuesday.
Mato Woksape of the Illahee Spirit Runners, a Corvallis-based indigenous people’s support group, called in to Corps staffers using a phone outside the gate at the entrance to Andrew S. Wiley Park.
“They won’t let us in, so we sang our song,” Woksape said.
He was joined by six others, most of them young people, some of whom covered their faces and declined to give their names.
Bob Hughes, an ecologist and biologist, came with the group from Corvallis.
He said he is concerned about water all over the world and climate change.
After the group left, Tom Voldbaek, operations and maintenance manager at the Corps, approached the fence to talk with a reporter.
He said he could not let the protesters in for safety reasons, but they could be outside the fence and other surrounding areas.
Additionally, he said he could not comment on the issue, as it is not something the Foster location is involved with.
In a Nov. 14 press release, the Corps said it informed the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Energy Transfer Partners, and Dakota Access, LLC, that it had completed the review that it launched on Sept. 9, 2016. “The Army has determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation’s dispossessions of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, our government-to-government relationship, and the statute governing easements through government property,” according to the release.
Additionally, the statement from the Corps stated that while “discussions, construction on or under Corps land bordering Lake Oahe cannot occur because the Army has not made a final decision on whether to grant an easement.”
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council released a statement in response.
They said while the decision was not 100 percent what the Tribe hoped for, it was clear to them that President Barack Obama is listening.
“We are encouraged and know that the peaceful prayer and demonstration at Standing Rock have powerfully brought to light the unjust narrative suffered by tribal nations and Native Americans across the country,” said Tribal Chair Dave Archambault II.
Archambault expressed gratitude for the millions of people who have literally and figuratively stood with them at Standing Rock.
Meanwhile, the protests in North Dakota continue.
The Corps press release states: “We fully support the rights of all Americans to assemble and speak freely, and urge everyone involved in protest or pipeline activities to adhere to the principles of nonviolence.”