Standing Rock Protest Camp, Once Home to Thousands, Is Razed

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/us/standing-rock-protest-dakota-access-pipeline.html

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MANDAN, N.D. — The final holdouts at the sprawling pipeline protest camp south of here were arrested Thursday, and the authorities began using heavy equipment to tear down the remaining structures and clear debris on the federally owned land where thousands had lived in recent months.

The arrests, of 46 people, came a day after an evacuation deadline issued by Gov. Doug Burgum. Most protesters left Wednesday of their own volition, and others departed Thursday by crossing the frozen Cannonball River to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Those who remained at the main campsite were taken into custody.

“Law enforcement does not want to be going in there and making arrests,” Lt. Tom Iverson of the North Dakota State Highway Patrol said. “That puts us in harm’s way. It puts others in harm’s way. But unfortunately, they put themselves in that position.”

There were no reports of injuries to police officers or protesters on Thursday, Lieutenant Iverson said. About 200 officers took part in the operation.

The emptying of the site ended a remarkable mobilization of activists to the remote patch of North Dakota prairie near the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers. The protest lasted months, drew international attention and was widely credited with leading to a temporary halt in construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Smaller numbers of protesters remain camped at other sites.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and protesters say the oil pipeline, which crosses the Missouri River nearby, will pose a grave threat to drinking water on the reservation and farther downstream if it ever leaks. Construction on the pipeline, which will carry oil from the Bakken fields in western North Dakota, resumed this month with support from President Trump, and the project could be finished this spring.

The North Dakota authorities said the closing of the main protest camp, which sits on Army Corps of Engineers land, was necessary to prevent pollution during imminent spring floods. The protest site had developed into a make-do city, with semipermanent buildings, medical tents and abandoned cars. If that washed into the Missouri River, the authorities said, the results could be damaging to the environment.

“I think you can see the enormous accumulation of garbage and human waste that’s been piled up down there,” Mr. Burgum said, citing observations from social media videos.

Many activists have disputed the governor’s characterization of the site and criticized his evacuation order.

Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, which has been active here, said in a statement that the evacuation was a “violent and unnecessary infringement on the constitutional right of water protectors to peacefully protest and exercise their freedom of speech.”

“Our hearts are not defeated,” Mr. Goldtooth said. “The closing of the camp is not the end of a movement or fight. It is a new beginning. They cannot extinguish the fire that Standing Rock started.”

About an hour after the protest camp was cleared, Mr. Burgum signed into law four bills that had been passed largely as a result of the protests. They expand the scope of criminal trespassing laws, make it illegal to cover your face with a mask or hood while committing a crime, and increase the penalties for riot offenses.

The protests, which have included clashes with law enforcement and an influx of outsiders to a sparsely populated state, have tested the patience of some in North Dakota.

“Many months, North Dakota has been faced with this and has been dealing with this day in and day out,” Lieutenant Iverson said. “Today is simply another step forward — moving forward to getting that area cleaned up and making sure that we are avoiding any potential ecological disaster.”