Dozens of activists from around Western Washington left Saturday to join protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
With a truck full of tepees and wood stoves, about 80 activists from around Western Washington gathered at Seattle’s Northgate Mall this morning to head out in a convoy to join opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline camped near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
About the DAPL protest
The Trump administration has advanced the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipeline projects. Seattle Times reporter Lynda V. Mapes and photographer Alan Berner traveled to North Dakota last year to cover the protests against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. Here are recent stories to help you understand the conflict:- Background stories: Here's a primer on the pipeline project, including the key players on all sides, a brief history of broken treaty promises and a closer look at the courtroom battle. And here's what we're reading related to the controversy.
- March 28: What the completed Dakota Access pipeline means for key players.
- Feb. 23: Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp closed; 46 holdouts arrested.
- Feb. 22: Preparing to leave, Standing Rock protesters ceremonially burn camp.
- Feb. 13: Judge rejects tribes’ bid to halt Dakota Access Pipeline; feds plan to shut down protest camp.
- Feb. 1: Hundreds rally as the Seattle City Council considers divesting from Wells Fargo because of its role as a Dakota Access Pipeline lender.
- Jan. 24, 2017: Donald Trump signs executive orders advancing the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe says it will push back.
- Dec. 4, 2016: Tribes celebrate as Corps rejects Dakota Access pipeline easement
- Nov. 21: Washington tribes urge that Obama stop, reroute Dakota Access Pipeline
- Nov. 12: Hundreds rally in Tacoma against Dakota Access Pipeline
- Live updates from from Seattle Times journalists on the scene Oct. 26, 27 and 28.
- Oct. 25: Tribes in Washington state call on President Obama to improve federal consultations over infrastructure projects
- Oct. 24: Citing treaty claim, protesters occupy land a rancher recently sold to pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners.
- See photos from the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
Opposition keeps building, even as pipeline developers say they are confident the pipeline will soon be completed.
Not if they can help it, say activists driving the biodiesel-fueled truck full of supplies to North Dakota.
“I just want to help,” said Cody Carpenter, 19, of Port Townsend.
A team of physicians from Swedish Medical Center and the Seattle Indian Health Board also is departing for the opposition encampment with medical supplies.
“I think the movement is so important” said Hailey Wilson, a Nez Perce tribal member and family medical doctor with Swedish and the Indian health board. “For Indian rights, for the environment.”
Meanwhile Indian tribes from all over South and Central Puget Sound and their supporters were gathering Saturday morning for a march and rally against the pipeline starting at noon in downtown Tacoma.
Opponents say the pipeline already has destroyed native cultural sites and puts water quality at risk.
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