BREAKING NEWS:Native Americans Ready To Battle Trump Over Dakota Access Pipeline

NEW YORK ― A frigid rain fell hard on Cheryl Angel and her fellow protesters Tuesday, but she would not be moved. The 56-year-old activist and elder of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe braved far worse weather while living for months on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, where she fought to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline from being buried under the sacred waters of Lake Oahe.

She had joined hundreds outside the New York offices of Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to urge them to vote against President Donald Trump’s controversial slate of nominees. But she had a hunch that the fight over the 1,172-mile pipeline wasn’t over.

“Open your eyes, America, and see that water is in danger in your own backyard where pipelines are slated to be built across America,” Angel told The Huffington Post on Tuesday. “The American people need to stand together and protect the water sources where they are under attack.”
That attack resumed Tuesday when Trump signed a flurry of executive actions meant to jump-start stalled construction on the pipeline and invite TransCanada, the company behind the controversial Keystone XL, to reapply to build the pipeline rejected by his predecessor in 2015.

Native American leaders quickly announced plans Tuesday afternoon to fight the executive actions, particularly the one granting permission to complete construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline. The oil conduit has been stalled since December, when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit to lay the final stretch of the $3.8 billion project’s pipe under Lake Oahe, a water source sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux. The halt, issued under former President Barack Obama and hailed as a victory by protesters, may be undone by the new executive orders.

“Trump is portraying his true self by joining forces with the darkness of the Black Snake pipelines crossing across the culturally and environmentally rich landscape of the prairie lands of America,” Tom BK Goldtooth, executive director of the grassroots-organizing nonprofit Indigenous Environmental Network, said in a statement. “These actions by President Trump are insane and extreme, and nothing short of attacks on our ancestral homelands as Indigenous peoples.”

Hours after the president’s announcement, hundreds of protesters swarmed Columbus Circle in New York City. Loud chants of “If all lives matter, Native lives matter!” and “Keep it in the soil, you can’t drink oil!” echoed in the park.