Fracking Pipelines Spread Resistance, And Threat, Beyond Drilling Areas

Resistance is building to fracking pipelines in the US, with the latest battle uniting native american communities and local farmers against a planned shale oil pipeline in the West. Other native tribes and people from across the country are supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose lands the pipeline would drive through.

A blockade camp has been set up near a disputed project site, which is only miles from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Construction has been disrupted at several locations along the pipeline route over the past few weeks, including lock-ons to construction equipment and blockades of construction sites. Over 60 people have been arrested and the state has been trying to disrupt water supplies to the blockade camp.

The 1,172 mile Dakota Access Pipeline would carve through 4 US states carrying tight/shale oil from the Bakken Shale in North Dakota to refineries in Illinois, crossing 209 rivers, creeks and tributaries along the way. Across the US fracking is driving a wave of new pipeline building threatening numerous communities, including those near the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.

Long after the drilling rigs are gone a legacy of fracking is thousands of miles of pipelines, from huge transmission lines to small gathering lines, seizing land from residents and carving up the countryside, while the inevitable leaks and explosions provide a constant threat to the areas concerned. Read more about the threat of fracking pipelines.

Media Coverage

‘World Watching’ as Tribal Members Put Bodies in Path of Dakota Pipeline
Lakota Lead Native Americans, Ranchers and Farmers in Fight Against Dakota Access Pipeline
With echoes of Wounded Knee, tribes mount prairie occupation to block North Dakota pipeline
Occupying the Prairie: Tensions Rise as Tribes Move to Block a Pipeline