Editor's note: This story has been updated with more details about the deployment.
National Park Service law enforcement rangers are being called to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, where protesters of the Dakota Access Pipeline have been given until February 22 to leave the area. After that deadline, police are expected to forcibly remove them.
Park Service officials in Washington, D.C., would not confirm the call-up, with chief spokesman Thomas Crosson telling the Traveler on Wednesday afternoon that, "I have nothing to provide at this time."
Three different sources within the agency, speaking on the condition that they not be identified as they were not authorized to discuss the call-up, confirmed the deployment to the Traveler. A deployment order obtained by the Traveler notes that the rangers are set to arrive in North Dakota on Sunday, February 19, and depart on March 6. They will assist the Department of the Interior "in a humanitarian effort to maintain public safety, protection of property, peace and order as it relates to encampments located on Reservation land," the order states. It says personnel should bring available riot gear, including gas masks, as well as "night vision, thermal scopes, and any other useful items."
One source, however, said the rangers were to help clear the protesters out of camps along the Missouri River.
Chase Ironeyes of the Lakota People's Law Project could not immediately be reached for comment, though his staff said Traveler's request had been forwarded to him.
Exactly how many protesters remain at Standing Rock is hard to say, though it's thought to be considerably less than the thousands that once headed there to protest the pipeline.
President Trump earlier this year signed an executive order to restart construction of the pipeline, which tribes oppose.
Comments
After watching the recent American Experience on Ruby Ridge, having the gov't avoid going straight to Defcon 1 seems like a wise move. It's the low season for most law enforcement Rangers anyway.
The (already short-staffed) NPS is supposed to protect and preserve our beautiful national parks, their scenery, their history, for all generations to come. Now park rangers will be deployed, with their gas masks and thermal scopes (and weapons?) on the Rez.
Whatever other activities (crowd control, eviction, trash cleanup) this obiously will facilitate speedier progress on pipeline construction so more can get done before some pesky judge sticks his/her nose in again.
So instead of preserving and protecting, the rangers will (willingly or otherwise) be part of a project that puts the Standing Rock water supply at risk, runs through ground containing the bones of the First People's ancestors and is antithetical to what our park service stands for.
How sadly ironic.
Wild Places:
Are we to infer that you would not object to having an oil pipeline run under where your family members are interred? Also OK for that pipeline to run under your water supply (municipal, or your own well)? And dig up your front yard and driveway to build the pipeline? (And the pipe might be laid in kind of a hurry between court-ordered halts, but a hastily built line carrying thousands of barrels of crude is no big worry, right)
Good, please post relevent GPS data so the utility companies will know where to plan for construction.
So how are giant piles of garbage and vehicles left in a floodplain protecting water?
Amarillo, I won't speak for Wild but as for me, I couldn't care less if a pipeline went under my ancestor's burial grounds nor it it went under my water supply. Please tell me what water supply has been permentantly impaired by an oil pipeline leak. As to tearing up my front yard, without proper compensation, I would object, but since DPL is not tearing up anyone's front yard without appropriate compensation and isn't touching the reservation at all, that point is moot.
For those who care: https://www.americanrivers.org/threats-solutions/energy-development/pipe...
The googlesearch took me 15 seconds.
Read the question again Rick,
Please tell me what water supply has been permentantly impaired by an oil pipeline leak. Emphasis added.
Perhaps you should put more than 15 seconds into your knee jerk responses.
With NPS and BIA both being agencies within the DEPT OF THE INTERIOR it kind of seems like Trump is trying to create inter-departmental chaos and conflict by causing the agencies to turn against each other.