A showdown looms as thousands of veterans from around the country head to North Dakota to be shield Dakota Access Pipeline protesters from police.
The plan by an unarmed citizens’ militia, called Veterans Stand for Standing Rock, coincides with North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple’s order to evacuate a protesters’ camp near the pipeline construction site in Cannon Ball, N.D., south of Bismarck.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which leases the lands for grazing, has also ordered the camp closed to all public access as of Monday. Both said the threat of approaching winter weather to public safety required their action.
The Corps of Engineers has said it won’t forcibly roust the camp, which has grown to an estimated 10,000 people. However, if campers stay, it is at their own risk, officials said.
Emergency services to the camp will not be guaranteed under the Dalrymple’s evacuation unless approved case by case by the state Highway Patrol or the Morton County sheriff. Protesters say they will and about 2,000 veterans are expected to arrive Sunday to join the fight by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its allies against the pipeline.
The $3.8 billion oil pipeline through four states is finished except for the last portion, where it would cross under the Missouri River, less than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. Developer Energy Transfer Partners of Houston has yet to obtain the easement it needs from the Corps of Engineers to cross under the river and finish the project.
No construction or drilling work has begun on either side of the river, said Gary Sanders, the sheriff of Emmons County, across the river from the protest camp. The only people on site at the drilling pads are security personnel, as Energy Transfer Partners waits for the easement to allow drilling under the river, Sanders said. “It’s a waiting game.”
In a Facebook post, the veterans group outlined one possible tactic: to walk in an unbroken line shoulder to shoulder through police to reach the drill pad for the pipeline’s crossing under the river, and encircle it.
Some fear more violence as confrontations have escalated, most recently Nov. 20 when police clashed with demonstrators, sending 26 people to the hospital.
“I have always considered the police to be friends, but to be on the front lines that Sunday night was the closest I have ever been to war,” said Victory Lonnquist of Seattle, who has been working as a volunteer medic at Standing Rock since summer.