Those FAQs/Facts are amusing.

> Myth: Law enforcement officers deployed concussion grenades resulting in the grievous injury to a protester’s arm.

> Fact: Law enforcement has at no time used concussion grenades during protest activities. Non-lethal munitions used include: impact sponge rounds, drag stabilizer bean bag rounds, riot control CS (tear gas) canister and water, Taser, and stinger balls, which are small rubber balls and CS gas emitted from the device. It makes a loud noise and emits small rubber balls which are meant to cause people to be startled and therefore disperse. It contains no shrapnel.

As far as I can tell -- there's some evidence of false flag operations regarding the "stand down and go home" resolution.

There seems to be plenty of voices from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe leadership calling for continued peaceful protest.

On the fortune.com link you posted says:

"The tribe has been encouraging protesters to go home since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers agreed to an environmental review of the $3.8 billion project in December."

But now, the news is that it seems the environmental review won't be needed.

I think the concern is that the environmental impact of the prior pipeline is non-zero on the local water table. A scale up of this operation is unlikely to improve this situation.

> 2) There are no friggin wild buffalo roaming North Dakota - they are all on ranches, preserves, or the national park land.

Thank you. I grew up on a ranch near there (about 30 minutes from where the protests are happening) and I know ranchers who have had tractors and combines (clearly not a piece of machinery involved in laying a pipeline) ruined because protestors put sugar and dirt in the gas tanks. The people out there... "protecting the water" aren't being nearly as careful as they need to be around destruction of private property. It's disgusting. Ranchers out there tend to be "family farms" / small businesses that don't have insurance for the kinds of damages the protestors are doing.

I don't know how many, but I think it was 6-7 buffalo died during the stampede. A stampede caused by protestors who cut fences and used four-wheelers to scare the buffalo into charging towards the police line. These protestors put the animals at risk -- and the news covers it as, "Oh look at the majestic spirt animals coming to the rescue!" Total BS. Buffalo... are just big dumb animals. With horns. When you scare them, they run their horns into other buffalo... anyway it's a mess. I think a few horses died too. These aren't "wild" animals, they're someone's livestock.

The fact of the matter is the protestors can't tell the difference between a local rancher, and someone who is involved with the pipeline. They block roads, and harass anyone in a pickup truck. I went home to visit and wanted to see what all the fuss was about... when we drove over there it was clear they were antagonizing anyone who came near... and a lot of people who have nothing to do with this still had to use that road. Very clear too that the protesters aren't locals.

> The reason this particular corridor is used is because it was initially cleared in 1982 for an existing gas pipeline. The DAPL pipeline runs parallel to that pipe

So basically this pipe runs alongside an existing pipe? I feel like I can't trust anything I read anymore from either side.

The 1st article states that protestors should go home because an environmental review was going to be done. Now its not going to be done per executive order by trump.

That article doesn't mention anything that you mention here. Also, I certainly haven't heard any real news or information outlet making claims like you've described.

You think Soros is funding the DAPL protest? I have no faith in anything you write if you you are so easily duped by conspiracy sites.

That was the initial assessment completed in July of last year, but further environmental study was deemed required: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/87381a7d1abd4817a8991b0c8caea... "An assessment conducted last year determined the crossing would not have a significant impact on the environment. However, then-Assistant Army Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy on Dec. 4 declined to issue permission for the crossing, saying a broader environmental study was warranted."

This one has been called into question. It was expected that the Army would do a fully independent study.

Understood, and that makes a lot of sense. I apologize for the mistake and will do better next time.

Direct link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38901498

Yes, it would be preferable if AMP cache urls were banned from hacker news and only original sources were linked...

The tribes' position, at least (not necessarily the position of everyone else opposing it) is that it should be rerouted so it isn't tunneled directly under Lake Oahe, their main water source. That's not inconsistent with completing it, since tunneling under the lake isn't the only possible route. Though the pipeline owner would prefer not to reroute it.

That was also the basis for the Army Corps of Engineers ordering a more extensive environmental review. My understanding is the review wasn't to determine whether the pipeline would be built at all (that question isn't even in their jurisdiction), but 1) to evaluate whether the proposed route under Lake Oahe, which requires an easement to be granted beneath a reservoir they're responsible for, is a suitable option, and 2) if yes, to determine whether conditions should be placed on the easement to minimize the likelihood and/or impact of a spill. Their press release at the time is here: http://www.usace.army.mil/Media/News-Releases/News-Release-A...

  That was also the basis for the Army Corps of Engineers ordering a more extensive environmental review. 

Argument from final consequence aside, much of that work was was ongoing before the legality AND environmental impact was fully realized, on the expectation that the locals did not have the resources to fight its construction.

Even if the pipeline is ultimately established, winning damages for the local people would help them relocate away from resources tainted by the previous pipeline (who's legality is also very questionable).

It's been protested the entire time, just only recently receiving attention

Not defending the headline, but the link is just an AMP page - on mobile it doesn't redirect to a bbc domain.

> As far as I understand it, the pipeline being fought over symbolically rather than for reasons that make analytic sense. If there's an environmental argument, it's that the pipeline will make using shale sands oil from Canada cheaper which is a Bad Thing because we use more stuff when it's cheaper.

Your last argument suggests you are conflating aspects of the Dakota Access Pipeline (which is for domestic shale oil from a particular field) with the Keystone XL pipeline (which is for Canadian oil sands oil).

The environmental argument about Dakota access is that the pipeline, which was rerouted from its original route because of an unacceptable threat to a mostly White community that it would have crossed just upstream of the water supply of, and it's been rerouted to run just upstream of the water supply of the Standing Rock reservation.

Which is why the protesters style themselves "Water Protectors".

> Now, as to the subject of the pipeline running through native american territory because white people were (justifiably) worried about their drinking water if it ran through their watershed -- that's a whole different issue.

No, it's actually the whole issue with Dakota Access. Keystone XL is a whole different pipeline.

Existing pipelines within a few hundred miles of this site have recently leaked into water supplies. This is not symbolic; it's about where the tribe gets their water from.

> As far as I understand it, the pipeline being fought over symbolically rather than for reasons that make analytic sense. If there's an environmental argument, it's that the pipeline will make using shale sands oil from Canada cheaper which is a Bad Thing because we use more stuff when it's cheaper. > The correct approach would be to make fees and penalties for environmental impact higher (carbon tax, EPA able to levy big fines for oil spills, etc.) and then let the market figure it out rather than fight like crazy over specific cases.

I think you are totally correct, except that the `correct approach` only works if you have a functioning and independent (of the regulated) regulatory system able to assess the impact, and levy taxes, fees, and fines to price in all the externalities.

Defunding / freezing these agencies certainly doesn't help their ability to function, and funding the campaigns of (or challengers in the primaries of if need be) the regulators as well as having sympathetic people placed at the top of the regulatory enforcement agencies destroys independence.

There are regulations proposed in Congress to make it illegal for regulators to consider results from all studies of ecological effects after "one off" events such as the Gulf Oil spill. I presume it also applies to smaller events like a pipeline leak.

The stated motivation for this banning of research is because these studies are not "repeatable". This seems like a pretty blatant attack on the potential for the entities which benefited from the activity that led to the accident to be held accountable.

With a rule like this on the horizon, there's no way I'd be willing to allow any oil company to pursue any construction with any risk of an ecological effect anywhere near my back yard.

why don't you go ask the people of Flint how symbolic their water supply is?

Maybe they can provide some concrete analysis of tainted water supplies.

  as to the subject of the pipeline running through native american territory...  that's a whole different issue.

Especially since the pipeline will not enter Native American territory at any point.

There are people who live in the pipeline's projected path and their water will be poisoned if/when the pipeline leaks. That's not symbolism, that's life and death.

The debate is social. This is going through tribal lands because the tribes are poor and legally limited. They can't defend themselves. If you tried to run a pipeline under the water supply for 10,000 rich white people, it'd die before the first inch of pipe was laid. The very land it's going under is just a tiny fragment of low-value land left to the tribes, after multiple gunpoint-driven treaties left a tiny "reservation".

Power. It's about power. And power is tied to race. It's morally disgusting, and a lot of this talk is just misdirection, avoiding the real, valid source of anger and rebellion.

Water pollution from leaks, as pointed out elsewhere in the comments here, is more than symbolism

The debate is because the pipeline got rerouted - was going to threaten a mostly-white area, now will threaten a native american reserveation.

The "symbolism" is - if you're poor or under-represented you will be poisoned. Why did we even create reservations if we can poison them at will for the profits of the greedy?

two wrongs make a right?

What would be more ecological is to leave the stuff in the ground in the first place. This is not a symbolic fight.

> If neither, then leave the oil in the ground.

Nothing is ever perfectly safe. Nothing you do ever has no impact. Everything in life is about tradeoffs, and the right thing to do is pick the best one. NOT wait for the perfect one!

Roads/rails already exist, as do standards about safe transport of oil by train/truck.

What are you suggesting, exactly? That each locality can block whatever transport goes through it? Maybe put up a tollbooth?

Pipelines and trains and trucks have already been proven to be safe. There are hundreds of thousands of miles of pipelines in the U.S. today. The EIS showed this new pipeline would be safe.

> If neither, then leave the oil in the ground.

Coal isn't safe either, nor nuclear, hell even with solar someone might fall off a roof during maintenance or installation and the panels can be toxic. What perfectly safe energy source do you propose?

But more oil is used to transport the oil (in trucks/trains), so I think that increases CO2 usage overall.

Also higher prices mean more oil is exctracted - and sometimes more is used to do the extraction (IE, more marginal EROEI projects are undertaken)

The difference is that on the scale of tens or hundreds of thousands of years, wildlife populations have a chance to adapt or relocate. We are causing oil leaks in areas that have been historically relatively pristine, resulting in severe damage to sensitive ecosystems.

Not in the middle of the water supply for 10,000 people.

Once installed, pipelines can be -- and are -- used to transport any fluid; they're not limited to oil and natural gas. They can also be used for other purposes: the Williams Companies ran fiber-optic cable through decommissioned pipelines in the 1990s, drastically improving coast-to-coast network connectivity.

Also, remember the article from yesterday about how utilities are building solar plants to insulate themselves from swings in the price of oil and natural gas. The current round of pipeline building and the current round of solar-building are complementary; both are about moving away from coal.

Wind has arrived, solar is arriving, and geothermal and pumped hydro are probably next. The future of the world's energy supply looks pretty bright, and it looks likely that the Saudis were right back in the 1970s when they predicted that the oil age wouldn't end when we ran out of oil, just as how the stone age didn't end when we ran out of stones.

> Pipelines are much safer than trains or trucks at delivering oil or LNG.

What does it mean to be safer in this context? Pipelines have fewer spills than trucks, but a truck spill is generally limited to one truck's worth of oil whereas a pipe can spill a huge amount.

> Pipelines are much safer than trains or trucks at delivering oil or LNG. That subject is not up for debate.

Safer by what measure? Pipelines have fewer spills than trucks, but a truck spill is generally limited to one truck's worth of oil whereas a pipe can spill a huge amount. (I'm not sure where trains fit in. A train carries more oil than a truck, but train accidents won't always break every car).

It is indeed up for debate. I would like to see sources backing that up. I can find sources saying just the opposite. I think it comes down to what you mean by safe. Safer for humans in the immediate area of an accident, safer for the environment, safer for humans as a whole. I would indeed argue that is loses in the later two.

I agree with the rest of your comments.

>Pipelines are much safer than trains or trucks at delivering oil or LNG. That subject is not up for debate.

source(s)?

... we should be resisting any and all modalities of future fossil fuel exploitation. who cares if pipelines are "safer" when we know that there is no planet-safe way to burn the oil they carry. if pipelines are the most efficient way to move the resource of oil, we need to be preventing their deployment because oil will kill us if we let it.

we're in the midgame of climate change... better to take radical action to prevent the worst possible end case.

Can you actually explain how it doesn't benefit USA? All the studies I read explained the economic impact it will have on the states it goes through after completion.

I'm all for "socializing the risk" of oil. If more people had the same worries about their water being contaminated, maybe more people would start to demand investment in cleaner sources of energy. As it is, most people don't live near pipelines or water sources that could be contaminated by them, and so the risk is largely abstract.