Dakota Access Pipeline Protests

The Dakota Access Pipeline protests, also called by the hashtag #NoDAPL, began in early 2016 as a grassroots opposition to the construction of Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline in the northern United States. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in western North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing beneath the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, as well as under part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Many in the Standing Rock tribe and surrounding communities consider the pipeline to constitute a serious threat to the region's water. The construction was also seen as a direct threat to ancient burial grounds and cultural sites of historic importance.

In April 2016, youth from Standing Rock and surrounding Native American communities organized a campaign to stop the pipeline, calling themselves, "ReZpect Our Water". Conflict between water protectors and law enforcement escalated through the summer and fall. In September 2016, construction workers bulldozed a section of privately owned land which the tribe had claimed as sacred ground. In March 2020, a United States District Judge ruled that the government had not adequately studied the pipeline's "effects on the quality of the human environment", and ordered the United States Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a new environmental impact review.

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