The Dakota Access Pipeline: Environmental Risk or Necessary Evil?

The Dakota Access Pipeline is one of the many controversial topics of today. Do you stand with its construction, or stand with the protests? We can’t help but wonder if any answer is right. Are the lands sacred? Is the pipeline a risk to the environment? Either way the coin lands it’s a difficult decision. Some ask, Why should we be moving crude oil by pipeline instead of the railway? We have had many of the trains explode or even derail in the recent years. This isn’t a case of operation error though, many of the trains were going under the speed limit set for trains at 80 mph. We have had over 400 crashed or spilled oil in the U.S. in the past five years. This has cost $45 million dollars in damages, but if a pipeline leaks it will pour more oil into the ecosystem. Although it is less likely to explode, this is not good for our water and environment in any way. Moving oil by a pipeline is about $30 cheaper than the railway’s price for shipping the crude oil, but the estimated amount of deaths caused by rails every year is 94, and the pipelines’ is 2. Through all of this we have to consider the Native American protesters’ view on this.

The protesters want the pipeline to stop production, because it would run through their land and burial sites and can possibly affect their water source that were included in their treaty. Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) was the promise if undisturbed land in the Black Hills. Do we honor a treaty that’s already been broken for our thirst for gold? Do we respect their want to keep the environment clean with so many pipelines in the US already? There are miles upon miles of pipelines all over America. Why should they be any different? Maybe it is a step that should be taken to protect what we hold dear, whether it’s our beliefs, land, education, or