CHAPTER ONE YOUTH LEADING THE WAY As the Rezpect Our Water video opens a girl steps into view and introduces herself My name is Tokata Iron Eyes I'm 12 years old I live in Fort Yates North Dakota The scene transitions to another girl who introduces herself as 16 year old Anastasia White Mountain Following the introductions various young speakers from the Standing Rock Reservation reveal to viewers that they are Native American Then they go on to discuss activities they enjoy I often go to the river I love to swim says Iron Eyes Running off the boat docks with each other and jumping off at the same time says 14 year old Wynona Gayton Teens and children got involved in the protest movement to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline
Down to the river to swim or we sit there and talk said an anonymous teen boy Off camera an interviewer asks them what they think of the Dakota Access Pipeline DAPL that would soon cross the Missouri River close to where reservation residents get their drinking water It's really messed up is what it is said Gayton cause we get all our water from the Missouri River REZPECT OUR WATER The video is one of four that Standing Rock youth made as part of the Rezpect Our Water media campaign posted in March and April 2016 They agreed to help make the videos after speakers visited their school and told students about the plan to finish building DAPL near the reservation The Standing Rock Reservation is home to people from the Lakota and Dakota Nations who are known by many outsiders as the Sioux DAPL is not just of interest to the reservation It is a part of the infrastructure used to move fuel across the United States The pipeline was designed and built by Energy Transfer Partners ETP to carry crude oil from
the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to distant shipping points in Illinois In early planning stages the proposed route for the pipeline passed just north of Bismarck North Dakota's capitol but residents of the city objected that the pipeline passed too close to areas that supplied their water The pipeline was shifted USACE WHO ARE THEY AND WHAT DO THEY DO south of Bismarck to a point just 0 5 miles 0 8 km upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation Because the new route would cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe this small portion of the pipeline and The United States Army Corps of Engineers USACE is the world's largest public engineering organization The group employs more than 35 000 civilian engineers and it is responsible for environmental cleanup on lands controlled by the Department of Defense such as military bases and testing facilities It also oversees the development of wetlands and water related projects carried out in relation to the Clean Water Act of 1972 which legally limits water pollution One reason the USACE is involved in the DAPL project is the pipeline route crosses federal lands controlled by the US Army In addition to Lake Oahe in North and South Dakota these include Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota and Carlyle Reservoir in Illinois The USACE has jurisdiction over only the parts of the pipeline that cross these specific areas the land easement required to build it needed to be approved by the US Army Corps of Engineers USACE The people of the reservation were told the pipeline buried underground would be no threat to their
