Negotiations for cleaning up the Dakota Access Pipeline protest camp have broken down. A new debate surrounds the protest’s aftermath and who will clean up.
The Army Corps of Engineers ordered the protest camp to close by 2 pm Wednesday. Camp officials say the site is too muddy to move heavy equipment and get vehicles out by the deadline.
Crews and contractors have worked since January to clean the site’s trash and waste left by the protestors. State officials say the trash may have a significant environmental impact with spring flooding. Dave Glatt is the director of the North Dakota Department of Health.
“There are impacts and then you have the chemical issues, the abandoned cars and those types of things that just have to that just have to get pulled off the floodplain. If you don’t do all that it all ends up in the river and that is what everyone can agree on is that that’s what should be protected and that’s what the state is working towards along with the Army Corps of Engineers and also with the volunteers down there to get that material off the floodplain,” says Glatt.
Some don’t share officials’ concerns. Chas Jewett is a Lakota woman from Cheyenne River who protested at the site.
“See I mean that’s so amazing that so many people are concerned about the cleanup and it’s like no one is asking the questions about the Missouri River but everyone is ready to assume that we’re messing things up there. There’s not an ecological mess, you know where that came from or how that happened you know there’s no big disaster happening up there you know I just left. You know it’s just not that, it’s just not the situation,” says Jewett.
President Trump ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to go ahead with the pipeline’s construction. It’s unclear how long cleanup will take for the protest camp.