A Petition of: Sustainability Leadership Cohort

Addressed to: MENOMINEE INDIAN TRIBE OF WISCONSIN

WE THE UNDERSIGNED WOULD LIKE TO BRING YOUR ATTENTION TO THE FOLLOWING PROBLEM, WITH RECOMMENDATION(S):

Seven band Lakota Tribal members requesting help from all Tribes across America and Indigenous Peoples of the world. We urge our Tribe to offer assistance to help in this fight to save the sacred Missouri River, lands and wildlife against this encroachment on treaty lands. Like us, they too are opposed to oil companies coming near tribal lands in fear of pipelines bursting and then contaminating water supplies, especially the sacred sites on tribal lands. For days there has been a protest in Cannonball, ND for illegal allowing the Dakota Access pipeline.

The opposition has been intensified after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released their approval on July 26, 2016. It took seven years of protestors, sit-ins, letter writing, and even a presidential review to prevent the Keystone XL oil pipeline from being built. Now, within months, America’s newest mega-pipeline- the Dakota Access Pipeline Project - has quietly received full permission to begin construction. Also known as the Bakken Pipeline, the project is slated to run 1,172 miles of 30-inch diameter pipe from North Dakota’s northwest Bakken region down to a market hub outside of Patoka, Illinois, where it will join other pipelines and travel onward to refineries and markets in the Golf and on the East Coast. The Bakken Pipeline is only seven miles shorter than Keystone’s proposed length.

What is happening to their sacred sites could very soon be happen to us. We would like to join the front lines and support the land and protect the water. We are protectors not protestors and we would like to be there protecting mother earth with our brothers and sister because it is our duty as Native Americans. There is transportation being provided by other Tribes, donations being sent to this protest, we would like to see our Tribe be afforded the same opportunity for this call to action.

AGREED UPON BY THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE: