Chip Bok's Bokbluster

Standing Rock Pipeline protesters became the most immediate threat of pollution to the Missouri river they sought to protect. They had braved the North Dakota winter by camping at the construction site of the North Dakota Access Pipeline.

Standing Rock

But in the end it was trash from the humans, not oil from the pipeline, that immediately threatened the river. Gov. Doug Burgum told The New York Times that melting snow could wash their “garbage and human waste” into the river. Last week authorities forced the campers to leave.

Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, which has been active here, said in a statement that the evacuation was a “violent and unnecessary infringement on the constitutional right of water protectors to peacefully protest and exercise their freedom of speech.”

Here’s the story in the Washington Times.