University of Wisconsin basketball star Bronson Koenig made an astonishingly false claim in a lengthy op-ed in support of those protesting an oil pipeline that allegedly runs through sacred American Indian sites.
Koenig, who’s part American Indian, echoed a narrative about the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) catching fire among anti-pipeline protesters: rich, white people in Bismarck got the project moved farther south to poorer, rural tribal areas to keep oil away from their water supply.
“Up above the valley where the Standing Rock camp sits, cars were speeding by on Route 1806, the state highway that leads north toward Bismarck — the city that decided last year to reroute the very same pipeline,” Koenig wrote for The Players’ Tribune.
“The residents there feared it might endanger the local water supply,” according to Koenig.
Hundreds of American Indians and environmental activists converged on DAPL construction sites near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota to show solidarity against the project in a series of confrontations that culminated in the federal government ordering protesters to get out.
Protesters argue DAPL runs through sacred Sioux lands around Lake Oahe, and a major gripe of activists that’s popped up in recent months is the claim the pipeline was rerouted by wealthy city folk worried about their water.
The Sioux are literally being forced at gunpoint to accept ecological risks that North Dakota’s white residents refused.
— terrycloth warrior (@suntzufuntzu) October 29, 2016
Koenig seems to have uncritically picked up this talking point in his lengthy story of his time with the Standing Rock Sioux.
“Today, the target may be Standing Rock,” he wrote. “But Native people aren’t the only ones who are affected by threats to the environment. Clean water is a precious resource. It belongs to all of us, whatever our heritage. We must all protect it.”
But it’s not true the city of Bismarck changed the pipeline’s route after residents fretted about the safety of their drinking water.
The fact-checking site Snopes found the decision to reroute DAPL was made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, not Bismarck.
“The decision appeared to have been unrelated to objections from residents of Bismarck, and no plan was ever solidified to route the pipeline north of the city before its residents shut it down,” Snopes writer Kim LaCapria wrote in October.
LaCapria also found DAPL “not because the Sioux were considered to be less valuable than their neighbors in Bismarck, but because the alternate route ran an additional eleven miles and included several more water crossings.”
The Corps decided running the pipeline north of Bismarck “was not a viable option for many reasons,” according to The Bismarck Tribune. “One reason mentioned in the agency’s environmental assessment is the proximity to wellhead source water protection areas that are avoided to protect municipal water supply wells.”
DAPL “would have been 11 miles longer with more road crossings and waterbody and wetland crossings” if it went by Bismarck. Ultimately, Bismarck was considered a “high consequence area” that would see the most severe environmental impacts if there was a spill.
“It also would have been difficult to stay 500 or more feet away from homes, as required by the North Dakota Public Service Commission, the corps states,” the Tribune reported. On top of that, the Corps found the risk of a spill into Lake Oahe “extremely low.” Most Sioux on the reservation rely on well water.
Standing Rock Sioux claim Lake Oahe is a sacred burial ground. It’s also a major water source for the tribe. Lake Oahe is an artificial reservoir created after the Corps and Interior Department dammed up the Missouri River in the 1960s.
The Oahe dam inundated 200,000 acres of Standing Rock Sioux reservation lands and Cheyenne River reservation lands. The dam provides flood control and electricity for the region.
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