“Water is life,” a phrase sometimes heard in Colorado, which has a water predicament of its own, was the refrain shouted Tuesday as Durangoans marched downtown in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
About 100 people, young and old, assembled at Buckley Park late Tuesday morning and trooped down Main Avenue sidewalks to Wells Fargo on College Drive to present bank executives with a cease-and-desist letter of sorts: Stop funding the pipeline.
“I feel the need to do something, and it’s even more important now with our president-elect,” said Jonah Smith.
Wells Fargo is among 17 major financial institutions and investors supporting the project, which would carry crude oil 1,172 miles from North Dakota oil fields to Illinois refineries.
The controversial project has ignited nationwide protests to oppose the pipeline alongside the Standing Rock Sioux, who fear planned construction beneath a lake could harm both cultural resources and drinking water.
Objections to the pipeline and its financing drew protesters wielding signs and chanting “you can’t drink oil; leave it in the soil.” Resource and Environmental Advocacy and Protection of Southwest Colorado (REAP) organized the event, as part of a National Day of Action against pipeline stakeholders and the Army Corps of Engineers.
“Treaty rights have been violated. We’re always on the short end of the stick,” said Steven Orihuela, a member of the Paiute tribe of southeastern California and an environmental studies major at Fort Lewis College. Both his heritage and field of study brought him to Tuesday’s protest. “Both go hand-in-hand. The pipeline is a huge degradation to the land, and we (Native Americans) have such a different, cultural tie with land.”
“Protests are important to educate people,” said Lori Goodman, a board member of Diné CARE, a Navajo Nation environmental nonprofit. “Otherwise, it’s out of sight, out of mind.”
Demonstrators remained outside, holding up the incantation “water is life,” while Heidi Brugger and Joanie Trussel of REAP presented a letter to Wells Fargo executives, which was politely accepted.
“We want major banks to cease further loan disbursement and additional investment in the pipeline until our concerns are addressed,” Trussel said.
Drivers passing by honked their approval and support at the gathering outside the bank.
Duane “Chili” Yazzie, president of the Shiprock chapter of the Navajo Nation, told rally participants to oppose that which threatens life.
“Throughout history, there has been a perpetual fight between good and evil, and a significant chapter of that fight is happening in Standing Rock,” Yazzie told The Durango Herald. “This is the ultimate battle between right and wrong, and DAPL is wrong: It threatens life.”
More protestors took a stance against the pipeline on Tuesday, rallying at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers office at 1970 Main Ave.
