In 2015, Energy Transfer Partners began construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, designed to carry petroleum from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline would cross under the Missouri River and Lake Oahe, near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The construction would destroy ancestral burial grounds and other important Sioux cultural and historical sites on lands promised by treaty to the Sioux. Should the pipeline rupture, the resulting pollution would contaminate not only the local water supply but the entire Missouri River all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. This document is a portion of the Standing Rock Sioux tribal nation’s resolution in opposition to the pipeline.

In April 2016, young people from Standing Rock, supported by Native Americans from surrounding communities, established a “water protectors” camp to block construction of the pipeline. Using the slogans “Water Is Life” and “#NoDAPL,” they rallied support on social media. The encampments eventually swelled to several thousand people from all across the country and abroad. The actions of heavily armed police in October and November 2016 drew international media attention. In December, President Barack Obama ordered a stop to the project while the Army Corps of Engineers reconsidered the environmental impact. President Donald Trump reversed the decision.

The Dakota Access Pipeline was completed in April 2017 and began delivering oil. A U.S. District Court judge enjoined the pipeline in July 2020, ordering it shut down and drained, but the ordered was reversed on appeal. The pipeline continues to operate.

The water protector protest between April and December 2016 was the most galvanic event among Native Americans since the siege of Wounded Knee in 1973.