“You’re not welcome here… We’ve said no from day one.”

And with these firm words the TransCanada representatives were kicked out of Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation last week. The seemingly aloof TransCanada officials showed up at the Tribal Office in Eagle Butte, South Dakota in an attempt to win the tribe over to the pipeline, but were met with a swift, firm response. Robin LeBeau, Cheyenne River Sioux Councilwoman for District 5, saw them in the parking lot and promptly told them off.

The encounter was caught on video:

Robin LeBeau:

“I don’t want no TransCanada people here…I’m going to fight hard and if I find anyone else here I’m going to bring more people in abundance to tell you guys to leave.” 

“This pipeline is the most destructive pipeline. You’re going to rape, steal and destroy everything that is for us….everything, our land, our culture, our water.”

And what do the TransCanada reps suggest the Tribe do with these valid concerns? Write a letter to the CEO. What’s his name, again? Their response:

“I don’t even know the guy’s name….. um…they have a website…”

Really?! Thats the best these guys can do? Like writing a letter to Russ Girling is going to convince this multinational corporation to stop building their multi-billion dollar project and respect the lives of indigenous peoples. This corporation has demonstrated numerous times that they only care about their profits and will bully and bankrupt anyone who stands in their way.

Tribal members know it. They aren’t buying TransCanada’s false promises and understand the threat that toxic tar sands pose to their Sacred Water, burial grounds, and historic landmarks. The Keystone XL pipeline would cut right through their Treaty Territory and some of their most Sacred Sites. (You can watch part 2 of the video here.)

Cheyenne River Crossing: Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
Google Earth map depicting proposed Keystone XL Pipeline crossing Cheyenne River at Milepost 430.07. Cheyenne River Indian Reservation is indicated. Source: NCAI Analysis – figure 4.

The last several months has seen the indigenous resistance along the proposed KXL Northern segment continue to grow. Just this last week the Native News Network reported that the National Congress of American Indians, “the nation’s oldest, largest and most representative American Indian and Alaska Native organization in the country,” publicly released a statement of opposition to Keystone XL and criticized the State Department’s flawed “Environmental Impact Statement”.

Additionally, the Moccasins on the Ground Tour of Resistance will travel to Cheyenne River in mid-June to continue to build this resistance and unite the Lakota, Nakota, and Dakota peoples against this toxic intruder.

By now Russ Girling shouldn’t need a handwritten letter to know the message coming from Red Nations along the pipeline route: “Go Away!”

Our friends at Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance interrupted work at a Keystone XL construction site again this morning in Oklahoma. Today marks the eighth such action by the coalition. We’ve re-posted their action below but for more up-to-date info, check their website. Follow Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance live on their Facebook and Twitter.
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UPDATE: We are speaking with Bob right now.  It seems the firefighters were using both sides of an axe in the extraction process and Bob chose to unlock as a result of duress and concern for his safety.  We full heartedly support his decision to exercise agency in regards to his own safety in the face of danger.

UPDATE: 8:50am - Bob has been extracted and arrested.  He is being taken to Hughes County jail.

UPDATE: 8:10am - Holdenville Fire Department has arrived on site to extract Bob.

UPDATE: 6:45am -Workers have arrived onsite

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Wewoka Oklahoma-Monday, May 13th, 7AM -  Early this morning Bob Waldrop, 60, fourth generation Oklahoman and prominent Oklahoma City community member walked onto an active construction site for the Keystone XL pipeline in Seminole County and locked himself to an Excavator, a piece of heavy machinery used in the construction of the pipeline. Waldrop took a stand today in defense of the land and the human and non-humans that depend upon it to survive.

Waldrop, as a founding member of the Oscar Romero Catholic Workers House, is a part of Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, a growing coalition of groups and individuals dedicated to stopping the expansion of Tar Sands
infrastructure throughout the Great Plains. His action follows an escalating number of work-stopping actions, of which there were five in April alone, in Oklahoma.

Raised on a farm in rural Oklahoma, Waldrop believes “All farmers know that if you don’t take care of your land, your land can’t take care of you. And I’m here today because this pipeline is an enormous attack on the land. Here in Oklahoma and all the way up the Great Plains and into Canada giant earthmoving machines are destroying ecosystems. They are uprooting trees, murdering birds and destroying habitat, killing little critters. They are trampling on the rights of Indigenous people of the area whose treaties are being violated and abrogated by the greed of TransCanada and its stockholders.”

“I’m here in part because of my religious faith. I’m a devout Roman Catholic, and I’m following in the example of Jesus himself who took a stand against every form of evil. Jesus set a model for all of us when he took a whip and drove the moneychangers out of the temple. I’m sure that was against the city ordinances of Jerusalem but he did not hesitate. I’m here today to show TransCanada that they can’t just run over everybody and the environment. There are people that are willing to stand up for their rights and the rights of the planet.”

Lifelong Oklahomans and Texans with Tar Sands Blockade and Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance have been constantly engaged in work stopping direct actions against the inherently dangerous KXL since August. The Keystone I, built in 2010, has spilt 17 times so far, including 12 in its first year of operation. The 2010 Kalamazoo river spill that has cost nearly a billion dollars in ongoing cleanup and the recent spill in Mayflower, AR that has left evacuated residents unable to return home nearly 6 weeks after the disaster show the dire consequences of inevitable spills of heavier than water bitumen diluted with a toxic cocktail including benzene.

There is staunch resistance to the expansion of Tar Sands mining and infrastructure growing on the heartland, long considered a sacrifice zone by the petro-chemical industry. The rise of Idle No More in defense of indigenous sovereignty across Turtle Island is in large part to protect lands and waters from toxic industries. Peoples of the Great Sioux Nation and tribal governments in “South Dakota” have avowed opposition to the Keystone XL, joining international treaties such as the Mother Earth Accord and Protect the Sacred. The Unis’tot’en Camp in northern B.C has entered the third year of their blockade of the Pacific Trails Pipeline, and a growing grassroots coalition in Utah has avowed to stop the first Tar Sands Mine in “The United States”. Many of these groups have banded together to usher in a #Fearless Summer, a coordinated direct action initiative against industrial extraction.

Follow the action live here, or on their facebook

Please consider a donation to their Wepay acount to support futher actions and legal defense!

UPDATE Monday May 13th 9:30pm – we’ve just gotten word that Lou Thompson, TransCanada’s Manager of Tribal Affairs, has decided not to attend the Harvard forum on tribal-corporate relations this week!

Thanks to everyone who helped put the pressure on HPAIED and TransCanada over this matter of PR abuse and blatant hypocrisy.

And for what it’s worth, this isn’t a reason to stop contacting HPAIED or its co-director Joseph Kalt (see the end of this blog). HPAIED is doing meaningful things to raise awareness of issues surrounding tribal-corporate relations, and if these matters interest you then we encourage you to reach out to them to learn more!

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About a week ago we learned that, according to TransCanada’s blog, TransCanada’s Manager of Tribal Affairs Lou Thompson was invited by Harvard to a leadership forum on tribal-corporate relations to be held this Thursday and Friday May 16-17th.

TransCanada’s former “assisting Harvard” blog, reconstructed from multiple screen captures.

In their blog TransCanada claimed that Harvard invited them because Harvard sought “TransCanada’s expertise in building tribal relationships”. Seeing no other source of information available on the net, we foolishly took TransCanada for their word and called Harvard out. Fortunately, Harvard students, faculty and alumni were quick to set the record straight and clarify that TransCanada’s representation of what the leadership forum is was blatantly false.

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