Theyíre not going away in the wake of DAPL
By Kevin Gale
The story has a familiar ring: A federal agency is accused of not following proper procedures before allowing a pipeline to be built on lands with artifacts of spiritual historical significance.
In this case, though, it’s not the North Dakota Access Pipeline, but a natural gas pipeline that goes through Otis State Forest in Massachusetts. The agency is not the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees natural gas pipelines. One of the tribes leading opposition to the pipeline is the Narragansett Tribe, which has photographed ceremonial stones along the path of the pipeline that is being constructed by a subsidiary of energy giant Kinder Morgan.
The Narragansetts, Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), the Mohegan Tribe and Mashantucket (Western) Pequot Tribal Nation are allied in defending ceremonial stone landscapes, said Doug Harris, deputy tribal historic preservation officer with the Narragansett Indian Tribal Historic Preservation Office.
Under the National Preservation Historic Act, FERC should have studied the site before granting the permit, Harris says. The tribe inadvertently learned about the pipeline when talking about the controversial AIM pipeline, also known as the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion.
FERC knew in October 2014 that it needed to study ceremonial stone landscapes, but it issued an environmental assessment without doing studying them, said attorney Anne Marie Garti, who has been retained by the tribe.
FERC later said it was too late to alter the route because the pipeline company had already taken the state of Massachusetts to court to acquire the right-of-way through eminent domain, she said.
Harris doesn’t fault the pipeline company, saying that the federal agency’s job is to initiate studies under the preservation act.
Garti said the tribe has objected to a notice to proceed with construction and requested a rehearing from FERC. It’s likely that the matter will go to a court of appeals after an administrative hearing.
Harris says research is still being done to determine the age of the stone structures. There are varying stories on their significance among the tribes.
“One is they are prayers in stone—part of an ancient system of communicating with the mother of the Earth and asking her to facilitate balance and harmony in a place there was great trauma,” he said. The trauma might have included a person being killed by an animal.
There may have been prayers spoken into the stones, which then resonate the prayers as long as they are in place, he says. “If you remove the stones you have broken the prayer.”
The pipeline company has offered to dismantle some of the stone structures and reassemble them, but there is concern that will result in just a replica and destroy their spiritual aspect, Harris says.
Other disputes over pipelines continue to emerge in the wake of DAPL.
In March, a federal judge ordered removal of a natural gas pipeline from land owned by 38 Native Americans from six different tribes in Oklahoma. The lawsuit regarded a trespass claim because the 20-year agreement for the pipeline easement had expired.
Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange found that the Bureau of Indian Affairs told the defendants in 2010 that if valid approval of a right of way for the tract wasn’t secured, the pipeline would need to be removed from the property. Damages for the trespass have yet to be determined.
Plaintiffs attorney David Smith of the Washington law firm of Kilpatrick Townsend told New American Media that there may be many easements nationally where agreements have expired and tribal interests have not been paid.
As TBJ hit deadline, a federal judge on June 14 ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to reconsider its environmental review of DAPL. The review could possibly lead to a pipeline shutdown. ♦