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Standing with Standing Rock
Oscar Salazar from White Plains, New York, 21, said he was going to wear his "Bernsie" onesie for his entire week-long stay at Standing Rock, North Dakota. Salazar told The Sopris Sun his family heritage is Peruvian Incan. For more on the standoff at Standing Rock, and local folks’ involvement, please turn to pages 14-15. Photo by Jennifer H. Catto
Sun
Volume 8, Number 43 | December 1, 2016
Locals step up for Native Americans By John Colson Sopris Sun Staff Writer
A
veritable umbilical chord of support seems to have developed between Carbondale and the Standing Rock Sioux reservation that straddles the border of North and South Dakota, where thousands of Native Americans and their supporters are locked in a struggle over a gas pipeline routed through reservation lands. Perhaps 30 people, according to organizers, have traveled from the Roaring Fork Valley to the reservation in recent weeks, ferrying supplies and staying for days, or even a week or so, to help out with the multitude of tasks required to keep several camps going, and more are on the way this week. At a meeting Tuesday night at the Third Street Center, Shawna Foster, minister of Two Rivers Universalist Unitarian in Carbondale, lead a meeting of up to 50 people to talk about the situation at Standing Rock and about what next steps supporters of the NoDAPL (which stands for No Dakota Access Pipeline), the moniker given to the overall effort to stop the pipeline’s construction) might want to take. Foster, who has been to Standing Rock twice, told The Sopris Sun that other obligations will prevent her from going back to the Standing Rock site for a while, possibly not until sometime in January of next year. At the meeting, though, the gathering sang along with an opening song by local musician Lisa DancingLight, listened to remarks by Foster and others who had been to the reservation, and then split into two groups for further strategy discussion. One group, led by organizer Tim Brogdon (who can be reached at 970-355-4294, or at tbrogdon@gmail.com), worked on the logistics of sending more vehicles up to the demonstration site, including a “ride share” network to put people together with loads of supplies as they prepare to head to the scene. The second group, lead by Raleigh Burleigh (970456-6929), discussed how people might help in other ways, whether by contacting federal authorities and urging them to back off from attempts to dislodge or otherwise interfere with the demonstrators, or asking that the final permit for the pipeline not be issued. That permit governs whether the pipeline company can move forward with completion of a buried pipeline beneath a segment of the Missouri River that passes through tribal lands. “Letters to the editor are encouraged,” wrote Foster in a summary email describing the Tuesday night meeting, which was the second organizational meeting held in Carbondale about the Standing Rock situation. She and others at the meeting encouraged supportSTANDING ROCK SUPPORT page 16