The Idaho Organization of Resource Councils (IORC) stands in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline and their ongoing fight to protect precious clean water, cultural resources, sovereign tribal lands, and human rights.
The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1,168-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline being developed by Energy Transfer Partners and its affiliates, which would carry as much as 570,000 barrels per day of Bakken crude oil from western North Dakota to Illinois. The current proposed route takes the pipeline less than one-half mile from the tribe’s reservation border through the ancestral lands and waters reserved for the traditional use of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe by the Treaty of Fort Laramie. This includes the Missouri River, burial grounds and gravesites, and other sacred sites of cultural, religious, spiritual, and historical significance. Additionally, it runs across or beneath 209 rivers, creeks and tributaries of the Missouri River, which provide drinking water and irrigates agricultural land in communities across the Midwest, serving millions of people.
IORC is a member of the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC), a seven-state grassroots network organizing in communities impacted by oil and gas development and on Native American reservations. During a recent meeting of IORC’s general membership we adopted a Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Solidarity Resolution. We join our colleagues at WORC, Western Native Voice, Dakota Resource
Council, Dakota Rural Action, along with hundreds of Indian Nations, numerous farmers, local municipal 
governments, scientists, environmental advocates, and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in opposition to the permit issued without meaningful tribal consultation or adequate environmental review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The Idaho Organization of Resource Councils supports policies and programs that protect our health, environment, property, and communities from irresponsible oil and gas development, increase sustainability, and promote accountability, transparency and public participation in decision-making processes not just in Idaho, but across the nation. Irresponsible oil and gas development and the transportation of crude oil and natural gas threaten our health and the health of our communities, both current and future. For these reasons, IORC stands in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supports the tribe’s request for an injunction to halt construction of the pipeline and undo the approval of the pipeline by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
