Winona Dakota Unity Alliance weighs in on oil pipeline executive orders

Something that came as no surprise, minus the timing.

The Keystone Oil Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline are now back in play after President Donald Trump signed executive orders this week.

It’s something many have prepared for. 

“I’m not surprised,” Aaron Camacho, president of the Winona Dakota Unity Alliance, said. “Myself, along with many other environmental advocates knew this was coming. I think the only thing that was a little bit disconcerting is that it happened so quickly.”

It was one of the first executive orders passed on Tuesday by Trump, which also asked the Army Corps of Engineers to expedite environmental studies. 

Trump also said the pipeline should be made entirely from American steel.

Camacho says the protesters at Standing Rock and other camps where the pipeline would go are requesting more protesters to join them.

The DAPL is 80 percent finished. The only obstruction is where the Standing Rock Sioux have protested in putting the pipeline under Lake Oahe, a reservoir and the tribe’s only source of drinking water.

“Now, more than ever, able bodies to come and stand by the water protectors,” Camacho said. “People who can be self-sustaining because this fight is not over.”