Water Is Life: Prayers from Standing Rock

Alice Brown Otter, age 12, of the Standing Rock Sioux.

I first became aware of what was happening at Standing Rock, North Dakota, when I saw this story from MSNBC and Alice Brown Otter captured my heart. I've been writing about fictional eco-warriors of the future, and now my attention has turned to Alice and present day eco-warriors on the front lines. She and other kids from the Defenders of the Water School are my real life heroes.

Last summer Alice ran to Washington D.C. to petition government agencies to protect the water of her home. Meanwhile, thousands of water protectors have congregated in one of the most remote areas of North Dakota. Indigenous people and their allies from all over the world have come to camp on the bluffs overlooking Lake Oahe, where the Cannonball River joins the and Missouri watershed.

Map by cartographer Carl Sack

The Mni Wiconi, Water is Life movement, gained its recent momentum when LaDonna Brave Bull Allard saw an oil company's plan to build a pipeline just north and upriver from her home on Sioux Reservation land and under the great Missouri River. Allard and her tribe know oil pipelines break regularly, and this was their source of drinking water. So, the Sioux elders began to pray. They know that water is sacred. Water is life.

The women at the forefront of #NoDAPL say they are water protectors, not protesters. This is an important distinction, for the heart of our country shares the Missouri and Mississippi watershed and the water they are protecting belongs to us all.

Since early September, water protectors have been the brunt of escalating violence from militarized police forces sent by the state and county to protect oil interests. The forces deploy long-range acoustic devices, chemical weapons, non-lethal beanbag shot, batons, and even attack dogs.

Josh Fox, director of Gasland (available on Netflix), talks about human rights violations in a "Police State of Oil-igarchy"

Future Developments
Friday, December 4th, dialog between tribal leaders and the Army Corps of Engineers bodes well. The conversation has focused around seeking delays in construction and permitting until full studies can be conducted. But this is an unfolding story, and the outcome of the dialog meetings (there are a series over the upcoming weeks) would be speculative at this point. The hope is for a de-escalation of violence.

Even before the beginning of dialog, the women of Standing Rock planned a Forgiveness March on November 6th to the Morton County Sheriff's office in Mandan, North Dakota.

On land adjacent the Cannonball River, Standing Rock Sioux plan to build their Just Transition Community, an eco-village with earth lodge and straw bale construction and solar and wind power. This building plan is already approved by the federal agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs.

To learn more about why I write sci-fi eco-adventures, and to find out more about my work-in-progress and how writing Mission to Blue Grannus requires my research into how real life eco-warriors engage with their world, tap on KHBrower.com.

Remember, we are all connected. For your appreciation, here are images of our shared watershed.

For more in-depth reading:
NoDAPL map
Historical timeline and in-depth Standing Rock syllabus (from indigenous scholars and allies)
New Yorker (historical context)
The Atlantic (destruction of archeological sites)
New York Times (current situation)
Time (legal context about Sioux land that's "held in trust" by the U.S. government)
EcoWatch (meet the women leading the water protectors)
Yes! Magazine (Lakota prophecy of the black snake)