US Indigenous Tribe Braces for New Anti-Pipeline Struggle

By teleSUR

30 December 16

 

Members of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation are invoking the strength of Standing Rock to protect their own communities.

he Ramapough Lunaape tribe in New Jersey is preparing for battle and invoking the spirit of the successful struggles at North Dakota as they oppose another potentially dangerous oil pipeline in their backyard.

The 178-mile Pilgrim pipeline would pump up to 200,00 barrels of Bakken crude oil – highly flammable and toxic to the environment – daily as it travels through Albany, New York to the Bayway Refinery in Linden, New Jersey. This means crossing through environmentally-sensitive areas and aquifers in over 30 New Jersey municipalities.

This includes the Wanaque Reservoir in the Ramapough Lunaape Nation, which feeds at least 4 million people, according to an Op-ed penned by Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann, earlier this year.

In the town of Mahwah, Chief Dwaine Perry and other Lunaape members, have set up a 13-acre camp including teepees erected in honor of the Standing Rock Sioux – who successfully halted the Dakota Access pipeline earlier this year. Chief Perry is bluntly recruiting protesters and asking for solidarity so as to recreate more Standing Rocks.

“The community needs to stop looking at the Ramapoughs as the canary in the mine and get their helmets on and stand with us, because if that goes it doesn’t matter what your home costs, you can’t drink oil,” Perry told NBC New York.

Still, dozens of others, including non-natives, have already joined their struggle, attending teach-ins at their encampment near the New York border. And earlier in the year, at least 15 North Jersey municipalities created the Municipal Pipeline Group, officially opposing the pipeline. Municipal leaders from another 28 towns have also passed resolutions against it.

Despite being on ancestral tribal land, they’ve had to deal with some legal obstacles, including receiving summonses from the town of Mahwah for setting up camp without permits. Still, even city officials agree a pipeline through the Ramapo Valley reservation would risk too much.

“One leak will determine the fate of our community and the millions of people between here and the Newark basin,” Mahwah Mayor William Laforet told NBC New York.

Chatham Councilman Len Resto also said his town had “valid concerns, especially with how we get our waters, which is through these buried aquifers.”

The tribe will have to attend a municipal court hearing on Jan. 26 to deal with those summonses.

Yet another issue may be that, unlike the federally recognized Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Ramapough Lunaape Nation is only recognized statewide. This means the federal government has less obligations and duties as a mediator in the event of disputes such as in North Dakota, something that may be exacerbated by the pipeline-friendly incoming Trump administration.

The company, Pilgrim Transportation of New York, Inc., still hasn’t applied for a permit defining the specific route of the pipeline in New Jersey.