In North Dakota, people vs. oil pipeline protest strengthens

The months-long "spirit camp" protest by the Standing Rock Sioux against the Dakota Access pipeline — projected by the end of the year to be carrying nearly a half-million barrels of crude daily from North Dakota's rich Bakken oil fields more than 1,000 miles to Illinois — transformed this week from a quiet action to something more active, with about 100 who gathered Friday and with at least 18 people arrested in the construction zone Thursday and Friday, including the tribal chairman.

Tribal members and their supporters are vowing to continue protests and acts of civil disobedience, and the tribe, whose reservation straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border, also is seeking a court order to block the pipeline's construction, which it says would disturb sacred sites and have a deleterious effect on the environment.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners announced the four-state pipeline in 2014, days after North Dakota Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple urged industry and government officials to build more pipelines to keep pace with the state's prolific oil production, saying that would reduce truck and train traffic, curb natural gas flaring and create more markets for the state's oil and gas.

The company said the pipeline would include safeguards such as leak detection equipment; workers monitoring the pipeline remotely in Texas could close valves within three minutes if a breach is detected.

The tribe argues the pipeline would disturb sacred sites and affect drinking water for the thousands of residents on the reservation and the millions who rely on it downstream.