Local natives and environmentalists focus on a proposed pipeline in Oklahoma

After months on the front lines of the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile-long multistate oil pipeline project constructed near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, activist Mekasi Camp Horinek began his journey across rural northeastern Oklahoma to spread news about a different pipeline project. In many ways, the issues of tribal sovereignty, water security and environmental justice raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline are mirrored regarding a 440-mile pipeline running from Cushing to Memphis, Tennessee.

“The frontlines are actually in our own backyards,” said Horinek, a member of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma and a longtime native rights activist and environmentalist.

Following the $900 million pipeline route, Horinek visited communities like Poteau, Stigler and Checotah. At libraries and corner stores and outside farm homes, Horinek relayed the plans for a 20-inch, underground pipeline capable of transporting up to 200,000 barrels of domestic sweet crude a day.

The Diamond Pipeline topic at first drew blank stares, followed by questions. Relatively few people knew the pipeline was proposed or under construction, Horinek said.

Read more: http://okgazette.com/2017/03/08/local-natives-and-environmentalists-focus-on-a-proposed-pipeline-in-oklahoma/