Many of us in western Massachusetts have made the grueling 30-hour trip to support the Dakota Access Pipeline, DAPL, joining the struggle to stop a pipeline from going through the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. Many others in the region unable to make the trip funded truckloads of items necessary to maintain the thousands camping out in the frigid North Dakota winter.
Just before Thanksgiving 2016 I received an S.O.S. from a friend on the Standing Rock Reservation, directly in the path of the pipeline, letting me know of the urgent need for straw for insulation of buildings under construction to house resisters. I could not imagine how I would find straw bales in that barren time of year, nor how to get them out to North Dakota.
Miraculously, after a few phone calls I found the necessary straw bales at a local farm in Gill. A friend offered to fund the trip and go with two friends — well-qualified to drive the 26-foot rental truck.
On Wednesday, Nov. 30, despite warnings of a severe blizzard heading to the Northwest and a threat from the governor of North Dakota to confiscate supplies entering the Standing Rock encampment, the bright yellow truck hit the road with 237 straw bales neatly stacked in the cargo area and three stalwart supporters of Standing Rock in the cab. The truck made the 1,800-mile trip practically nonstop and arrived Friday, Dec. 2, just as authorities threatened to inspect all vehicles trying to enter the encampment. The goal was to refuse entry to any vehicles bringing in supplies.
As we held our breaths, the truck drove straight through the gate and, to everyone’s astonishment and delight, was never inspected. Imagine a bright yellow 26-foot truck being invisible!
Miracles can and do happen.
Unfortunately, although President Obama stopped both the Keystone XL pipeline and DAPL, the Trump administration has permitted both of them to proceed.
At this point, the DAPL pipeline is nearing completion. To stop this pipeline, an extensive international movement has formed to encourage divestment of all funds from banks funding DAPL. As of April, $5 billion have been withdrawn from banks involved in financing DAPL.
DNB, Norway’s largest bank and one of the original DAPL pipeline funders, has sold its DAPL loans and ended its involvement in the pipeline. DNB had made a financing commitment of $175 million and was one of 26 DAPL funders. That amount divested by DNB equals 4.7 percent of total financing.
Dutch financial giant ING recently sold a $120 million stake in the pipeline. Native American tribes have also taken funds away from banks funding the $3.75 billion pipeline. The city of Seattle, Wash., is the biggest defunder to date, having voted to remove more than $3 billion in deposits from Wells Fargo Bank — a major contributer to DAPL. In mid March, San Francisco’s board of supervisors voted to withdraw the city’s $1.2 billion previously in banks funding DAPL.
Other major defunders include California cities of Los Angeles, $40 million; Davis, $124 million; Santa Monica, $1 billion; and Alameda $36 million. New Mexico’s state Democratic Party voted on March 1 to withdraw $70,000 from Wells Fargo. The biggest threat to the pipeline comes from New York City’s pension funds, which control $165 billion in retirement money, according to Mayor DeBlasio.
Divestment is a great tool for opposition. Gandhi used it in the struggle to oppose Great Britain’s rule of India; Nelson Mandela’s in South Africa; Martin Luther King Jr. with the bus boycott in Birmingham, Ala. when Jim Crow laws forced black people to sit in back of the buses, just to name a few.
Several of us have been vigiling every Tuesday and Saturday at noon in front of the TD bank in Greenfield to bring attention to the bank’s investments in DAPL. Pension funds, cities’ funds, college endowments and operating expenses should be withdrawn and redeposited in locally controlled banks or credit unions to avoid having local money support dangerous and unneeded projects like pipelines.
Please join us in boycotting banks in your communities that invest in DAPL or other fossil fuel projects.
Hattie Nestel lives in Athol.