Saying they wanted to “set an example,” Malibu City Council during its meeting Monday threw unanimous support behind a resolution “in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.”
For weeks, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, together with supporters and allies, have protested the construction of a pipeline through parts of the tribe’s territory in North and South Dakota. Facing tactics from local law enforcement agencies including water cannons, rubber bullets and pepper spray, protesters have stood their ground against construction of an oil pipeline that protesters say could put safe drinking water at risk.
A staff report from the meeting describes the pipeline as “a 1,168-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline being developed by Energy Transfer Partners and its affiliates to carry as much as 570,000 barrels per day of crude from western North Dakota to Illinois. As proposed, the DAPL would run across or beneath 209 rivers, creeks and tributaries, including the Missouri River, which provides drinking water and irrigates agricultural land in communities across the Midwest, serving nearly 10 million people.”
As snow fell on pipeline protesters — an estimated six inches overnight Monday — council voted 5-0 to support their efforts from over 2,000 miles away.
The passage of the resolution broke with a recent trend the council has followed of rejecting proposed resolutions that do not pertain directly to Malibu. Recently, council has expressed a desire to focus official statements on local issues. Council Member John Sibert explained that to him, the conflict in the Dakotas was an exception.
“I’m one of the people that initially said, ‘We ought to be looking at all these proclamations and resolutions, and if it’s not connected to Malibu we should not be doing it,’ but on this one, I think it’s different. I think we ought to take a stand.”
Local Chumash ceremonial elder Mati Waiya urged the council to ratify the resolution, saying Chumash have become involved in the protest.
“We sent a delegation of Chumash to Standing Rock with supplies and prayers — they’re water protectors,” Waiya said. “They’re getting teargassed, and they’re getting rubber bullets shot at them for praying for the water on treaty lands.”
Waiya told council that passing the resolution “doesn’t take anything away from you, but it shows the good-spirited representatives that you are.”
The official text of the resolution states that the pipeline “is proposed to run through protected ancestral lands and sacred places in violation of Indian treaties with the United States,” something that struck a chord with council members, including Sibert.
“I was raised in the ‘40s and ‘50s along the Missouri River in North and South Dakota, and was involved with the Lakota Sioux,” Sibert recalled. “The Dakotas have not treated the natives well at all.”
Mayor Pro Tem Skylar Peak, who initially presented the resolution as a council item, also mentioned he was infuriated by pipeline developers neglecting to secure proper permits.
“To me, something like this shouldn’t happen without having the proper permits,” Peak said. “It shouldn’t happen without having the proper federal permits, because it’s crossing different state lines and it’s crossing over 200 bodies of water … It’s important to me, and I think Malibu can set an example.”