Clash seems imminent at Bakken protest camp

MORTON COUNTY, N.D. - Negotiations between law enforcement and protesters at a front-line camp blocking construction of the Dakota Access pipeline near the Missouri River broke down Wednesday, with protesters holding their ground - for now.

Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney was among a contingent of law enforcement officials who met with camp representatives on Highway 1806 - a road that serves as a sort of line in the sand - near a roadblock established by protesters.

Laney told the protesters officers don't want a confrontation, but they must enforce the law.

Mekasi Camp-Horinek, one of the camp coordinators, told officers the protesters planned to stand their ground, saying 'Do what you've got to do.”

The front-line camp is northeast of the main encampment that's a temporary home to roughly 1,200 protesters, and is closer to where the pipeline is set to cross the river. The camp has grown to about 200 people.

'If there's a confrontation, they've chosen to have it because we've tried everything we can over the last 2½ months not to have it,” Laney said after talks failed.

Earlier, Camp-Horinek said in an interview the group would continue protesting with prayer and song. Children were sent away.

'This is a last stand right here,” he said.

About 100 people formed a human barricade across Highway 1806 on Wednesday morning. Hay bales, logs and barbed wire were placed along the sides of the road, with protesters saying they'll use them if necessary to block the highway. Vehicles currently are being allowed in and out, but protesters are controlling traffic.

Officials want protesters to stop blocking the highway and relocate from the front-line camp, which is on private property recently bought by pipeline developer Dakota Access's parent company, back to the main camp.

Pipeline opponents say they've reclaimed land under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, noting the Sioux never ceded it.

In a news conference, Laney said law enforcement, which includes officers from at least six states, 'have the resources and the manpower to go down and end this right now” but don't want a confrontation.

David Red Bear Jr., 30, from the South Dakota side of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, was among those from the main camp 2 miles away when there was a call for help at the roadblock.

Red Bear said he was willing to get arrested, if necessary, though he also was concerned about his 4-year-old son.

'We're not trying to force anybody's hand,” he said. 'We're just trying to stand up for what we believe in.”

Civil rights activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson joined the effort Friday to stop the pipeline project.

A decision to change a segment of the pipeline route in North Dakota from north of Bismarck to its current route closer to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is 'the ripest case of environmental racism I've seen in a long time,” Jackson said. 'Bismarck residents don't want their water threatened, so why is it OK for North Dakota to react with guns and tanks when Native Americans ask for the same right?”

The $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile Dakota Access pipeline project would ship crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken region through part of South Dakota and across 18 counties in Iowa before ending at a distribution hub in Illinois.

So far, scores of protesters have been arrested although the pipeline project is mostly done.