00:00 A lot of you may or may not know about what has been happening at the Dakota
00:03 Pipeline. We here at What's Trending think it's a very important story for
00:06 you all to know about, so we wanted to give you an update about it today. As of
00:10 Sunday, December 4th, 2016, the US Army Corps of Engineers have denied an
00:15 easement that would have allowed the Dakota Access Pipeline to be
00:19 constructed under Lake Oahe. This was extremely exciting news for the
00:23 thousands of protesters who were gathered at the Standing Rock Indian
00:27 Reservation in North Dakota. Controversy erupted over the police's use of water
00:31 cannons, rubber bullets, and tear gas to break up the protesters. Thousands of
00:36 veterans and allies headed to Standing Rock to support the protesters and be a
00:40 shield between them and the police. There have been huge camps that have been
00:44 created because of this, and many say that while the pipeline has been stopped,
00:47 people are going to continue to live there. The original plan to have the
00:50 pipeline construction go under Lake Oahe would have threatened to contaminate the
00:54 tribe's water supply downstream, as well as possibly destroying the Standing Rock
00:58 Sioux Tribe's sacred ancestral burial sites. Before going into Lake Oahe, they
01:04 actually went to another neighborhood, and that neighborhood said, "No. This would
01:08 contaminate our water. This would ruin our area." And so they were like, "Okay." No
01:14 protest was made. They just agreed to move on. Look how long people have been
01:19 protesting and fighting for this, and it took months for a decision to be made
01:24 and for them just to stop. Native American Council elder Remy Bald Eagle
01:28 stated, "Up until this point, the American government has failed us, but the
01:32 American people haven't. So I feel American today." The decision was finally
01:37 made by the Obama administration, but we might have some trouble when Donald
01:40 Trump starts his presidency in 2017. Trump is reportedly not only in support
01:45 of the pipeline project, but he is stuck in the company who is building it. No
01:50 conflict of interest there. For more stories like these, just go to whatstrending.com.
