Will the Victory at Standing Rock Outlast Obama?

Late Sunday afternoon, protesters at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, in North Dakota, received unexpected and welcome news. Jo-Ellen Darcy, the U.S. Army’s assistant secretary for civil works, had announced that her department would not be approving the easement required for construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline to continue. The pipeline, which has been the cause of a months-long standoff involving the Standing Rock Sioux, their allies, the state government, and Energy Transfer Partners, Dakota Access’s parent company, was slated to carry crude oil beneath Lake Oahe, the reservation’s main source of drinking water. Instead, according to Darcy, the Army Corps of Engineers will now conduct a thorough environmental assessment and work with E.T.P. to “explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.” The decision came just in time: after weeks of confrontation between law enforcement and protesters, tensions had been expected to rise on Monday, when two thousand military veterans were to join the demonstrations, and when a mandatory evacuation order, issued by Governor Jack Dalrymple, was to take effect. When I spoke with Dave Archambault II, the tribe’s chairman, on Tuesday morning, the previous day’s revelry had given way to relief. “We told congressmen, senators, the company, everybody, that it infringes on our rights, but it seemed like no one heard us,” he said, referring to the pipeline. “I never believed the easement would be stopped.”