Demonstrators gather in Columbia to protest Dakota Access Pipeline

In front of City Hall, Carolyn Mathews spoke Tuesday to about 50 people protesting plans for the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, urging them to stand up against the interests of big corporations.

She listed her concerns with the project, including that crude oil could leak into the Missouri River should the pipeline break and pollute a source of drinking water for millions of people. Part of the 1,170-mile project designed to move crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois would pass under the Missouri River and through ancestral tribal lands. When Mathews addressed the crowd, she read an American Indian proverb about greed.

“Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught do we realize we cannot eat money,” Mathews said.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/local/demonstrators-gather-in-columbia-to-protest-dakota-access-pipeline/article_15811998-aa98-5989-9db8-52e7bd33ce76.html