Skip to main content

Dakota Access Pipeline

More than a year of protests were unable to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), and the pipeline's owners expect to have it up and running on May 14. But the story isn't over. DAPL still serves as a reminder that the fight for environmental sanity and the fight for Native people's human rights are inextricably intertwined. 

Explore the interactive maps provided by ALMA and Friends to see the pipeline route, the effects it will have on surrounding communities and beyond, and a few of the alternatives to the fossil fuel-dependent economy of which DAPL is one small piece — an economy we will inevitably need to transform if we are to survive.

RELATED EXHIBIT: To learn more, visit Standing Rock: Art and Solidarity, on view beginning May 20, 2017 at the Autry Museum of the American West in Griffith Park. Poster art, T-shirts, and photographs demonstrate the immediacy of the protests and conflicts as they have unfolded, while a video art piece by the Native collaborators of Winter Count and a historical tour explore the broader meanings of these events.

Dakota Access Pipeline and Waterways
Support Provided By

Featured

Hammer Projects: Andrea Bowers | Brian Forrest
Though the encampments at Standing Rock have gone, the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline continues. And right now, it’s taking place inside an art gallery.
Thunderbird Woman | Artist: Isaac Murdoch
An art and history museum responds to history in the making.
Water Protector rides an Appaloosa at Standing Rock | Photo: Dark Sevier, some rights reserved
New to the DAPL controversy? Here's the basics.
The Dakota Access Pipeline near New Salem, North Dakota | Photo: Tony Webster, some rights reserved
It's not just pipelines: Native people are disproportionately affected by energy development of all kinds. And they're fighting back.
Pumpjacks in a Bakken oilfield | Photo: Alan Graham McQuillen, PhD, some rights reserved
Production at the Bakken oilfields, the source of oil for DAPL, is in a steep, likely irreversible decline. 
When oil hits water, both humans and wildlife suffer. | Photo: Chris Clarke
All pipelines leak eventually. When they do, living things downstream are in trouble.
Just another day in North Dakota: an oil spill burns in a wildlife refuge in 2010 | Photo: USFWS
Set your watch: Oil spills happen about every 12 hours in North Dakota.
Native solar pioneer Debbie Tewa, center in white shirt, and colleagues. This solar array on the Hopi Reservation opened in June 2015. | Photo: Department of Energy
Solar power is easier on the planet than oil, and it creates a more viable, democratic economy — on and off the Reservation.
A wind turbine in White, South Dakota | Photo: Randy Geise, some rights reserved
When it comes to building windmills, Native peoples face more obstacles than non-Native corporations.
Active loading indicator