DAPL Update -- Costs For Law Enforcement; Clean-Up -- February 16, 2017

Updates

February 23, 2017: how the environmentalists treat virgin, pristine prairie.

Now the cleanup efforts begin. The camps span more than 1,000 acres, which had been, according to state officials, sensitive wildlife habitat. Now, because of an early thaw and thousands of “water protectors” it is a wet, muddy cesspool of human waste and hazardous fuels after protesters turned the native grassland into a dumping ground.  

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$33 million in cost to the state and local government for law enforcement.

$6 million for clean-up of protest camp.

Protest camp likely to be declared hazardous site due to human feces that will be washed into Cannonball River when it floods in a few weeks.

The cleanup of the protest camp is moving at a frustratingly slow pace. 

Today, from The Bismarck Tribune:

State, tribal and U.S. Army Corps officials were in a tight, tense spot Thursday morning, surrounded by Dakota Access Pipeline protesters demanding information about a pending cleanup of their camp.

The late-morning meeting was held at camp leaders’ insistence at the Cannonball River bridge near the entrance to the main Oceti Sakowin camp after two earlier attempts to meet failed.

The officials held their ground and said the camp has to be cleaned up and it has to be evacuated by Wednesday, as per the corps’ earlier order. Gov. Doug Burgum doubled down on that this week and issued an immediate evacuation notice to the camp.

Meanwhile, the North Dakota senate passes a trio of DAPL-related law enforcement laws:

• a crime for adults to wear masks in most cases of protesting
• increased penalties for rioting and trespassing 

From a reader:

The DAPL protests were a complete misdirected waste, and now look at the mess the "RiverKeepers" left for the authorities to clean up. A terrible waste, that accomplished nothing, except to delay and run up the costs of a project that provides numerous benefits.