Protesters are battling the Dakota Access Pipeline project to keep the 1,172 mile long pipeline from crossing under the Missouri River.  Controversy arose after its approval January 2015.

The pipeline will transport light crude oil from North Dakota into South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois.

“I think it is very upsetting that this pipeline is going through Native American ancient burial grounds, and the Missouri river,” sophomore Miqueyla Lopez said. “They are scared that if it breaks, the oil in the pipeline will contaminate their main source of drinking water.”

Since 1995, more than 2,000 significant accidents involving oil and petroleum pipelines have occurred, adding up to about $3 billion in property damage.

“The Dakota Access Pipeline is horrible and downright disrespectful to the Native Americans,”  freshman Avery Whiting said. “We have been taking their land, destroying their traditions, appropriating their culture and now the country has put almost no thought into the ramifications of this pipeline.”

The pipeline is said to make over 40 permanent jobs, but has created over a 1000 jobs since the project has started.

“I feel like this is a great way for the economy to grow,” sophomore Jordan Wilkins said. “There will be less pollution, which will also be better for the environment, because trains will not have to transport [oil] everywhere.”

The pipeline runs within a half-mile of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and the tribe’s leaders argue that it threatens the drinking water for local Native Americans.

“It could destroy the environment the Sioux tribe relies on and even damage sacred sites of the tribe,” Whiting said. “The way the peaceful protesters have been treated is disgusting and downright police brutality. This is their land; they are a self-governing nation. Why are we allowing our country to go onto their territory?”