More than 50 students, professors and others from Fort Lewis College in Durango will spend Thanksgiving in the Dakotas to show solidary with tribes protesting a controversial oil pipeline.
The Durango Herald reports that a caravan of 14 cars left Durango Tuesday morning for the 16-plus-hour drive to the Standing Rock reservation. Since this summer, people there have been protesting the 1,170-mile Dakota Access Pipeline, which would transport 470,000 barrels of oil a day from North Dakota's Bakken oil fields to other pipelines in Illinois.
The Standing Rock Sioux oppose the pipeline because they say it threatens drinking water on their nearby reservation and cultural sites. Pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners has said no sites have been disturbed and that the $3.8 billion pipeline will be safe.
