So, I'm curious -- why are there protests here to begin with? What is the proper bar for adding a pipeline across the landscape? When your land is traversed against your will, what exact rights to you have to protect it?
The Anishinaabe people did cede all of this land the pipeline is on to the US Government in the 1800's. However it came with the requirement that they retain the rights to hunt, fish, and gather wild rice there.
So while it is technically the government's land to do whatever they want with, I can understand the argument that building a pipeline across the land and rivers could impact their ability to hunt, fish, or gather on the lands.
Alaska, Florida, and Louisiana purchases were contracts between colonial powers, not the indigenous peoples of the respective lands. Not quite comparable.
Pipelines leak after being in place for a while and what they leak is usually toxic to the ground near where they are built. Hypothetically leaks can be kept to low levels by proactive maintenance, but in practice managers want to cut costs to a minimum, and have no incentives to spend their company's money to keep up the value of someone else's land.
The proper bar for adding a pipeline across a landscape is putting enough money in a cleanup trust to handle any and all spill costs and compensation, up to the most catastrophic outcome, as well as EOL decommissioning. This trust must be controlled by the communities across whose lands this pipeline runs.
No pipeline in the United States currently meets this bar.
