The 'facts" I can verify on the DAPL and the protest

Here is what I know about the Dakota Access Pipeline and the protest from my own research back in December:

This pipeline took about 12 years from proposal to when it was blocked. At least three federal agencies (and as many as seven) approved this project.

Five states were directly involved as were all 55 tribes along the route and there were almost 400 meetings that included the 55 tribes, archaeologists and up to seven federal departments and dozens of agencies from the five or six states.

There are 12 to 17 banks and companies who invested $3.8 billion for the project, one of them was owned by Trump who since divested himself from it legally. Here are the things I either can't verify or can outright debunk.

There has been extended discussion over exactly what real estate the protesters were protecting or if it was part of the pipeline route. There is also an existing pipe or conduit running through that piece of property, which is one of the reasons they routed the DAPL through there.

There are also those huge transformer lines and towers crossing the river there. There is also no question that the pipeline is running close but north of the Standing Rock Reservation and through private property.The pipeline is entirely underground and the DAPL contractors must line the bottom of the river above the new pipeline and the old on. This should actually increase the safety of a leak affecting the water supply.

Here's the rub: The river at that point and for miles in either direction does not cross into the reservation and, as part of the approved project and with tribal approval, the engineers moved the tribe's water supply 70 miles from the new pipeline crossing. With these facts, as best as I can verify to my satisfaction, the protesters could logically and sincerely concerned that a pipeline rupture could pollute the river which would affect the tribe's water supply as well as the private properties and government lands that use the river as their sole source of groundwater.

If I were an environmentalist who, after becoming well informed, was still genuinely concerned about a rupture, by God, I would use my right to peacefully protest.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

On the other hand, there are hundreds of Americans who were depending on these unglamorous jobs to feed their families and provide badly needed oil to stabilize the market and make us a little less dependent on foreign supplies.

Also, I'd be pretty pissed if I invested all this money and spent all this time and effort to meet all these myriad conditions approved by about 100 different stakeholders over a decade and then have the project halted at the 11th hour.

Finally, the state has been financially overwhelmed by this event. The state cost of policing the protest is about $24 million and climbing - a huge chuck for a population of fewer than 800,000 men, women and children.

Who is right? I really don't know. Who is wrong? I really don't know. Like most stories, it's somewhere in the middle.

I have said this: The 55 tribes who signed off on this should have made a bigger stink during the 390 meetings and agreement reviews over the last 10 years.

As for my usual smart-ass remark, maybe they should have hired Trump to negotiate for them. He would have gotten them a better deal and avoided the protest.