What good is a job if there is no safe water to survive on? From [ThinkProgress] The Army Corps of Engineers announced plans that on December 5, they plan to evict all water protectors at the Oceti Sakowin camp in North Dakota, just a day after hundreds of U.S. veterans are expected to join the protest. The camp is a key site in the ongoing fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, a controversial $3.8-billion pipeline project that would run through the only water supply for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), sometimes shortened to CoE is a U.S. federal agency under the Department of Defense and a major Army command made up of some 37,000 civilian and military personnel, making it one of the world's largest public engineering, design, and construction management agencies. [MORE]

The mostly Native American pipeline protestors — who call themselves water protectors — face arrest if they don’t vacate the camp in time, Col. John Henderson of the Corps said in a letter delivered to Tribal Chairman Cave Archambault II on Friday. Citing weather and safety concerns, Henderson claimed the decision was “necessary” to shield the public from “the violent confrontation between protestors and law enforcement officials that have occurred in this area.”

In a statement issued in response to the letter, Archambault II said that the Tribe was “deeply disappointed” by the decision, but reiterated their commitment to protecting the water supply and opposing the pipeline’s construction, particularly the section that would impact the Oahe Lake. “The best way to protect people during the winter, and reduce the risk of conflict between water protectors and militarized police, is to deny the easement for the Oahe crossing, and deny it now,” he said.

Officer points gun at protester as Dakota Access pipeline clashes continue

The Dakota Access pipeline is a 1,172 mile project that would move close to half a million barrels of crude oil per day through the Dakotas, Iowa, and Illinois. The project would run under a portion of the Missouri River that sits than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. For months, tribal members and Indigenous activists concerned that a spill could devastate the tribe’s sole water supply and destroy sacred sites have been protesting the pipeline’s construction, amid increasing tension between law enforcement officials, who have deployed tear gas and water hoses against hundreds of protestors. According to NBC, a protestor was hospitalized after a grenade nearly blew off her arm.