As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock

This book addresses environmental justice from a perspective in some ways different from that of the previous two books: impacts on a different demographic and in a broader variety of ways- but one commonality—involuntary imposition of adverse environmental impacts on their health and that of their sacred ecosytems. Described in some detail is the Standing Rock protest, beginning in 2016, which included the local Standing Rock Sioux tribe and thousands of Native American supporters from across North America setting up camps to try and block the oil project, arguing that the project threatens sacred native lands and could contaminate their water supply from the Missouri river, which is the longest river in North America. The 1,200 mile-long Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) is a $3.7 billion project that would transport crude oil from the Bakken oil field in North Dakota to a refinery to Patoka, Illinois, near Chicago. Protests, confrontations with law enforcement, many lawsuits, and presidential administrations’ holds on construction delayed but, unfortunately, did not prevent its completion. —Penny F. in Charlottesville, VA