by Ann-erika White Bird / Lakota Voice
Megaload carrying a fiberglass tank, turned around at Rosebud Casino.
Tonight, a small number of Sicangu Lakota Tribal members took a stand against the megaloads rolling through reservation lands.
Lakota Voice arrived, after being passed by one megaload headed north on Highway 83, a common thoroughfare for semi-trucks traveling from Nebraska.
Gary Dorr, a part of the Oyate Wahacanka Woecun – Shielding the People, and enrolled member of the Nez Perce, was on the scene at the Rosebud Casino gas station. Darwin Spotted Tail, Dustin Running Horse and other members of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate monitored the situation until the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Police arrived.
Parked next to a gas pump with an over sized fiberglass tank, Chris Gianacopolos, truck driver for Hess Trucking, was confronted by the Rosebud Sioux Tribal Police.
Police officers told Gianacopolos that not only was there a Resolution opposing any agreement to help the Keystone XL Pipeline, but that he needed to turn his truck around and go back the way he came. The company also needed to come pick up the rest of their oil field equipment that they had stored next to the casino, on tribal land.
Gianacopolos explained, “There’s an agreement between our company and the manager, Jeremy [Homan]. We buy our gas here and he lets us store our trailers here.”
When asked about the route through the reservation, the truck driver stated, “The state H.P. [Highway Patrol] gives us the permit to run our trucks through here.” The truck driver hauls for Zenergy, a subcontractor for KXL.
Tribal members began making phone calls after seeing the megaloads on the highway and at the casino. Members of Shielding the People were contacted, as were Council Representative William “Willie” Bear Shield and President Cyril Scott.
According to Bear Shield, “we discussed the issue and made a decision.”
President Scott called the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s Police Department and instructed them to turn the megaload around, due to the Resolution opposing any help to the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Attorney General Concha was contacted by RST Police officers regarding the stored trailers on tribal land but failed to answer her phone. Chief of Police Iver Crow Eagle arrived. The trucker hauling the megaload finished filling up at the gas station and then turned around, headed into Valentine, Nebraska.
Gary Dorr stated, “This is the first of many to be turned around. They need to know we’re going to turn every one of them around.”
