The Standing Rock movement was an Indigenous-led resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline that began in April 2016 on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota and grew into what scholars have called the largest gathering of Native peoples in the United States in more than a century.1Scholars have called the encampment “arguably the largest gathering of indigenous peoples in the United States in more than 100 years.” It did not stop the pipeline, which has been carrying oil since June 2017. It did reshape Indigenous activism, force treaty obligations into mainstream legal conversation, and trigger a decade of litigation that is still unresolved.
Why the Camp Formed
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe had been objecting to the 1,100-mile pipeline since 2014. Energy Transfer Partners’ route ran less than a mile from the reservation and crossed beneath Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River that supplies the reservation’s drinking water. The tribe argued the route also cut through land containing burial sites and cultural resources protected under the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties, and that the project had been approved without proper tribal consultation or a thorough environmental review.
The route had a specific history that shaped how the fight was understood. Energy Transfer’s original 2014 proposal crossed the Missouri about ten miles north of Bismarck. The Army Corps of Engineers rejected that route in 2015 because of the risk a spill would pose to the state capital’s water supply. Critics characterized the subsequent rerouting toward Standing Rock as environmental racism: the government had prioritized the drinking water of a predominantly white city over that of an Indigenous reservation.
After North Dakota approved the project in January 2016 and the Army Corps followed in July, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, a Standing Rock Sioux tribal historian and former historic preservation officer, opened her family’s land at the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball Rivers on April 1, 2016. The site became the Sacred Stone Camp, named after the Lakota term for the place, Inyan Wakanaganapi Oti. Allard, whose great-great-grandmother survived the 1863 Whitestone Massacre, described the camp’s purpose as stopping the pipeline through “prayer and non-violent direct action.” Allard died on April 10, 2021, at age 64.
Members of the Standing Rock Lakota and other Native nations rode on horseback to the site. In late April, the tribe launched an online petition under the hashtag #NoDAPL that eventually gathered nearly 560,000 signatures and sued the Army Corps in federal court. The people at the camp called themselves water protectors rather than protesters. By mid-August 2016, they had physically blocked construction and temporarily shut the project down.
What Happened on the Ground
Through the summer and fall of 2016 the camp grew into a sprawling encampment that drew thousands of supporters from tribes across the country, along with military veterans, environmental activists, and celebrities. At least 76 different law enforcement agencies, federal agencies, and private security firms were involved in the response over a seven-month period from September 2016 to February 2017.
Several confrontations defined the conflict. On September 3, 2016, the same day a former tribal historic preservation officer filed a declaration documenting 82 stone features and at least 27 burials in the pipeline’s path, Dakota Access moved construction crews into the area, and the encounter that followed involved attack dogs. On October 27, 2016, officers in riot gear moved on water protectors near Highway 1806 with military Humvees, helicopters, and pepper spray. At least 117 people were arrested that day.
The most violent confrontation came on the night of November 20, 2016, at Backwater Bridge. For more than six hours, police used fire hoses, tear gas, rubber bullets, and concussion grenades against roughly 400 water protectors in temperatures that dropped to 27°F. The Standing Rock Medic and Healer Council reported that 300 people were treated for injuries, including 168 cases of hypothermia, and that 26 were hospitalized. Sophia Wilansky, 21, suffered severe arm injuries that required surgery; medics attributed the wound to a concussion grenade, which the sheriff’s department denied using. Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier denied deploying “water cannons,” calling the equipment “basically just a fire hose” used in a mist, though video footage showed streams directed at individuals.
The ACLU, Amnesty International, and the National Lawyers Guild condemned the use of force. The ACLU and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights petitioned the Justice Department to investigate possible violations of the First, Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments. The FAA imposed three no-fly zones near Standing Rock for over 30 days beginning October 24, 2016, which the ACLU challenged as suppressing press coverage of police operations.
Private Security Behind the Police Line
Energy Transfer Partners hired TigerSwan, a private security firm founded by retired Delta Force commander James Reese. Internal documents later leaked to The Intercept showed that TigerSwan applied military counterinsurgency tactics against the water protectors, comparing them in internal reports to “jihadi fighters.” The firm monitored social media, deployed drones and private aircraft for aerial surveillance, eavesdropped on radio communications, and sent undercover operatives into the camps.
One confirmed infiltrator, Joel Edward McCollough, a former Marine Corps interrogator using an alias, befriended activists, offered hotel rooms and bus tickets, and gathered intelligence on protest plans. TigerSwan tracked an estimated 60 individuals in Iowa alone and shared intelligence with law enforcement and the National Sheriffs’ Association.
TigerSwan operated in North Dakota without a private security license. The state’s Private Investigation and Security Board sued the firm; the state sought a $2 million fine, but TigerSwan settled for $175,000. In 2022, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled that documents related to the pipeline’s security operations were public records, though over 9,000 pages remained redacted or withheld under an agreement between the state and Energy Transfer. TigerSwan is also a defendant in a class-action civil rights lawsuit brought by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Denial, Reversal, and the End of the Camps
On December 4, 2016, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would deny the final federal easement required for the pipeline to cross beneath Lake Oahe. Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy said the “best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes.” On January 18, 2017, the Corps formally announced its intent to conduct a comprehensive environmental impact statement. The project was more than 70 percent complete.
Four days after taking office, on January 24, 2017, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing the Army to expedite review and approval of the pipeline. The Corps rescinded its notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement on February 7, 2017, and granted the easement the following day. By June 2017, the pipeline was carrying oil.
The camps were cleared on the same timeline. Governor Doug Burgum set a February 22, 2017 evacuation deadline. On February 23, roughly 200 officers from agencies in North Dakota, Alabama, Wisconsin, and Indiana, equipped with riot gear and about a dozen Humvees, conducted a final sweep. Water protectors set their structures on fire before marching out. Forty-six people were arrested that day; about 100 others remained across the Cannonball River on reservation land, singing and praying as police set up barricades.
A Decade of Litigation
The central lawsuit, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was filed in July 2016 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and has moved through the courts for a decade.
On June 14, 2017, Judge James Boasberg granted partial summary judgment to the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes, ruling that the Corps had failed to adequately consider the pipeline’s impacts on treaty-based hunting and fishing rights, potential environmental justice concerns, and the degree of scientific controversy surrounding spill risks. He ordered the Corps to redo portions of its environmental analysis but deferred the question of whether the pipeline should stop operating.
On March 25, 2020, Judge Boasberg ruled that the Corps’ revised analysis was still insufficient and ordered a full environmental impact statement. On July 6, 2020, he vacated the pipeline’s easement and ordered it shut down and drained within 30 days. The D.C. Circuit stayed the shutdown order, finding the lower court had not made the necessary findings for injunctive relief. In January 2021, the appeals court reaffirmed the requirement for a full EIS but reversed the shutdown, leaving the Corps to address the easement gap. The pipeline continued operating throughout, technically without a valid federal easement.
In October 2024, the tribe filed a new lawsuit arguing that the Corps was unlawfully allowing the pipeline to operate while the environmental review dragged on. The complaint cited a 2023 engineering report estimating that 1.4 million gallons of drilling mud had escaped containment during the pipeline’s 2017 construction beneath Lake Oahe, and that no evidence showed Energy Transfer had checked whether the fluid reached the lake. North Dakota’s Department of Environmental Quality said the substance did not reach the lake bed and was not toxic; the Army Corps said it was unaware of the incident. Judge Boasberg dismissed the suit as premature in March 2025. The tribe appealed to the D.C. Circuit, where the case remained pending as of late 2026.
The Army Corps released its 464-page final environmental impact statement in December 2025. On May 21, 2026, the Corps signed a Record of Decision selecting “Alternative 4,” granting a new easement to Dakota Access, LLC for the Lake Oahe crossing under the Mineral Leasing Act. The new easement includes conditions for enhanced leak detection, expanded water testing, water supply contingency planning, subsistence studies in coordination with affected tribes, and independent expert review of safety systems. The pipeline can transport up to 750,000 barrels of oil per day. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has said the conditions are insufficient to protect their treaty rights and water supply and, as of mid-2026, was evaluating “all legal and political options” to challenge the decision.
What Happened to the People Arrested
North Dakota filed 832 state criminal cases against water protectors. Of those, 316 were dismissed, 120 resulted in plea agreements, 82 were resolved through pre-trial diversion, 20 ended in acquittal at trial, and 13 resulted in conviction at trial.
Seven federal cases were filed. The Water Protector Legal Collective reported that all seven federal defendants facing the harshest charges were Indigenous. The most prominent was Red Fawn Fallis, an Oglala Lakota Sioux activist arrested on October 27, 2016, after a revolver was fired during a struggle with officers. The gun belonged to Heath Harmon, an FBI informant who had entered into a romantic relationship with Fallis. In January 2018, she pleaded guilty to civil disorder and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; prosecutors dropped the most serious charge in exchange for the plea. Judge Daniel Hovland sentenced her to four years and nine months, declining to consider the broader context of treaty rights or surveillance and saying he would not “go down that path.”
Water protectors injured at Backwater Bridge filed a federal civil rights class action, Dundon v. Kirchmeier, in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. On December 29, 2021, Judge Daniel Traynor granted summary judgment to the defendants, ruling that the use of force did not constitute a Fourth Amendment seizure, that the officers’ actions were objectively reasonable, and that they were protected by qualified immunity. The Eighth Circuit unanimously affirmed in November 2023, holding that the relevant constitutional rights were not “clearly established” at the time. No damages were awarded.
Anti-Protest Laws Passed in the Wake of Standing Rock
One of the movement’s most concrete legacies is a wave of state laws targeting pipeline protests. Since 2016, 13 states have enacted laws increasing criminal penalties for trespassing, damage, or interference with pipeline and other energy infrastructure, with at least five more considering similar bills as of 2021. Many are modeled on the “Critical Infrastructure Protection Act,” draft legislation provided by the American Legislative Exchange Council, and they draw language from post-9/11 national security statutes.
The penalties are steep. Ohio’s version makes trespass with intent to “tamper” a third-degree felony punishable by up to ten years in prison and a $20,000 fine. Oklahoma’s law allows organizations found to have conspired with trespassers to be fined up to $1 million. The laws have faced First Amendment challenges, with a Louisiana prosecution of Bayou Bridge Pipeline protesters, charged for being on public waters bordering a pipeline easement, serving as an early test case.
What the Movement Changed
Standing Rock represented a generational shift in Indigenous organizing. Where earlier movements saw elders lead and youth follow, Standing Rock was driven by young people with elders following their lead. Kandi Mossett White said Allard “got the youth fired up to fight.”
The movement’s tactics and networks carried into subsequent pipeline fights. Organizers from Standing Rock, including members of the Standing Rock Youth Council and the Indigenous Environmental Network, applied the same strategies of resistance camps, long-distance relay runs, and direct action at federal offices to opposition against Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement in Minnesota and the Keystone XL pipeline. Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network said activists planned to establish “camps in very strategic locations” along the Keystone XL route, explicitly following the Standing Rock model. Veterans Stand, which had mobilized roughly 4,000 veterans to Standing Rock in December 2016, pledged to remain ready for future frontline fights.
The movement also forced into mainstream legal and political conversation the weight of treaty obligations rooted in the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868, which the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause treats as the “supreme Law of the Land.” The pipeline continues to pump oil. The tribe continues to fight in court. The tension between those two facts is the unresolved core of what Standing Rock set in motion.