Dane County could officially oppose the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline after Board Supervisor Al Matano, District 11, introduced a resolution Thursday that calls for the revocation of the construction permit.
“We stand together today to raise our voices in opposition to the oppression at Standing Rock in North Dakota,” Matano said in a press release. “Law enforcement have escalated their actions to support the Dakota Access Pipeline, inflicting serious injuries to the native peoples and their supporters who are there to protect sacred lands and the waters.”
Dane County completed a “countywide inventory” of the Ho-Chunk Nation’s burial grounds in 1992 and has worked to preserve them, according to the release.
“The Dakota Access Pipeline project poses unnecessary harm to sacred burial grounds of the Standing Rock Sioux in spite of federal treaty agreements,” Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said in the release. “I agree with the demonstrators that the permit allowing the pipeline crossing should be revoked.”
The Dane County Board is not the first local body to get involved in the pipeline controversy, which has caught national attention for months.
UW-Madison basketball player Bronson Koenig, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation,
The Madison City Council passed resolutions expressing solidarity with the protesters. Ald. Rebecca Kemble, District 18, was arrested in October while a protest occurred delivering those resolutions. Dane County Deputies were also dispatched to the campsite in
The County Board will consider the resolution in the coming weeks and likely vote on the resolution in January.
