Media Advisory: Appalachia Stands with Standing Rock in Opposition to Dakota Access Pipeline!

Contact: Cathy Kunkel, cathykunkel@gmail.com, 304-237-3802

What: Appalachia Stands with Standing Rock in Opposition to Dakota Access                         Pipeline! #NoDAPL Solidarity Action

When: 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, November 15

Where: Outside the Army Corps of Engineers office, 502 Eighth St, Huntington, WV

Who: Organizers of this event include:

• RAMPS (Radical Action for Mountains’ and People’s Survival)
• OVEC (Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition)
• Kanawha Forest Coalition

Speakers include:

• Author and poet Crystal Good, who has been active in Charleston water activism after the January 2014 MCHM drinking water contamination incident.
• Reverend Robin Blakeman, OVEC project coordinator and ordained PCUSA Teaching Elder.

More groups and speakers will be confirmed before the action. For updates, see the action’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1400181796676239/

Note:  Members of the press are invited to the art build for the Appalachia Stands with Standing Rock #NoDAPL Solidarity Action. The art build takes place 7-9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 10 at the UU Congregation, 520 Kanawha Blvd W, Charleston, WV. Spokespeople will be present to answer reporters’ questions.
Find more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1310644102312979/?active_tab=about

This action is part of a #NoDAPL National Day of Action at Army Corps of Engineers offices:
https://actionnetwork.org/event_campaigns/nov-15-nodapl-day-of-action-at-army-corps-of-engineers

Why:  We hold this action to stand in solidarity with Native Americans from more than 200 tribes, who have come together in unity to defend the land, sacred sites, and water of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe from the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).

We hold this action because:

• The Army Corps of Engineers can stop this pipeline by not granting the permit needed to construct a pipeline under the Missouri River, the drinking water supply for the Standing Rock Sioux and millions of people downstream.
• The Standing Rock Sioux are calling for allies and water protectors around the country to demand that the Army Corps of Engineers not grant DAPL’s permit.
• Several centuries of abrogated treaties and trampled rights for the indigenous peoples of this continent are too many.
• Those who risk their safety and freedom, who camp on a freezing prairie in winter to protect their water and face down militarized police armed only with prayer, deserve our support.
• Mni wiconi. (Water is life.)
• Native defense of Mother Earth is defense of Earth for people everywhere.
• We are all threatened by climate change, and the only way to avert the worst consequences is to halt new fossil fuel projects, and transition rapidly to a clean energy economy—which will also generate more jobs than the deadly business as usual.
• We in Appalachia know all too well what is to have safe drinking water threatened—or destroyed—by fossil fuel projects. We know how it feels to watch our elected officials and agencies scramble to defend the energy corporations—not us. We know how it feels to be a population whose culture, health and welfare are regarded with low priority. 

###