Some Thoughts About The DAPL Pipeline

I’ve been reading a lot online about the pipeline my Lakota Friends are protesting. From people I know have been to Standing Rock have told me, they aren’t really against the pipeline. They say it doesn’t have to be built near rivers or farmland.

I hear they plan to build it to go across three major rivers, including the Ohio River. My friends who’ve been to Standing Rock have told me it doesn’t matter how well built they build the pipeline, sooner or later it’s going to wear out, break down, and dump thousands of gallons of water into them. When that happens everything down stream is contaminated and gone.

I’ve written few articles in my blog and posted them on social media platforms about the DPAL Pipeline and the Protest. I even got kicked off the Linkedin Platform because they said my posts about the subject were too political for them. I didn’t mind that happening. Nobody really read what I was writing until that happened.

I was just some new guy blogging. I get kicked off a publishing platform and everybody notices me. Now hundreds of people read my posts. I think those guys at Linkedin are GREAT!! I started blogging because of an online class I took just to stay busy over the summer last year. Now I have people who’ve been writing and blogging for a while reading my posts and following me on Twitter. I’d like to say Thank You to them. I’m really just a laborer who got hurt and now I’m collecting disability and winging it as a part time blogger.

When I think about this I realize if I hadn’t got hurt in Alaska I might be one of the guys my Lakota Friends are protesting right now. I would have never met people in the Native Community when I was staying in the shelters and fighting for my SSI and wouldn’t have been adopted by the Lakota.

A few weeks after I got back from Alaska a guy who worked in a shipyard told me about a huge lake of oil people found in Fargo, North Dakota and said a lot of guys he knew were going there. I would have gone too, but I was injured. Eight years later I’m writing about my Lakota friends trying to stop a pipeline going through I would have probably been working on!!

It makes me wonder if there is anyone with some real pull out there who help sort this all out. I’d hate to see rivers get contaminated with thousands of gallons of oil. I mean, would it really be a hard thing to move path of the pipeline? I really don’t know.

When I got hurt in Alaska and couldn’t do labor jobs any more I found out I really don’t know that much. When I was fighting for my SSI I learned I was part of a system a lot bigger than me! Hopefully this can all get sorted out!!

Written by Mark Blevins

Thank You For Reading

About Me:

I was a Construction Worker and Commercial Fisherman. An injury on a fishing boat in Alaska forced me into early retirement. Now I’m a Writer and Blogger. Having to start over forced me to realize people are more than their job title.

Contact me at mark_blevins1@morethanatitle.net and follow me onTwitter  https://twitter.com/Bllevins