Shailene Woodley, Mark Ruffalo + More Celebs Stand With Standing Rock Sioux
Actress Shailene Woodley made headlines earlier this month when she was arrested for protesting and charged with criminal trespassing and engaging in a riot while protesting the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline on October 10. Since then, the protests have gained significant visibility and several other A-list celebrities — Mark Ruffalo, Rosario Dawson, Pharrell Williams and Leonardo DiCaprio among them — have voiced their support for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in opposing the pipeline.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe says the 1,172 mile pipeline — a $3.7 billion project led by Energy Transfer Partners which would pass beneath the Missouri River and see 470,000 barrels of crude oil funneled across four U.S. states each day -- threatens to contaminate their main water source, should an oil spill occur, as well as destroy several historic and sacred sites significant to the Tribe.
As such, the Sioux Tribe brought a lawsuit against the US Army Corps of Engineers for approving the project, claiming the pipeline “threatens the Tribe’s environmental and economic well-being, and would damage and destroy sites of great historic, religious and cultural significance to the Tribe,” according to CNN.
The company, however, maintains “concerns about the pipeline’s impact about the local water supply are unfounded,” according to a memo sent to employees by CEO Kelcy Warren via CBS.
Check out the above gallery to see the celebrities who have publicly voiced their opposition against the Dakota Access Pipeline.