Local Man Joins Fight Against Dallas Oil Company A Thousand Miles Away
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DALLAS (KRLD) - Jesse Puente is a heating and air conditioning technician in Dallas. He just returned from a trip to North Dakota, where protesters have clashed for months with police over Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners' proposed Dakota Access Pipeline. Puente says he'll pick up supplies today and return to the protest site tomorrow.
"I'm worried about them freezing for the winter. I'm so worried about them surviving. My main objective is to make sure that everybody that's going in there, comes out O.K."
Temperatures at the protest site are below freezing. Several Native American tribes are part of the effort to block the pipeline, including a group from the nearby Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. They claim the pipeline is a danger to drinking water sources, and would go through sacred tribal burial grounds.
North Dakota's Governor has ordered mandatory evacuation of the protesters by next Monday. The Army Corps of Engineers will block all access to the area, but does not plan on forcible removal of the protesters.
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