The Daily Bird #124 » « The Rewards of Being A Dirty Rotten Judge: $203,100 A Year.

Sacred Burial Ground Sold to Dakota Access.

Courtesy LandofDakota.com Cannonball Ranch, which is full of sacred burial sites and artifacts, was sold on September 22 to Dakota Access LLC.

Courtesy LandofDakota.com
Cannonball Ranch, which is full of sacred burial sites and artifacts, was sold on September 22 to Dakota Access LLC.

No words. None. Okay, a few. If the owners, who reside in Flasher, were all that concerned about liability, why didn’t they offer the land for sale to Standing Rock? I smell shit. A whole lot of bullshit.

Cannonball Ranch in North Dakota has been sold to Dakota Access LLC. The ranch is not the site of the Standing Rock Camp where protectors are taking a stand against the Dakota Access pipeline, but the ranch has hundreds of burials and artifacts.

MyNDNow reports the land was sold by David and Brenda Meyer on September 22 for liability reasons. David Meyer told MyNDNow that there were just too many people on the property.

“It’s a beautiful ranch, but I just wanted out,” he said.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault II made a statement at the Protecting Native Land and Resources, Rejecting North Dakota Pipeline Forum:

“Recently, they purchased the Cannonball Ranch, yesterday the transaction was final, the documents are signed and recorded with the county and the money was transferred. So the owner of the Cannonball Ranch, where we’re demonstrating, what we’re protecting, has now been sold to the pipeline company so it’s really disturbing to me because the intention is all wrong. Without having any further review and without understanding what the process was… it’s not fair. It’s not right and the company is going to try to move forward without any consideration of tribes. I am not asking that you stop this pipeline, I’m asking that you do a full EIS [Environmental Impact Statement].”

Read his full statement on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Facebook page.

On the same day as the Cannonball Ranch sale, more than 1,200 archaeologists and museums sent a letter to President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers urging a full Environmental Impact Statement be completed as well as a survey of cultural resources along the pipeline’s route.

“The destruction of these sacred sites adds yet another injury to the Lakota, Dakota, and other Indigenous Peoples who bear the impacts of fossil fuel extraction and transportation. If constructed, this pipeline will continue to encourage oil consumption that causes climate change, all the while harming those populations who contributed little to this crisis,” reads part of the letter.

Via ICTMN.  See comments for additional info.

The Daily Bird #124 » « The Rewards of Being A Dirty Rotten Judge: $203,100 A Year.

Comments

  2. Crimson Clupeidae says

    With any luck (I won’t hold my breath), the land will be declared archeologically important and this will wind up being a waste of money for the Evil Oil Company (TM).

    Caine, do you suppose the original owners sold it out of spite given the broad racism against the tribes there? I can’t see any other reason to do so, especially as it doesn’t appear to have been a public offering.

    White people suck.

  3. says

    My best guess would be the oil company went sniffing about, and made an offer. I’d assume it was a large one, and around here, most people would take it, with little to trouble their conscience. Whatever the Meyers got for it, I doubt Standing Rock, even with help, could have matched it, even if given the opportunity.

    It’s quite clear to me the reason given is an outright lie. There’s no one camping there, at all. There have been protests and ceremonies out there, yes, but it’s not as though anything has happened to give someone a liability fright. Even if that is the truth, why the secrecy? Why did this come as a stone shock to everyone?

  4. says

    More info, from here:

    The deed does not list the acreage involved in the sale, but legal descriptions of the parcels indicate it involved more than 6,000 acres.

    The land includes at least part of the historic Cannonball Ranch located at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers.

    Bill Edwards, an investment firm owner in Aberdeen, S.D., tried unsuccessfully to auction off the 7,400-acre ranch in 2006, the Associated Press reported at the time. Property and state tax records show David and Brenda Meyer bought 10 parcels totaling 2,365 acres from Edwards for about $3.2 million in November 2013, and all of those parcels were included in Thursday’s sale to Dakota Access LLC.

    KX News of Bismarck reported that David Meyer said he sold the land to Dakota Access for liability reasons, that there were too many people on his property all the time and that it was a beautiful ranch but he “just wanted out.”

    The Meyers previously signed easements with Dakota Access LLC in February 2015 allowing for a 50-foot-wide pipeline easement and a 100-foot-wide construction easement, records show.

    David Meyer also has a grazing lease on 429 acres owned by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just north of the Cannonball River where thousands of pipeline opponents have been camping for several weeks.

    The corps granted a special use permit Friday to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to allow a lawful free-speech demonstration to continue on Corps land south of the Cannonball River but didn’t act on the permit application for the north land because of the existing grazing lease.

    Seems these folks have been sucking down oil for a while.

  5. says

    Aaaaaaaaaaand, yeah, it’s corruption, with the full cooperation of Jackkk Dalrymple:

    Records show the Meyers purchased about 2,400 acres of the ranch in 2013 for $3.2 million; that land makes up half of the sale Thursday. Financial terms between ETP and the Meyers do not have to be disclosed under state law because the land has been reclassified from agriculture to industrial, the state Tax Department said.

    The sale also is exempt from North Dakota’s Depression-era anti-corporate farming law that limits the number of nonprofit groups allowed to buy land, and requires the governor to approve land purchases.

  7. says

    The Cannonball Ranch is historical, too, and it’s widely known about in the Dakotas. It was the first ranch inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame (oh yeah, that’s a thing), and now it’s designated industrial? Riiiiight. You can all see the pic, that look industrial to you?

    Oh, and the Meyers are hiding. Only their lawyer is contactable right now, and he’s not saying much at all. So, it’s fair to assume this is a filthy, dirty deal.

  11. says

    The land belonged to the tribes, was stolen, then sold: it’s a transfer of stolen goods. The ranchers never owned it to begin with. There was a treaty, once…

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