Standing Rock Leaders Reflect on Dakota Access Legacy at Renewable Energy Event

Standing Rock Sioux tribal leaders marked the 10-year anniversary of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests this week, reflecting on the demonstrations' lasting legacy for Indigenous activism while emphasizing a current push for renewable energy sovereignty. The reflections occurred Thursday, Sept. 17, at the first People of the Sun event hosted by the nonprofit Indigenized Energy at the Prairie Knights Casino on the Standing Rock Reservation, according to a North Dakota Monitor report.

“The oil is still flowing. The pipeline hasn’t been shut down, but there’s something really powerful that has happened,” Nola Taken Alive, Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council representative-at-large, told the audience. The event highlighted the ongoing tension between the operational pipeline—a key conduit for Bakken crude—and the tribe's enduring opposition and advocacy.

Thousands of protesters gathered in southern North Dakota in 2016 and 2017 to oppose the multistate pipeline, which the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe argued threatened its water supply and sacred sites. Pipeline developer Energy Transfer has long denied these claims. The protests, which lasted roughly six months and centered near the project's Missouri River crossing, resulted in hundreds of arrests and clashes with law enforcement before camps were cleared in 2017.

While the pipeline remains in operation, legal fallout continues. Court cases connected to the protests linger, including lawsuits between Energy Transfer and environmental group Greenpeace, the report stated.

The event framed the pipeline conflict as a catalyst for a broader movement. Indigenized Energy founder and CEO Cody Two Bears described Standing Rock as a “frontline community that has been through the atrocities of extraction.” He cited inflation, rising energy costs, and federal cuts as pressures forcing tribal communities to rely on energy systems they "don’t particularly agree with," stating, “It’s our job to change that.”

The gathering served to champion solar and renewable energy projects as an alternative path. A video highlighted the Buffalo Sun project, where Indigenized Energy installed solar panels to power a buffalo barn for Wozu, a tribal food and culture effort founded by former Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II.

For Bakken operators and the state of North Dakota, the Dakota Access Pipeline remains a critical piece of infrastructure, ensuring the flow of oil from the prolific formation to market. The event's focus on renewable energy sovereignty underscores a parallel, growing energy movement within the state, rooted in the same communities directly impacted by major oil infrastructure. The reflections confirm that, while the physical pipeline was completed, the protests awakened sustained advocacy and a determined shift toward tribal-controlled energy solutions.