[grc] NewsUp! story: "Standing Rock: Volunteers Urgently Needed"

[Ann Garrison]

I just uploaded the news story I produced about Standing Rock yesterday to
NewsUp!  I've been following this as closely as I can from a distance and
there are a number of things I'm still trying to understand or confirm. The
person I spoke to this week believes that the Army Corps and North Dakota
Governor are actually threatening to flood the Oceti Sakowin Camp, which
Water Protectors have been exhausting themselves trying to clear out before
the Feb 22 deadline.  He thinks the flood control system can be used to
flood Oceti Sakowin before the melting snowpack requires them to do that to
protect Bismarck.  It is in the floodplain, but he doesn't think there's
reason to flood it now except to clear out the Water Protectors.  Again,
this is something I'm trying to confirm.

Another thing I believe I understood is that people donated huge amounts of
food, clothing, tents and the like that have been at Oceti Sakowin, but now
- in the harsh weather - there are far fewer volunteers and Water
Protectors there and they are exhausting themselves moving all this stuff
to higher ground or reservation land where the Army Corps and their
militarized police can't 'doze it.

Today I saw a live video from Standing Rock in which cops with "FEDERAL
POLICE" on their jackets were demanding to search vehicles and the storage
containers for gear affixed to the top of them.  I didn't know we had any
FEDERAL POLICE but I looked it up online and apparently this was an Obama
innovation.

One thing I feel sure of is that North Dakota Governor Doug Burum is lying
through his teeth when he accuses the Water Protectors of creating a human
waste problem that could pollute the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers; he
says this in his evacuation order.  I explained a few things about the
human waste system in the story but I wasn't able to explain that the
technology for handling human waste in the camps was developed for the
refugee camps burgeoning all over the world. The person I interviewed -
Hanson Lee - described it as an "international solution" - but I didn't
have time to ask what he meant by that till after the broadcast. It sounds
like a huge improvement over previous sani-can tech and worth a story in
itself.  I'll get it into the text version of the interview that I'm
working on now.

I was trying to reach someone from Veterans Stand who was arriving
yesterday, but he didn't pick up at the appointed time, so I spoke to
someone here who had just returned from his third trip.  I hope someone can
get a veterans story this week and post it to NewsUp!.

For real,
Ann Garrison <http://www.anngarrison.com/>
Independent Journalist,
SKYPE: Ann Garrison, Oakland
415-503-7487