Bureau of Indian Affairs sending agents to close Dakota pipeline protest sites

Published February 06, 2017 FoxNews.com

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is sending agents to North Dakota to help clear Dakota Access oil pipeline protesters from makeshift camps on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The Standing Rock tribe led the months-long protest against the pipeline project, but recently requested BIA’s assistance in closing the camps, Prairie Public Broadcasting reported Friday.

BIA’s announcement comes after the Army Corps of Engineers issued an order to a few hundred protesters at a camp in Cannon Ball, N.D., to get out by Feb. 22, the station reported.

BIA’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Michael Black said on Friday that closing the camps is a matter of public health and safety.

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