Health Status of the Ecosystem, Biodiversity and Species Abundance along the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline.

Sitting Bull College, Fort Yates ND

Investigators

Abstract

The Tribal Colleges and University Program is designed to support improvements in the science, math, engineering and technology (STEM) education and research capacities of colleges and universities that serve significant numbers of Native students in the United States. Strengthening these educational opportunities serves to increase the number of Indigenous people attaining STEM degrees and thereby diversify the STEM workforce in the United States. The Health Status of the Ecosystem, Biodiversity, Water, Soil and Species Abundance Along the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline project supports these outcomes through its study of the ecosystems surrounding the pipeline. Led by an expert interdisciplinary team of environmental science faculty members from Sitting Bull College on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the project focuses on gathering baseline data on species diversity, water quality, and soil characteristics of the areas on the reservation surrounding the pipeline. Faculty mentors also engage Native undergraduate and graduate students as integral members of the project, mentoring them in the design and conduct of the research and the presentation of its findings. The baseline information gathered in the study is an invaluable resource in helping further understanding of the environmental effects of pipelines over time and in formulating strategies for managing those effects. The ubiquitous presence of oil pipelines across the United States serving to meet the nation's energy needs makes this work highly relevant and significant to the American citizenry on a broad scale. The focus of the Health Status of the Ecosystem, Biodiversity, Water, Soil and Species Abundance Along the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline is to conduct a baseline inventory of the species composition, water quality, and edaphic factors of various habitats surrounding the pipeline. Using sophisticated sampling techniques and state-of-the-art laboratory equipment, the project engages an interdisciplinary team of environmental scientists from Sitting Bull College in documenting, quantifying, and deriving relative abundance estimates of keystone species in the areas surrounding the pipeline on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The comprehensiveness and rigor of the data collection and analyses enable the study of the ecosystem across spatial and temporal scales. These data will be widely available and will be valuable in furthering current understanding of pipeline impacts as well as informing future studies and the formulation of remediation plans for this and other pipelines in the United States. The collaboration of undergraduate and graduate level students with faculty mentors in the research design, implementation, and presentation contributes to the project?s broader impacts by developing the research capacity of the tribal college and its students.