BLAUVELT, N.Y. - Growing up, Sister Ceil Lavin described herself as apolitical.
“I didn’t have a political notion in my head,” said the New Rochelle resident and Blauvelt Dominican sister. But things changed for her during the 1980's as tensions between the United States and the former USSR escalated and the nuclear arms race accelerated. The thought of resulting devastation inspired her to take action.
Sister Lavin’s activism on the issues of social justice and climate change took her to one of the more pressing battles last week: Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. There, Energy Transfer Partners is attempting to complete construction of the Dakota Access pipeline that will carry oil roughly 1,170 miles from North Dakota to Illinois, The New York Times reported.
According to The New York Times , the route the pipeline will take pass near the reservation and through what the Standing Rock Sioux tribe identify as sacred burial grounds despite being owned by ETP. It would also pass beneath the Missouri River, something the Sioux people and environmentalists view as a threat to the local water supply. The threat to the water supply has seen the Sioux and other indigenous people and Native Americans protesting it take on the name “water protectors.”
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