Things are getting heated on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation as activists strut before the news media and bait law enforcement into arresting them, ostensibly in protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
There is even at least one celebrity involved. Actress Shailene Woodley, star of some movies you probably haven't seen, has been on the scene vowing to camp out on the North Dakota prairie until the pipeline project is brought to a halt.
The protesters say the pipeline, which crosses the Missouri River at its confluence with the Cannon Ball river near the reservation, puts clean water at risk. That's certainly an important issue for the reservation, which draws its drinking water from the river near the pipeline crossing, but it's worth remembering that the American landscape is dotted with pipelines crossing rivers.
