We like what we read in Adam Willis' article EV charging network to link Minnesota, North Dakota reservations seeking freedom from oil in the Forum News chain:
A recently funded partnership between clean energy groups on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota and the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota is aiming to expand access to electric vehicles for Midwest tribes.
Backers of the project say it’s one more step toward independence from fossil fuels on two reservations that have fought major oil pipelines in recent years.
The $6.7 million awarded as a joint grant to the Standing Rock Renewable Energy Authority (SAGE) and Minneapolis-based Native Sun Community Power Development will go toward the installation of more than 120 new electric vehicle charging stations to help link the tribal communities, which are separated by about 475 miles.
The project will also provide at least 19 electric vehicles (EVs) to schools, casinos, utilities and the Standing Rock and Red Lake tribal governments, and host dozens of educational events over its three-year funding period.
SAGE General Manager Joe McNeil, a Standing Rock Sioux member, said that, for his tribe, the project is about more than just hooking up the infrastructure for EVs. It’s about introducing clean energy resources to reservations that have limited access, and eventually allowing those communities to end their reliance on fossil fuels altogether.
“We see renewable energy as that at Standing Rock,” McNeil said. “It's a way to control your own destiny.”
Both the Standing Rock and Red Lake tribes have been at the forefront of anti-pipeline protests in recent years. Thousands of people travelled to Standing Rock in 2016 and 2017 to protest the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline just off the reservation, and Red Lake members helped lead opposition to Enbridge's recently completed Line 3 project in Minnesota.
Bob Blake, executive director of Native Sun and a member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe Indians, said he sees the Inter-Tribal EV Charging Network as “another form of resistance” to corporations and fossil fuel industries.
But Blake also said much of his initial excitement for the idea was in the opportunity to spread awareness about electric cars, and to create a link for tribal communities across Minnesota and the Dakotas that people might experience as something like a next-generation Route 66.
Ownership of electric vehicles can be challenging in North Dakota, which ranks near the bottom of the country in the uptake of EVs, since the region's cold climate and sparsely populated rural highways can limit travel in the plug-in cars. The new tribal charging network will install 59 fast charging hubs and 63 of the slower Level 2 stations largely on reservation lands in the region. . . .
Though the project will fund EV charging stations predominately on the Red Lake and Standing Rock reservations, Hunter said it also includes some money to help close a fast-charging gap between Bismarck and Fargo, as well as allocations for charging stations on the Native American Scenic Byway, which connects four reservations from Standing Rock to the Crow Creek Reservation along the Missouri River in the Dakotas. Some charging stations could be installed on other Native American reservations in the three states. . . .
Standing Rock, like the Lake Traverse Reservation, includes land in both North and South Dakota. Perhaps the network will extend to tribal communities throughout South Dakota. The image at the top of this post, from Minnesota Native News' Emma Needham's report, A New Kind of Pipeline, reveals that circle, which could also include the community on the Flandreau Indian Reservation, isn't yet on the map.
Image: From A New Kind of Pipeline/Minnesota Native News, November 19, 2021.
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