On Dec. 3, 2016, approximately 4,000 military veterans descended on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota to protest the construction of a portion of the Dakota Access pipeline slated to run across disputed Sioux land and beneath Lake Oahe, the source of the reservation’s drinking water supply. With the veterans came thousands more protesters and swarms of reporters. The following day, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied the easement. Celebrations erupted across the reservation.