Pipestone National Monument in southwestern Minnesota is home to quarries of catlinite, a rare soft red stone that Native people harvest for ceremonial pipes. Twenty-three tribes trace cultural ties to this place. Now a petroleum pipeline is set to run along its edges.

On November 5, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted 4–1 to approve Magellan Midstream Partners’ plan to route a pipeline around the monument. The old line cut straight through the monument until 2022, when the U.S. Department of the Interior refused to renew its permit.

Tribal leaders say the land along the new route still hasn’t been properly studied. More than 40 acres across the two proposed routes have never been surveyed. The Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) said the company’s archaeological work fell short of state standards, and the historic value of 58 of the 61 artifact sites found is still unresolved. “There was no cultural inventory,” Samantha Odegard, an officer with the Upper Sioux Tribal Historic Preservation Office, told the commission, according to Sahan Journal.

Magellan’s parent company, Oneok, says it met the commission’s requirements and worked with tribal specialists. Tribal nations strongly disagree. Once sacred ground is dug up, it can’t be put back.

The Minnesota PUC should put this permit on hold until tribal nations and the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) finish a full cultural inventory of every acre, using methods the tribes approve.

Sign the petition to protect Pipestone’s sacred land before a single shovel goes into the ground.