CLAIM: Bayou Bridge Pipeline protesters leave trash in the Atchafalaya Basin

In late October 2018 the St. Martin Parish Sheriff’s Office claimed that protesters with the L’eau Est La Vie Camp had left behind a large amount of trash in the sensitive wetland area, including chemicals, human waste, and personal belongings. “Unfortunately, the trash this group left behind and being washed into the water; posed a real threat to wildlife, fish, and boaters,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post.

RATING: 100% True

Since July 2018, environmental activists protesting the construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline have been camping in the Atchafalaya Basin area of St. Martin Parish in Louisiana. The L’eau Est La Vie Camp was previously asked to clean up their mess, but those calls went unanswered. Law enforcement was instead—as reported by local CBS and ABC affiliates—forced to bag and properly dispose of the garbage themselves.

While some may have thanked law enforcement for going above and beyond the call of duty, protesters claimed they had been “falsely accused” and victims of a ploy to discredit their movement. “This is the exact same tactic that they tried to use to discredit the movement at Standing Rock,” the camp wrote in a post on their Facebook page. It’s not a “tactic” to clean-up your trash, it’s common sense. As for Standing Rock, it cost North Dakota taxpayers over $1 million to haul off the 48 million pounds of garbage that protesters left on the banks of the Missouri River.