(Photo: Mike Mozart; Edited: LW / TO)

The Dakota Access pipeline is funded directly by 17 banks, many of which — Citibank, Wells Fargo — are ones you’ve probably heard of or do business with.

Researchers with the nonprofit Food & Water Watch found that 38 banking institutions are involved in funding the proposed Bakken pipeline, which would stretch from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. A section of this project is the Dakota Access pipeline, where the Standing Rock Sioux and thousands of allies have physically put themselves in the path of the pipeline to protect their reservation and a stretch of the Missouri River.

Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, recently wrote an article for YES! suggesting that banks are more susceptible to public pressure than the oil and gas giants, which depend on bank loans and lines of credit to build their pipelines. “It’s probably sustained public pressure that will do the most good,” he wrote.

Wondering what to say to a bank executive?

Food & Water Watch researcher Hugh MacMillan: “Ask these banks to clarify whether funds they are providing are being used, in any amount, to pay for the heavily militarized response to the Standing Rock Sioux, including the attack dogs, sound-cannon trucks, heavily armed officers, and even a crop duster spraying undetermined chemicals over the camp.