Judge: No to halting Dakota Access pipeline

River Chairman Harold Frazier said.

“To put that pipeline in the ground would be irreparable harm for us in our culture,” he said.

The tribes requested the temporary injunction last week after Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners got federal permission to lay pipe under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota. That’s the last big section of the $3.8 billion pipeline, which would carry oil from North Dakota to Illinois.

The tribes say the pipeline would endanger their cultural sites and water supply. They added a religious freedom component to their case last week by arguing that clean water is necessary to practice the Sioux religion.

“The mere presence of the oil in the pipeline renders the water spiri- tually impure,” said Nicole Ducheneaux, lawyer for the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe.

But Boasberg said any immediate harm to the tribe “comes from when the spigots are turned on and the oil flows through the pipeline.”

Despite the setback, American Indian activist Chase Iron Eyes said pipeline opponents will continue fighting the project in the courts and maintaining an on-the-ground presence in the drilling area, “in peaceful prayer and in dignity as we assert our rights to protect our environment, our economy and our sovereignty.”

ETP spokeswoman Vicki Granado said last week that the drilling work would take about two months and that the full pipeline system would be operational within three months.