NORTH DAKOTA Contentious oil pipeline halted pending review
FARGO, N.D. — A federal judge on Monday ordered the Dakota Access pipeline shut down pending a more thorough environmental review, handing a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe three years after the pipeline first began carrying oil following months of protests.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., wrote that he was “mindful of the disruption” that shutting down the pipeline would cause, but that it must be done within 30 days. Pipeline owner Energy Transfer will seek an expedited appeal, spokeswoman Vicki Granado said.
The order comes after Boesberg said in April that a more extensive review was necessary than what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers already conducted.
“Given the seriousness of the Corps’ NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) error, the impossibility of a simple fix, the fact that Dakota Access did assume much of its economic risk knowingly, and the potential harm each day the pipeline operates, the Court is forced to conclude that the flow of oil must cease,” he added.
The pipeline was the subject of months of protests in 2016 and 2017, sometimes violent, during its construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North DakotaSouth Dakota border.
The tribe pressed litigation against the pipeline even after it began carrying oil from North Dakota across South Dakota and Iowa and to a shipping point in Illinois in June 2017.
Tribal Chairman Mike Faith called it a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux and for those who have protested against the $3.8 billion, 1,172mile pipeline that crosses beneath the Missouri River, just north of the reservation. The tribe draws its water from the river and fears pollution.
“This pipeline should have never been built here. We told them that from the beginning,” Faith said in a statement.
Texas company Energy Transfer has insisted the pipeline it owns would be safe.
Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, called the ruling “shocking” and noted that the pipeline is moving 570,000 barrels of oil a day.
Permits for the project were originally rejected by the Obama administration, and the Army Corps of Engineers prepared to conduct a full environmental review. In February 2017, shortly after President Trump took office, the Corps scrapped the review and granted permits.