Dakota pipeline dealt blow weeks before new administration
Corps of Engineers says it will explore other routes
OCETI SAKOWIN CAMP, N. D. A day that began with prayers ended with victory dances Sunday as Native Americans and environmentalists here celebrated the news that the Obama administration would halt construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
In the most substantial blow yet to the much- contested pipeline, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement for the pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, a Corps reservoir on the Missouri River in North Dakota. That remained the only contested portion of the 1,172- mile pipeline, which is nearly completed.
Dakota Access did not respond to a request for comment Sunday evening, but a pro- pipeline group called the decision “purely political.”
The pipeline was set to cross the river a half- mile from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation border. Tribal members have for months protested the project, worried that a pipeline breach could threaten their drinking water supplies.
“Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it’s clear that there’s more work to do,” Jo- Ellen Darcy, the Army’s assistant secretary for civil works said in a statement Sunday afternoon. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.”
Darcy said the pipeline should undergo an environmental impact statement — a process that could drag on for months. The decision means construction likely will not be completed during Obama’s remaining weeks in office.
President- elect Donald Trump’s administration, widely viewed as more friendly to energy interests, could reverse the Corps’ decision.
The news spread quickly across the snow- covered protest camp in North Dakota.
Craig Stevens, spokesman for the propipeline Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, said the decision was a rejection of the entire regulatory and judicial system, as well as a repudiation of the Corps’ previous decisions to greenlight the project.