Judge calls for Dakota Access oil line to close

FARGO, N.D. — A federal judge 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.

In a 24-page order, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote he was “mindful of the disruption” that shutting down the pipeline would cause, but that it must be done within 30 days. The order comes after Boesberg said in April that a more extensive review was necessary than what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had already conducted and that he would consider whether the pipeline would have to be shuttered during the new assessment.

“The Court does not reach its decision with blithe disregard for the lives it will affect,” Boasberg wrote Monday.

The pipeline was the subject of months of sometimes violent protests in 2016 and 2017 during its construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South 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, 1,172-mile 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-based Energy Transfer has insisted the pipeline it owns would be safe. It didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Boasberg’s ruling.