Judge grants partial stop on North Dakota pipeline
WASHINGTON — An American Indian tribe succeeded Tuesday in getting a federal judge to temporarily stop construction on some, but not all, of a portion of a $3.8 billion fourstate oil pipeline, but their broader request still hangs in the balance.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said Tuesday that work will temporarily stop between North Dakota’s State Highway 1806 and 20 miles east of Lake Oahe but will continue west of the highway because he believes the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers lacks jurisdiction on private land. It wasn’t immediately clear how long of a stretch on which work will stop.
He also said he’ll rule on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s challenge of federal regulators’ decision to grant permits to the Texasbased operators of Dakota Access pipeline, which will cross North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, by the end of Friday.
A weekend confrontation between protesters and construction workers near Lake Oahe prompted the tribe to ask for a temporary stop of construction. Four private security guards and two guard dogs received medical treatment, officials said, while a tribal spokesman noted that six people, including a child, were bitten by the dogs and at least 30 people were pepper-sprayed.
Dakota Access attorney Bill Leone said during Tuesday’s hearing that there were two more attacks on crews Tuesday, and that if it weren’t for the stoppages, the section in question would be finished by week’s end. A spokeswoman for the Morton County Sheriff ’s Office didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking information on the attacks.
Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault II issued a statement that said: “Today’s denial of a temporary restraining order ... west of Lake Oahe puts my people’s sacred places at further risk of ruin and desecration.”
A spokeswoman for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners didn’t immediately respond to phone messages requesting comment.
Workers allegedly bulldozed sites on private land Saturday, land that attorney Jan Hasselman with Earthjustice said was “of great historic and cultural significance to the tribe.” The tribe’s cultural expert, Tim Mentz Sr., said in court documents that the tribe believes there are human remains in the area and that it wants “an opportunity to rebury our relatives.”
Lawyers for Dallasbased Energy Transfer Partners filed documents denying that workers destroyed any cultural sites and asking the judge to reject the tribes’ request for a work stoppage.