Company behind four-state pipeline buys part of area ranch

BISMARCK, N.D. — The company developing the four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline has bought a part of a historic North Dakota ranch where a violent protest occurred earlier this month after what tribal officials said was construction crews destroying burial and cultural sites.

Morton County records show Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners bought 20 parcels of land on the Cannonball Ranch totaling more than 6,000 acres from David and Brenda Meyer of Flasher. Financial terms of the deal, which was finalized Thursday, were not disclosed.

The Meyers did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Energy Transfer Partners confirmed the purchase Friday but declined to provide further details.

The ranch, which is more than a century old and was the first to be inducted into the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, is within a half-mile of an encampment on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ land where the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and hundreds of others are gathered to protest the pipeline. The tribe has said the pipeline, which is slated to cross Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir, threatens its water supply and violates several federal laws.

Corps records show Meyer pays $4,865 annually for exclusive grazing rights at the encampment site, a five-year lease that ends in 2018.

The purchase of the ranchland will allow Energy Transfer Partners to better access its construction sites and the pipeline, when it is finished.

On Sept. 3, protesters and private security guards clashed after construction crews removed topsoil across an area about 150 feet wide stretching for 2 miles on the ranch. The incident came a day after the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed court papers saying it found several sites of “significant cultural and historic value” along the pipeline’s path.

The tribe has challenged the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits for the $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile pipeline that would ship North Dakota crude through South Dakota and Iowa to Illinois.

A federal appeals court last week ordered a halt to construction within 20 miles on either side of Lake Oahe. The Departments of Justice, Army and Interior also has said it would “reconsider any of its previous decisions” on land that borders or is under the lake, one of six reservoirs on the Missouri River.