US, N.D. to negotiate pipeline policing costs
BISMARCK, N.D. – Federal and state lawyers will meet in North Dakota soon to negotiate a settlement for money that the state claims it spent on policing protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
North Dakota filed a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers in 2019, seeking to recover more than $38 million in damages from the monthslong pipeline protests almost five years ago.
State Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and other state lawyers will meet with attorneys from the Corps and Justice Department at the federal courthouse in Bismarck on Sept. 16. U.S. Magistrate Judge Alice Senechal will preside over the negotiations, which are closed to the public.
It’s the first sit-down meeting with state and federal lawyers to work out a settlement, Stenehjem said. Federal judges handling the case have “strongly suggested” the negotiations, he said.
If no settlement can be reached, a trial is set for May 1, 2023.
Thousands of pipeline opponents gathered in southern North Dakota in 2016 and early 2017, camping on federal land and often clashing with police. Hundreds were arrested over six months.
Stenehjem has long argued that the Corps allowed and sometimes encouraged protesters to camp illegally without a federal permit. The Corps has said protesters weren’t evicted due to free speech reasons.
The Corps argued that it has “limited authority to enforce its rules and regulations” on land it manages.
The $3.8 billion pipeline has been moving oil from the Dakotas through Iowa to Illinois since 2017 but remains mired in litigation.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposed the pipeline built by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners over fears it would harm cultural sites and the tribe’s Missouri River water supply – claims rejected by the company and the state.