St. Anthony, Morton County, ND, Oct. 2016

From an Article by Blake Nicholson, Houston Chronicle (Associated Press), July 18, 2017

BISMARCK, N.D. – Additional environmental review of the disputed Dakota Access oil pipeline is likely to take the rest of the year to complete, U.S. officials said in court documents in which they also advocate keeping the line operating during the study.

Developer Energy Transfer Partners also is asking U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to keep the line open, saying a shutdown would cost the Dallas-based company $90 million each month.

The $3.8 billion pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois was finished after President Donald Trump pushed through its completion despite opposition and an ongoing lawsuit by American Indian tribes, who fear environmental harm.

Since June 1, it has been moving nearly half of the daily oil production in North Dakota, the nation’s second-leading producer behind Texas – a total so far of more than 18 million barrels, or 756 million gallons.

Boasberg last month ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers largely complied with environmental law when permitting the pipeline but that it didn’t adequately consider how an oil spill under the Missouri River might affect the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. He ordered the Corps to reconsider certain areas of its environmental analysis and is accepting arguments from attorneys this summer on whether he should shut down the pipeline while the work is done – a move he has said “would carry serious consequences that a court should not lightly impose.”

Corps attorneys in documents filed Monday maintain that the agency expects to be able to substantiate its earlier determination that the pipeline poses no significant environmental threats.

“The low possibility of an oil spill means that there is little chance that (tribal) plaintiffs will be harmed at any time, much less during the remand period, which is anticipated to be completed by the end of the year,” Corps attorney Reuben Schifman wrote.

Standing Rock attorney Jan Hasselman in an interview said the comments indicate the Corps plans to “simply paper over the existing decision.” He called for shutting down the pipeline and bringing in independent experts as “the only way to ensure the integrity of this new process.”

ETP attorney William Scherman said in court documents that oil producers and refiners, workers, customers, consumers and government tax revenue would be affected by a shutdown

“The process of temporarily shutting down a 1,200-mile pipeline is itself extremely costly, immensely complicated and burdensome, time-consuming, and ultimately more of a risk to the environment than allowing the flow of oil to continue,” Scherman wrote.

The company already experienced months of delays in getting the pipeline operational due to the court battle and on-the-ground protests in North Dakota, and more delay “would add insult to injury,” he said.

Several state and national energy and manufacturing trade groups, including the American Petroleum Institute, have asked Boasberg to let them have a say in the debate, saying a shutdown would harm businesses throughout the domestic energy industry. The North Dakota Petroleum Council, which represents more than 500 energy companies including ETP, said no one involved in the lawsuit speaks for the general oil industry.

“The completion of DAPL marked the first time that North Dakota and this region have enjoyed adequate pipeline capacity,” council attorneys said. A shutdown likely would cut oil production, increase less-safe rail shipping, increase shipping expenses for companies, harm state tax revenue and impact “untold thousands of royalty owners,” they said.

Tension Between Police and Standing Rock Protesters Reaches Boiling Point

From an Article by Sue Skalicky and Monica Davey, New York Times, October 28, 2016

Arrests and Violence at Pipeline Protest — Demonstrators at the Dakota Access pipeline were shot at with beanbag rounds, hit with pepper spray and taken into custody by the police.

. Watch in Times Video »

Cannon Ball, ND — For months, tensions had mounted between protesters and law enforcement officials over the fate of an oil pipeline not far from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Late this week, the strained relations boiled over as officers tried to force the protesters out of an area where they had been camping.

Scores of officers dressed in riot gear walked in a wide line, sweeping protesters out of the area as face-to-face yelling matches broke out. Several vehicles, including at least one truck, were set ablaze. A standoff unfolded beside a bridge known as the Backwater Bridge, where protesters set fire to wooden boards and signs and held off the line of officers over many hours.

By Friday evening, officers said they had arrested at least 142 protesters on charges including engaging in a riot and conspiracy to endanger by fire and explosion. Protesters gathered near the bridge were refusing to leave, the authorities said.

Each side complained vehemently about violent tactics by the other. Officers said that protesters had attacked them with firebombs, logs, feces and debris. They acknowledged using pepper spray and beanbag rounds against the protesters, as well as a high-pitched sound device meant to disperse crowds.

PHOTO: Protesters occupying a bridge north of the Oceti Sakowin Camp, near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. Credit Angus Mordant for The New York Times

In one case, the officers said, they used a Taser gun after a protester threw pepper in officers’ faces. One woman who was being arrested, the authorities said, had pulled a gun out and fired at a police line. No one was hit by those shots, they said, though two officers had minor injuries after being hit by debris.

“It was peaceful, but it’s not now,” Randez Bailey, a resident of Standing Rock, said of the protest. “We are the ones who have to live here. You all get to go back home.”

The confrontation has been brewing for months as Energy Transfer Partners tries to finish construction of the Dakota Access pipeline, which is to carry oil 1,170 miles from North Dakota to Illinois. Company officials contend that the pipeline will be a safer way to transfer oil. But Native Americans and environmental activists, many of whom have gathered here, say the $3.7 billion pipeline threatens the region’s water supply and would harm sacred cultural lands and tribal burial grounds.

Even as crews here were continuing construction of the pipeline along private lands, all sides were awaiting a review by the Army Corps of Engineers on a crucial stretch of the proposed path, through Army Corps land and under the Missouri River.

The issue has sparked concern from environmentalists and politicians on social media.

“I stand with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in their opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline.” Full statement: https://t.co/AQ8IJISjcY

— Al Gore (@algore) Oct. 25, 2016

And the intensifying clashes as law enforcement moved in on Thursday drew a renewed flurry of attention from organizations like Amnesty International, which said it was sending observers to monitor law enforcement’s behavior, as well as from celebrities.

hard to watch, but truth often is. pls take the time to see what our brothers & sisters went thru today. #NoDAPL https://t.co/jnlJz11B0z

— Shailene Woodley (@shailenewoodley) Oct. 28, 2016

Rubber bullets in the face of peaceful and prayerful Water Protectors at #standingrock please… https://t.co/1mVgFzDf4L

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) Oct. 28, 2016

Kyle Kirchmeier, the Morton County sheriff, said protesters had been asked to move away from a campsite they had created on private land that is owned by Energy Transfer Partners, but had refused.

Photo: The authorities arrived at the pipeline protest on Friday in military-style vehicles and demanded that the protesters vacate the camp. Credit Angus Mordant for The New York Times

“It forced our hand,” Sheriff Kirchmeier said. By Thursday morning, he said, the authorities had given up on negotiations with the protesters and moved in to clear the area, where more than 200 people were gathered. The authorities, some of whom arrived in military-style vehicles, demanded over loudspeakers that people leave before they began moving in, searching tent to tent.

Protesters were not being asked to evacuate a second, larger camp that they have set up on federal land, a few miles away. The authorities said those who were swept off the private land would be permitted to stay in the second camp.

But tribal leaders said the land in question was tribal land, and called on federal authorities to step in and oversee the actions of local law enforcement — particularly given Thursday’s sweep, which brought the total number of protesters arrested since August to 411.

“We need our state and federal governments to bring justice and peace to our lands, not the force of armored vehicles,” said Dave Archambault II, the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. “We have repeatedly seen a disproportionate response from law enforcement to water protectors’ nonviolent exercise of their constitutional rights.”

The Standing Rock Reservation is in both ND & SD, 3600 sq. miles

NOTE: About 8500 residents live on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation which includes all of Sioux County, ND, and Corson County, SD.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Dakota Access Pipeline Protest

Federal judge denies tribe’s request for injunction, but federal agencies issue statement pausing pipeline construction

From an Article by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams Blog, September 9, 2016 

A series of “game-changing” developments impacting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) battle on Friday afternoon were testament to the power of organizing.

Striking a blow to the vibrant, Indigenous-led resistance movement that has sprung up against the four-state oil pipeline, a federal judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s attempt to halt its construction.

Shortly afterward, however, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army, and the Department of the Interior issued a joint statement indicating that “important issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations and their members regarding [DAPL] specifically, and pipeline-related decision-making generally, remain.”

As a result, the statement read, construction on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe—which straddles North and South Dakota—will be halted until the Corps “can determine whether it will need to reconsider any of its previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws.” 

“In the interim,” the agencies continued, “we request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe.”

The statement continued:

Furthermore, this case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects. Therefore, this fall, we will invite tribes to formal, government-to-government consultations on two questions: (1) within the existing statutory framework, what should the federal government do to better ensure meaningful tribal input into infrastructure-related reviews and decisions and the protection of tribal lands, resources, and treaty rights; and (2) should new legislation be proposed to Congress to alter that statutory framework and promote those goals.

As Common Dreams has reported extensively, the Standing Rock Sioux had challenged the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners’ $3.8 billion pipeline, saying that the project violates federal laws—including the Clean Water Act and National Historic Preservation Act—and would endanger both water supplies and ancient sacred sites.

But in his decision (pdf), U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., said “the Tribe has not carried its burden to demonstrate that the Court could prevent damage to important cultural resources by enjoining the Corps’ DAPL-related permitting.”

He ordered the parties to appear for a status conference on September 16th. Still, those who have voiced their opposition to the controversial project said they’d fight on. 

In the lead-up to the ruling, tribal chairman David Archambault II declared: “Regardless of the court’s decision today, we will continue to be united and peaceful in our opposition to the pipeline. Our ultimate goal is permanent protection of our sacred sites and our water. We must continue to have faith and believe in the strength of our prayers and not do anything in violence. We must believe in the creator and good things will come.”

Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit in July on behalf of the tribe, said in the days before the ruling that it would be challenged.

A press conference and protest will take place at the North Dakota Capitol starting at 3pm local time on Friday (today). Solidarity events are planned nationwide next week.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net