Army Will Allow Easement To Finish Construction of Dakota Access Pipeline

CANNON BALL, ND — The Army Corps of Engineers will allow an easement that would let the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline to go under a section of the Missouri River, a route that was opposed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and consequently by thousands of protesters who lent their voice in opposition to the route.

Shortly after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order allowing construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipelines to resume. President Obama had ordered construction on both pipelines to be halted because of environmental concerns.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Paul Cramer wrote in a letter to Congress that consistent with the president's memo, the Army Corps will be granting the easement as early as Wednesday. The letter was posted in full by NPR.

Court documents filed by Army officials show that a plan to prepare an environmental-impact statement to see how the pipeline would affect land and water would be terminated, according to the Washington Post.

In a statement posted Jan. 31, the tribe said it would "vigorously pursue legal action to ensure the environmental impact statement order issued late last year is followed so the pipeline process is legal, fair and accurate."

Members of the tribe had contended that the pipeline would interfere with their water supply and that it was too close to sacred lands.

Both the lake and the land on either side of it is controlled by the Army Corps of Engineers so the company building the pipeline needed its permission to drill underneath. In mid-November, the companies filed U.S. federal court applications asking a judge to allow them to go around the requirement.

A majority of the pipeline, except for the part that would run under the river, has been built. The pipeline, owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, will connect the Bakken and Three Forks production areas in North Dakota to Patoka, Illinois. The approximately 1,172-mile, 30-inch diameter pipeline would transport approximately 470,000 barrels of crude oil per day, with a capacity as high as 570,000 barrels per day or more.

Image via Morton County Sheriff's Office