Last week, Dakotas Access LLC, the pipeline’s developer, confirmed that it would press charges against the protesters and seek to file restraining orders against them in order to block opposition from the site.
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Early construction on the pipeline route is mostly complete in North Dakota, and the focal point of Wednesday’s hearing was on its route under the Lake Oahe segment of the Missouri River.
The $3.8 billion pipeline will pass through Iowa, Illinois, North Dakota and South Dakota, and has been met with weeks of protests in North Dakota.
Outside the court in the United States capital, environmental activists made their feelings clear. Some supporters cite safer oil transport over transport by rail. The company had planned to complete the pipeline, which goes from North Dakota to IL, this year.
The items had been delivered a week ago by the state Department of Health at the request of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which has led opposition to construction of the 1,172-mile long pipeline that would stretch from North Dakota to IL and cross underneath the Missouri River, which provides water to the tribe’s 8,500-strong community, according to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Department of Water Resources.
“We’re concerned about the Native Americans and the threat to their water supply but we’re also concerned about the fossil fuel issue”, said Mr Bianchi, a Blue Mountain, Virginia native.
“We don’t feel that we should be building pipelines, we feel that the money should instead be spent on alternative sources of energy”.
Led by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the opponents are also hoping to halt the 1,170-mile project in court.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., is considering a request by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for a temporary injunction against an oil pipeline under construction near their reservation, which straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. Her grandchildren use the waters where the pipeline poses a threat to swim, fish and bathe their horses. She added that while permitless protesters can be ticketed by the Corps, only law enforcement are authorized to remove them.
But for many, the pipeline symbolises a deeper issue among Native Americans. “The tribe and other tribes are concerned about impacts all along the length of the pipeline”.
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“We have had enough lands taken away, we can’t let what we have left be destroyed”.
