“I am confident that as long as the government ultimately decides the fate of the project based on science and engineering, the Dakota Access pipeline will become operational”.
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Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., said Wednesday she wants to know more about the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plans after major developments in the dispute over the Dakota Access Pipeline last week.
Amidst extensive protests across the world, Energy Transfer Partners – the company developing the controversial Dakota Access pipeline project – has vowed to press ahead with plans.
Officials said it is unclear what happens next on the pipeline that is 60% complete and is being developed by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. Some have been here since April, their numbers fluctuating between hundreds and thousands, in an unprecedented show of joint resistance to the almost 1,200 mile-long Dakota Access oil pipeline.
The pipeline is now planned to cross the Missouri River at a point near the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux.
The site is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northwest of the main protest site near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
As construction continued, the tribe filed an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order, but the U.S. District Court Judge overseeing the motion denied it and construction continued.
The pipeline construction has triggered a series of protests that have drawn thousands of protestors. A federal judge denied the tribe’s request for an injunction September 9, but three federal agencies announced soon after that construction would not be allowed on Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe for now.
Representatives from tribes all across the US and Canada along with many other supporters have established a camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota where the efforts to stop the pipeline are now centered.
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More than 30 activists rallied outside the Athens County Courthouse Tuesday in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
