Stopping the project now would cost $1.4 billion the first year, mostly due to lost revenue in hauling crude oil, the AP reported.
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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. Bernie Sanders and others speak.
In the days since the federal government ordered construction to stop on a portion of the Dakota Access pipeline last Friday, Native American protesters have faced distrust and even violence in a rural North Dakota community.
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. “[.] So, we will continue to obey the rules and trust the process”, Warren wrote.
“People are sick of being run roughshod over by corporations”, Tracey Hill, 46, a Cleveland resident said.
The tribe argued that the pipeline project violates federal laws and would threaten drinking water and disturb sacred sites.
“This pipeline must be stopped!” the Vermont senator shouted. Kelcy Warren, chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the project, said in a statement to employees that the pipeline will be safer than rail and trucks for transporting oil. ETP has said construction is continuing elsewhere. On Tuesday, protestors locked themselves to construction equipment, resulting in law enforcement arriving with rifles and riot gear and 20 “water protectors” being arrested.
As Dakota Access Pipeline opponents shut down work Tuesday, Sept. 13, at multiple job sites, North Dakota’s governor called for federal assistance to maintain peace and public safety.
She says construction workers were “swarmed” by protesters and that two people had “attached” themselves to equipment. The speakers encouraged President Barack Obama, who visited the reservation in 2014, to back their cause.
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The president spoke to about 6,000 people gathered in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum while about 100 protesters stood behind barricades across the street, and periodically chanted “water is life”. “The second issue of global outcome is that we understand that the future of energy in this country is not more oil, it is not more pipelines, it is not more carbon emissions”.
