The U.S. government moved on Friday to temporarily halt an oil pipeline in North Dakota that has angered Native Americans, blocking construction on federal land and asking the company behind the project to suspend work nearby.
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At the state Capitol, pipeline protesters were happy to learn about federal authorities recommending that construction be halted.
In Friday’s ruling, U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg acknowledged that “the United States’ relationship with the Indian tribes has been contentious and tragic”.
Boasberg wrote that after reviewing the extensive record, he found the Corps has likely complied with the National Historic Preservation Act while the tribe has not shown it will suffer injury that would be prevented by any injunction the court could issue. This approval while relatively ignored, was the first steps in the conflict, as tribal leaders of the Standing Rock Sioux began to organize and launched what could be described as a monumental grass roots campaign attempted to educate and inform the state of North Dakota about the potential consequences and how the Army had ignored their desires to stop the pipeline due to sovereignty and water access concerns.
The 1,172-mile project will carry almost a half-million barrels of crude oil daily from North Dakota’s oil fields through South Dakota and Iowa to an existing pipeline in Patoka, Illinois. The government’s action reflected the success of growing protests over the proposed $3.7 billion pipeline crossing four states which has sparked a renewal of Native American activism.
Energy Transfer fell 2.2 percent to $39.69 at 14:50 p.m.in NY.
The case is Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 16-01534, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
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According to Dallas-based pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners, “it will transport approximately 470,000 barrels per day with a capacity as high as 570,000 barrels per day or more – which could represent approximately half of Bakken current daily crude oil production”.
Judith LeBlanc is director of the New York-based Native Organizers Alliance. He said “the court scrutinizes the permitting process here with particular care”.
“There’s never been a coming together of tribes like this”, she said of Friday’s gathering of Native Americans, which she estimated could be the largest in a century.
People have come from as far as NY and Alaska, as well as Canada.
The Great Plains Tribal Chairman’s Association asked U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Thursday to send federal monitors to the protest site, alleging racial profiling and other transgressions are happening.
The pipeline’s original route crossed the Missouri River near Bismarck, N.D., The New Yorker reported, “but authorities anxious that an oil spill there would have wrecked the state capital’s drinking water”.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg says he’ll rule by the end of Friday on the tribe’s challenge to the pipeline, which will carry oil from North Dakota to IL.
The Standing Rock Sioux sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in July, accusing it of improperly granting permits authorizing the construction. The 82-year-old says he was not surprised by the ruling, “but it still hurts”.
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A weekend confrontation between protesters and private security guards on private land near the protest site where tribal officials say construction workers bulldozed sacred sites left some guards injured and some protesters with dog bites.
