The battle of sacred ground near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation is over a $3.8 billion pipeline that will carry over 570,000 barrels of crude oil throughout tribal lands from North Dakota to IL.
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Months of protests at a site south of Mandan, N.D., which now includes representatives from more than 280 tribes, environmental activists and other opponents, have already thrown off the timetable for completing the pipeline. Indigenous people from across the USA are living in camps on the Standing Rock reservation as they protest the construction of the new oil pipeline which they fear will destroy their water supply. They say the river is their main source of drinking water, and they are concerned about contamination. The company has stated that it will communicate correct information to the government and media more clearly. ETP has said construction is continuing elsewhere.
Energy Transfer chairman and CEO Kelcy Warren told employees in a September 13 memorandum to employees that the company is committed to finishing the pipeline despite the administration’s interference.
“We have designed the state-of-the-art Dakota Access pipeline as a safer and more efficient method of transporting crude oil than the alternatives being used today, namely rail and truck”, he said.
But much has yet to be settled when it comes to the pipeline that’ll run from North Dakota to IL, including whether the company will respond to the federal agencies’ request for a voluntary, broader work stoppage in that area. They also asked Energy Transfer Partners to voluntarily stop work on a 40-mile stretch, though it isn’t clear whether the company has complied.
Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier says his office will keep pursuing charges against protesters who attach themselves to equipment.
“We are committed to completing construction and safely operating the Dakota Access Pipeline within the confines of the law”, Kelcy Warren, Energy Transfer Partners’ chairman and chief executive officer, said in the letter.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers elected on Friday to table the issuing of permits for digging on federal land near the Standing Rock reservation, according to The Guardian. Worse, say tribal leaders, they were never consulted about the change in plans.
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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.
