The Indians have been staging a protest for months at the confluence of the Missouri and Cannonball rivers in southern North Dakota.
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The landowners said they will appeal the board’s decision in court.
The environmental groups told Obama they support both the tribes and local landowners along the pipeline route, which have raised many belated concerns, despite the fact that the project has been in state and federal permitting processes dating back two years.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline was on par with the opposition to the Keystone XL oil pipeline, which the White House denied in part on environmental grounds.
William Hanigan, an attorney representing the landowners, noted the list of petitioners originally included 15 landowners, but by Thursday’s hearing, that number was reduced to 14 because pipeline construction finished on one of the landowners’ property.
If the $3.7 billion pipeline is built, it will transport 500,000 barrels of oil a day past the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota and through several rivers-including the MS and Missouri rivers-which supply water to millions of people.
“Not only would the Dakota Access Pipeline threaten sacred sites and culturally important landscapes, it would also cross under the Missouri River just upstream of the Tribe’s drinking water supply”, the letter says. Around 20 people have been arrested in North Dakota during protests against the pipeline, and allies of the tribe rallied against it in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. “The pipeline poses significant threats to the environment, public health, and tribal and human rights”.
Energy Transfer, the company behind Dakota Access, has responded by seeking a restraining order against demonstrators, accusing them of trespassing and threatening workers, and by deploying their own armed security guards.
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Houska said there could be more complaints filed in addition to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s federal court case to make sure “that we are defending against the project in every way that we possibly can”. Indigenous populations like the Standing Rock Sioux “have been the vanguard of the movement to slow down climate change”, wrote McKibben. Regardless of the court’s decision, the Dakota Access pipeline must be stopped.
