Feds block route of Dakota Access pipeline in ND

Dave Archambault says this decision will allow people to spend winter with their families.

Olympia Beltran, a student nurse, returned from Standing Rock where she helped with medical needs.

It is almost complete except for a section planned to run under Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has refused to grant a permit to Energy Transfer Partners for the construction of the hotly contested section of the Dakota Access oil pipeline that would have passed through Standing Rock Sioux lands.

The 1,172-mile Dakota Access oil pipeline that would carry 470,000 barrels per day was set to run within a half-mile of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, and opponents had always been saying it could pollute drinking water as well as disturb sacred tribal sites. Archambault says the Corps’ decision “took tremendous courage”.

“There are still some remaining questions”, said Dallas Goldtooth, one of the leaders of the protest camp in the North Dakota plains, where thousands have camped to block the planned route of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“This is a temporary celebration”.

“I don’t think it’s necessary”. Miller said the Trump administration will review the situation “and make the appropriate determination”.

But this isn’t the end of the Dakota Access Pipeline battle. “This is a really good step today”.

“The whole idea of the veterans going up there and showing support, this was the Sioux Nation, this was their protest and we were there to just support them and not trying to take no limelight from them”.

As she spoke, she pointed up to bright lights in the near distance illuminating the pipeline’s construction route. “They have enough money; they have enough lawyers”, Pina said.

The multi-billion, 1,200-mile (1,900 km) pipeline, crossing four states, is meant to slash the costs of transferring crude.

At the heart of the protests and the recent decision is the pipeline’s crossing under the Missouri River, less than a mile from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

The decision on Sunday from the Obama administration-formally from the Department of the Army, which is responsible for ensuring the crossing complies with federal law-was meant to rectify the tribe’s concerns.

The two firms involved, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Sunoco Logistics, criticised the move as a “purely political action”.

“That drill is still on the drill pad”.

The tests the new route will have to pass will also be more stringent, since the Army says they’ll conduct an environmental impact statement with full community consultation, a more rigorous and time-consuming process than the environmental assessment that was conducted for Energy Transfer Partners’ current plan.

8,250 living on Standing Rock Sioux reservation. And we’re not opposed to economic development. While the company had hoped to begin piping oil next spring, the project is now likely to be delayed until summer or fall at the earliest, said Christi Tezak, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based research firm.