Department of Justice steps in to stop construction on pipeline

“Investor appetite for the project could shift and financing may no longer be available, ” the company said.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was ecstatic.

“Oh my God, it’s overwhelming”, said Cindy Williams, a Coeur d’Alene tribal councilwoman.

The Obama Administration has stepped in to halt construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline, a short while after a federal judge ruled to keep it going.

It started just before 2 o’clock when a federal judge said work could resume on the pipeline saying the permits did not violate federal law and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe failed to show how it would cause injury.

Boasberg’s written opinion rejected the tribe’s request for a preliminary injunction.

The competing decisions may calm emotions at the proposed pipeline site. The Departments of Justice and the Interior will continue to deploy resources to North Dakota to help state, local, and tribal authorities, and the communities they serve, better communicate, defuse tensions, support peaceful protest, and maintain public safety.

Through an Aztec dance and ceremony, they wanted to educate and inform visitors to the Alamo about the pipeline that is being built to transport crude oil from North Dakota to IL.

The line would be the first to allow movement of crude oil from the Bakken shale, a vast oil formation in North Dakota, Montana and parts of Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Energy Transfer Partners denied the allegations. It would also add 8,000 to 12,000 construction jobs, the developer said.

The issue with the pipeline, protesters say, is that the pipeline would run through land belonging to the tribe, which could have harmful effects. They couldn’t care less about what they do to sacred grounds or burial sites …

The US government on Friday sought to stop construction on a controversial oil pipeline in North Dakota that has angered Native Americans, blocking any work on federal land and asking the company to “voluntarily pause” work nearby.

This pause is only a temporary respite, and Judge Boesberg believes that the “tribe has not demonstrated that the injunction is warranted here”.

But the tribe received good news a brief time later.

Almost 40 people have been arrested since the protest began in April, including tribal chairman Dave Archambault II, though none stemmed from Saturday’s confrontation between protesters and construction workers.

The Army will also “reconsider any of its previous decisions” concerning the federal legality of the pipeline, including its regard for the National Environmental Policy Act. A North Dakota state regulatory body approved its construction after a 13-month review of its safety and impact on culturally significant lands.

If completed, the $3.7 billion, 1,100-mile Dakota Access pipeline would carry crude oil from Montana and North Dakota to an existing pipeline in IL and then on to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Arrests were made in Iowa at a landowners’ protest last week.

A spokeswoman for Dakota Access Pipeline declined to comment. “The security officers were hit and jabbed with fence posts and flagpoles”.

But protesters disputed that account, KFYR reported.

A weekend confrontation between protesters and private security guards on private land near the protest site left some guards injured and some protesters with dog bites.