Tribal leader tells pipeline foes to leave camp

Pipeline protesters vow to stay put despite the blizzard conditions that have descended upon their camp.

The Standing Rock tribe believes the 1,200-mile pipeline to transport North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in IL threatens drinking water and cultural sites.

On Thursday, US military veterans were arriving at a camp to join activists braving snow and freezing temperatures to protest the pipeline.

Many people who followed the story on social media also are celebrating. In the following months, tensions between protesters and Dakota Access pipeline supporters intensified, with sporadic incidents involving private security and police officers.

Donald Trump’s spokesman says the self-proclaimed billionaire will consider restarting a project to push an oil pipeline under a Native American tribe’s water supply.

“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.

Governor Branstad says the Corps’ decision is a reflection of the president trying to get his say as he gets ready to leave office.

“The Obama administration’s refusal to issue an easement. passes the decision off to the next administration, which has already indicated it will approve the easement, and in the meantime perpetuates a hard situation for North Dakotans”, Hoeven said.

Trump holds stock in Energy Transfer Partners.

The company responded by asking U.S. District Judge James Boasberg to declare that it has the right to lay pipe under Lake Oahe. The Standing Rock tribe and other advocates have expressed concern for the pipeline’s intrusion on sacred land and potential to contaminate drinking water.

Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE:ETP) is continuing to pursue a court challenge to force the Obama administration to approve completion of the Dakota Access pipeline instead of waiting for Pres. -elect Trump to take office next month.

“The current administration did the right thing and we need to educate the incoming administration and help them understand the right decision was made”, he said.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II dismissed any controversy over Darcy’s decision going against the Corps’ recommendations.

Energy Transfer Partners, which runs the pipeline, has called the decision not to grant the permit “purely political”.

At the pipeline’s southern terminus, the oil storage hub of Patoka, Illinois, about 75 miles east of St. Louis, existing pipelines fan out in every direction, including to the Gulf Coast, home to half the nation’s refining capacity.

Authorities said they’ll move from the north end of the Backwater Bridge if protesters stay south of it and come to the bridge only if there is a prearranged meeting. “The federal government did not tell the pipeline to stop”.

The company reiterated its plan to complete construction of the pipeline without rerouting around Lake Oahe. The institute represents the USA oil and natural gas industry. The dispute over land led to legal disputes between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. It has also been corrected to reflect that the federal government, not the Corps, decided in September that further analysis was warranted.