Dakota Access companies vow to stick to planned pipeline route
Energy Transfer and Sunoco Logistics accuse Obama administration of ‘political’ move
The companies building the controversial Dakota Access crude oil pipeline said on Monday they intend to press ahead with the project on its planned route, in spite of the US Army’s decision to delay a crucial permit to give time for further studies.
Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners, the companies leading the $3.8bn project, said in a statement that the
move to block Dakota Access was a “purely political decision” on the part of the Obama administration, and they “fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting”.
They added that the White House’s call for a delay showed it had “abandoned the rule of law in favour of currying favour with a narrow and extreme political constituency”.
Donald Trump’s team has said he
supports the pipeline, and his administration is expected to grant the approvals that have so far been denied.
The clash over Dakota Access has revived the centuries-old conflict between Washington and Native Americans over land rights and access to natural resources. Tribal rights under agreements with the US government, including the Fort Laramie treaty with the Sioux nation of 1868, have been crucial in persuading the Obama administration to delay construction of the pipeline. However, analysts expect the Trump administration to feel less constrained by those treaties.
The 1,172-mile pipeline is intended to carry up to 570,000 barrels per day of crude from the Bakken region of North Dakota, one of the heartlands of the US shale oil boom, towards refineries in the Midwest and on the US Gulf of Mexico coast.
Bakken producers, which have been hit by the slide in oil prices, still use more expensive train transport for much of their crude, and Dakota Access would be a significant help to their economics. Energy Transfer said four weeks ago the pipeline was 84 per cent complete.
On Sunday night the US Army, which has responsibility for approving water crossings, said that it would not grant the permit, known as an “easement”, for the pipeline to be laid under Lake Oahe on the Missouri river until further studies had been carried out.
The news was greeted with jubilation by thousands of protesters who had gathered at the site. Environmental campaigners and local Native Americans have been trying to stop the project on the grounds that it risked polluting the local water supply, would disturb historic sites, and would create more fossil fuel infrastructure that could add to greenhouse gas emissions and exacerbate the risk of climate change.
The route under Lake Oahe passes about half a mile from the border of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. The tribe has said that it is not necessarily opposed to the pipeline in principle but was concerned about the disturbance to sacred sites and in particular the risk of a spill.
Dave Archambault, the tribe’s chairman, said in a statement after the US Army decision was announced that “the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian country will be forever grateful to the Obama administration for this historic decision”.
He added that the protesters who had gathered at the site “look forward to being able to return home and spend the winter with our families and loved ones”.
In a memo released on Sunday evening, Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the army for civil works, said several key documents relating to the pipeline had not been shown to the tribe or the public, including a consultant’s report on the risk of a spill into Lake Oahe.
The assessment had concluded the best route for the pipelines was close to the Standing Rock reservation, instead of around North Dakota’s capital Bismarck, about 40 miles farther north.
Ms Darcy concluded that “more heightened analysis, in my judgment, is appropriate”, because of the potential threat to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s resources, and recommended a full new environmental impact statement to look at a possible rerouting of the pipeline north of Bismarck, the threat of a spill, and the tribe’s treaty rights over Lake Oahe. Such a statement could take years to prepare.
In response Energy Transfer and Sunoco Logistics said the US Army had confirmed that they had complied with all the legal requirements for construction, and Ms Darcy’s statement was consistent with the way the administration had “demonstrated by its action and inaction that it intended to delay a decision in this matter until President Obama is out of office”.
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