2023-12-15 10:51:57
BISMARCK — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has closed the public comment period on the draft environmental impact statement study for the Dakota Access Pipeline.
The end of the comment period on Wednesday, Dec. 13, inches the Corps slightly closer to a final assessment in which the fate of the $3.8 billion, nearly 1,200-mile-long pipeline will be decided.
Since the draft was released in September,
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum has been leading what he says is “an all-of-government approach” to laying out the case for keeping the pipeline operating.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe — whose reservation is near the pipeline’s river crossing — continues to voice opposition to DAPL. North Dakota Native Vote, the Dakota Resource Council and others have, as well.
A federal judge in March 2020 revoked a federal permit that gave Energy Transfer — the company that built and operates the pipeline — an easement to cross the Missouri River in southern North Dakota and ordered the environmental study. The pipeline, which went into service in June 2017, has been allowed to continue operating in the meantime. It has the capacity to transport up to 750,000 barrels of oil a day from western North Dakota to a distribution point in Illinois, and Energy Transfer has said there are plans to expand this to 1.1 million barrels.
The pipeline crosses just upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe draws its water from the Missouri River and has expressed concerns over potential pollution from the pipeline. Supporters of the project argue that the pipeline has been operating safely. The judge in the case said the permit required a more extensive review than what had been conducted prior to its 2017 approval.
Protests around the pipeline garnered national and international attention after thousands gathered at the river crossing site over the course of six months in 2016-17. The demonstrations resulted in hundreds of arrests.
Burgum submitted over 200 pages of testimony from representatives of around 20 state agencies. Shutting down the pipeline even for a reroute would require much more Bakken oil to be transported by truck or rail, a scenario which state officials argue would damage North Dakota’s economy and possibly cause other environmental issues. The testimony includes a
University of Chicago-led study
on the Dakota Access Pipeline that backs up some of the claims around having to transport oil by rail.
The governor’s office said the state Office of Management and Budget found a shutdown of the pipeline would reduce state revenues by $1.2 billion in the first year and $116 million every year after until the pipeline was running again.
Burgum’s submission to the Corps also included the 2021 testimony of Mark Fox, chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation — an oil-rich tribe in the northwest part of the state. Fox expressed his support for the pipeline, arguing that a shutdown would cost the tribe hundreds of millions in revenues. He added that safety on the Fort Berthold Reservation has improved since the pipeline went into operation as a result of less traffic.
Many pipeline supporters believe the study should not have happened in the first place, arguing the initial regulatory proceedings were substantive.
On the other side, many pipeline opponents who initially supported the judicial decision to conduct the environmental impact statement study have come to believe the process has been flawed.
The Standing Rock tribe pulled out of the environmental review process in 2022, citing a lack of transparency among other concerns. Tribal Chairwoman Janet Alkire has called for the Corps to shut down the pipeline and start the assessment over.
One of the most pressing matters for Standing Rock was that multiple pages of Energy Transfer’s spill plan were left redacted in the draft environmental impact statement.
The Corps told the Tribune the redactions were in place to protect sensitive security information but that the tribe has been offered access to see the redactions if members would be willing to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
The draft includes five options the Corps may take. Two entail discontinuing the use of the pipeline either through abandoning it or removing parts of it. Another two options would allow the pipeline to continue operating. One of these would give Energy Transfer the ability to carry on with business as usual, while the other would grant the easement with additional conditions. The fifth potential action would prompt a reroute to the north of Bismarck, a process that would take years and require federal, state and local approvals, the assessment said.
The Corps did not lay out a preferred option.
Many supporters of the pipeline have argued in favor of Option Three, which would keep the pipeline operating as it is, while opponents have largely voiced support for Option Two, which would abandon the pipeline in place.
The issue has continued to garner attention beyond North Dakota since the protests in 2016.
National environmental advocacy organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resource Defense Council have been conducting campaigns gathering comments that push against the pipeline.
Meanwhile, 26 Republican attorneys general — representing every U.S. state where a Republican holds that office besides North Dakota — sent in a joint letter urging the continued operation of the pipeline.
At an in-person public comment session in Bismarck in November, Corps spokesman Steven Wolf told The Bismarck Tribune that the final environmental impact statement should be expected in late 2024.
Wolf said the agency’s primary objective is to determine the legality of granting an easement that would allow the pipeline to continue crossing under the Missouri River, but it is also considering the impact to the public from a variety of perspectives.
“We have to do what the law tells us,” he said.
But with both sides digging in their heels, no matter what the law tells the Corps, the controversy is likely to stick around.
“Until that pipeline is shut down, we’re going to keep fighting,” Alkire said at a press conference last week in Washington, D.C., where the White House Tribal Nations Summit was being held.
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