US District Court of Appeals from D.C. Circuit agrees Dakota Access P/L Crossing at Missouri River near Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is illegal, requires in-depth environmental review, but did not order the pipeline shut down during the review. Will Biden shut it entirely down, as he did Keystone XL?

Appeals Court Agrees that Dakota Access Pipeline River Crossing Is Illegal by Olivia Rosane, Jan. 27, 2021, ecowatch

A federal appeals court has struck another blow against the contested Dakota Access Pipeline.

A three-judge panel on the U.S. District Court of Appeals from the D.C. Circuit agreed Tuesday with a lower court ruling that the pipeline‘s crossing at the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation is illegal and requires an in-depth environmental review, the Grand Forks Herald reported.

“We are pleased that the D.C. Circuit affirmed the necessity of a full environmental review, and we look forward to showing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers why this pipeline is too dangerous to operate,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Mike Faith said in an Earthjustice press release.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has long opposed the pipeline’s crossing under Lake Oahe, a drinking water source for the tribe that is located just off of their reservation, the Grand Forks Herald explained. It became the subject of massive Indigenous-led protests in 2016 and 2017, leading the Obama administration to withhold a key permit for the project.

However, the Trump administration approved the pipeline without a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) of the Missouri River crossing, a coalition of Sioux tribes explained in a letter to President Joe Biden. The Army Corps of Engineers began an EIS of the crossing in September based on the lower court ruling, the Grand Forks Herald reported. This is expected to take up to 13 months, but the tribes and their allies are calling on the Biden administration to shut the pipeline down entirely.

Biden has promised to focus on the climate crisis in office, and canceled the Keystone XL pipeline on day one of his administration, leading Indigenous and environmental activists to call for a shutdown of all contested fossil fuel pipelines.

“Especially after the Keystone XL decision, the pressure is increasing for the Biden administration to take action here,” Jan Hasselman, an Earthjustice attorney who represents the Standing Rock Sioux, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, pipeline proponents considered Tuesday’s court decision a win because the court did not order the pipeline to shut down while the EIS is completed. A lower court had originally ordered the pipeline to shut down in July, but that has been reversed.

“I think the big point is that the court did not rule that DAPL is not safe,” Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, told the Grand Forks Herald.

The Dakota Access pipeline is the main pipeline delivering oil from North Dakota’s Bakken field, which is the second-largest shale development in the U.S., according to Reuters. It currently has the capacity to carry 570,000 barrels of oil a day, but both state regulators and pipeline operators want to double that in coming years, the Grand Forks Herald reported. It is owned by Energy Transfer Partners.

Refer also to:

2020: The Last Breath of the Black Snake. Elder Casey Camp Horinek: “In my small Ponca tribe, we hold a funeral nearly every week from fossil fuel-related illnesses. All our families have multiple cases of asthma, cardiovascular disease and industry-specific cancers. **Our wells are so polluted our tribe must now buy water.** Our land is so toxic, organic food can’t be grown within 16 miles. They call it economic progress. We call it environmental genocide.”

2020: More proof big oil is above the law: Energy Transfer LP vows to keep Dakota Access P/L *SHIPPING OIL* after court orders the line emptied.

Frac’ers’ Rule of Law? Oregon: Chemical Waste Management illegally dumped 2.5 million pounds radioactive frac waste from North Dakota company, Goodnight Midstream. Lucky law violators get no fine!

2017: A North American court upholds the law to protect lands, drinking water from oil & gas industry. In Significant Victory for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Court Finds That Approval of Dakota Access Pipeline Violated the Law

North Dakota oil spill in creek 3 times larger than first estimated, “making it one of the most significant pipeline spills in North Dakota history”

2016: Turn down millions, save millions more: In North Dakota’s Booming Oil Patch, One Tribe Beat Back Fracking, Turtle Mountain Band among first tribes to ban frac’ing

2015: More fraud in the frac patch? Trying to cover-up a major frac hit by blaming vandalism? 6.4 km long North Dakota oil well spews more than 67,000 gallons of crude & 84,000 gallons of brine for days

2015: HORRIFYING Bakken Oil Boom “Serial Killer” MUST READ: In North Dakota’s Bakken oil boom, there will be blood

J. Christian Jensen’s documentary, “White Earth” that shows what life is like in frac boom North Dakota for three children and an immigrant mother, nominated for Academy Award

2014: AS CORRUPT AS ALBERTA’S ENERGY REGULATOR? North Dakota sides with oil companies in lawsuit by landowner over saltwater spills

2014: In Canada, authorities cover up and make citizens pay for Big Oil’s crimes; Oilfield Executive Nathan Garber pleads guilty to ‘most egregious environmental crimes’ in North Dakota

2014: Oil well near Tioga, North Dakota, goes out of control during hydraulic fracturing: Workers still trying to secure the well days later

2014: Williston, North Dakota: Man dies on well site, apparently from H2S: 20-year-old found dead over open cover of crude tank

2014: Rachel Maddow Show: illegal radioactive dump site found in remote North Dakota town, Noonan mayor angry over situation with radioactive filter socks

2014: North Dakota frac’d Bakken radioactive oilfield waste spilling out of trailers parked on rural land near Watford City: When the filter socks are “that orange color, we know they’re hot”

Imagine what the pollution (and gas migration) looks like underground

2014: Is Saskatchewan and North Dakota Bakken Oil safe enough? Cenovus (hatched from Encana after Ernst lawsuit went public) Bakken “oil’s flammability classification is the highest there is, level 4 — the same as methane gas and propane”

2013: North Dakota’s Salty Fracked Wells Drink More Water to Keep Oil Flowing

2012: How the North Dakota fracking boom shook a family, The Jorgenson family loved living on the prairie in North Dakota – until the shale gas boom started

2012: Outlook on local gas industry, Encana says it’s looking to expand the company in the future despite some other companies sending people to work in the oil fields on North Dakota

2012: Firms accused of dumping sewage in North Dakota oil patch ditches, fields

2012: North Dakota Turns Blind Eye to Dumping of Fracking Waste in Waterways and Farmland, Releases of drilling and fracking waste, which is often laced with carcinogenic chemicals, have wiped out aquatic life in streams and wetlands

Encana waste dumped on foodland at Rosebud, Alberta in 2012 (lower photo taken to the left of the location of the dumping truck in upper photo):

2012: In North Dakota and Nationwide, A Boom in Health Problems Accompanies Fracking

This entry was posted in Other Legal. Bookmark the permalink.