CANNON BALL, N.D.: With the green light from the federal government, the company building the Dakota Access oil pipeline said Wednesday it plans to resume work immediately to finish the long-stalled project. Opponents of the $3.8 billion project meanwhile protested around the country in an action some dubbed their “last stand.”
The Army on Wednesday granted the developer of the four-state oil pipeline formal permission to lay pipe under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, clearing the way for completion of the disputed project.
“We plan to begin immediately,” Vicki Granado, a spokeswoman for developer Energy Transfer Partners, said in an email to the Associated Press on Wednesday night.
Work had been stalled for months due to opposition by the Standing Rock Sioux, but President Donald Trump last month instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to advance pipeline construction.
The tribe fears a pipeline leak could contaminate its drinking water. ETP says the pipeline is safe.
“Now, we all need to work together to make sure the project is completed safely and with as little disruption to the community as possible. This has been a very difficult issue for everyone who lives and works in the area,” U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, a North Dakota Republican, said in a statement announcing that the final easement had been granted.
Some members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been at the center of the debate for nearly a year, urged “emergency actions” via social media. The Indigenous Environmental Network told people to target fuel-transportation hubs and government buildings and to expect violence and mass arrests.
The 1,200-mile pipeline would carry North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. Construction is nearly complete but has been stalled while the Army Corps of Engineers and Dallas-based developer ETP battled in court.
On Wednesday, police or pipeline security continued to monitor an encampment near the pipeline crossing from nearby hills, as they have done for months.
Joye Braun and Payu (PY’-yoo) Harris say they won’t stop fighting the project. Braun says protesters plan “prayerful, nonviolent, direct action,” but she didn’t elaborate.