Seven Years Later, an Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline

Drilled

Critical Frequency

True Crime, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

This month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closes the comment period on its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile pipeline that’s been pumping 500,000 barrels of oil per day since May 2017. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Over the past six years, every court in the country has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers did not study the pipeline’s environmental impact closely enough before approving the pipeline’s route. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has maintained all along that the project poses a serious threat to its drinking water. From April 2016 to February 2017 thousands of water protectors from all over the country (and beyond) joined them in protests and direct actions. The resistance at Standing Rock is often cited by the fossil fuel industry, police and politicians as the reason states need new anti-protest laws, while the backlash to that resistance is often cited by water protectors as the reason for PTSD, asthma, and in some cases lost eyes and limbs. Now, the Army Corps of Engineers says that removing the pipeline would be too damaging to the Missouri River and its surrounding ecosystems. The removal actions it describes in its EIS are the same actions taken to install the pipeline in the first place. The Army Corps suggests that removing the pipeline would be more environmentally harmful than allowing the oil to continue pumping under one of Standing Rock's primary drinking water sources. Nonetheless, this report—seven years late—represents one of the few pathways left to stop the pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is advocating to seal the pipeline off, while some water protectors are advocating for the pipeline to be removed entirely. The public comment period closes Dec 13, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	We're continuing our series today on the increasing global criminalization of protest with a look at what's happening now with the protest that the fossil fuel industry, politicians, and police
0:16.6	often cite as the reason that we need new laws against protest in the United States. Standing Rock. The protests on the
0:27.2	Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation in North and South Dakota took place
0:31.0	from April 2016 to February 2017.
0:36.4	The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and thousands of allies protested against a project called
0:42.1	the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, a 1,172 mile long pipeline
0:49.2	running from the back in oil fields in Western North Dakota to Southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi
0:57.9	rivers.
0:59.9	Many members of the Standing Rock Tribe and surrounding communities said the pipeline was a serious threat to the region's drinking water.
1:08.0	The construction also directly threatened burial grounds and cultural sites of historic importance.
1:14.4	Although you'll hear in this episode that both the company in charge of the project,
1:18.4	energy transfer, and the US government have at various times claimed otherwise.
1:26.0	The double fight has been a real roller coaster and it might surprise some of you to hear that
1:32.4	despite the fact that construction on the pipeline was
1:35.7	completed in April 2017 the Army Corps of Engineers only just this year in September 23 six years later released its
1:47.9	environmental impact statement or EIS on the project. You might remember that back in 2016, December 2016, to be exact,
2:00.1	the Army Corps of Engineers announced that they would deny the easement to drill under the Missouri River
2:06.5	and would conduct an EIS. Energy transfer criticized the Obama administration when that came out, calling it political interference, and saying that further delay in the consideration of this case would add millions of dollars more each month in costs that could not be
2:25.6	recovered.
2:27.7	When former President Trump took office just a month later in January 2017, he issued an executive order overturning everything that the
2:36.7	Army Corps had said and lifting all blocks to pipeline construction. The tribe sued, in 2020 a US federal judge ruled with them.
2:47.3	They said the government had not studied the pipeline's effects on the quality of the human environment.
	...

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