Blog #3: The Legal Battle

Shortly after the first DAPL route was proposed, and before Energy Transfer Partners (ETP)
had even applied for permits from the Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”), the Standing Rock
Sioux Tribe (SRST) were voicing their objections and conveying their concerns directly to
both parties. Over the course of the permitting process, SRST attempted to reach out and
communicate their stance on numerous occasions, both in meetings and in letters. Despite
these consistent objections, ETP went right ahead with their proposal, resulting in the release
of a draft environmental assessment (EA) in December 2015. According to the SRST, the
draft EA was deeply flawed, for it contained no mention of the potential impacts on
subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering in the Lake Oahe area, nor did it provide an
assessment of the risk of oil spills. In fact, the EA failed to mention the existence of the SRST
at all, and did not include the reservation on maps of the site, even though it was only half a
mile downstream and would bear the full brunt of any subsequent oil spill. The SRST
responded by submitting several lengthy documents to the Corps, detailing their concerns
with the EA and urging the Corps to consider alternative routes for the pipeline and to initiate
an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). An EIS is yet another government report which
considers the environmental impacts of a proposal and is then used as a tool for deciding how
best to address any negative impacts. Once again, ETP paid little attention to the objections
raised by the SRST, and began construction of the pipeline outside of Corps jurisdiction in
May 2016. To make matters worse for the SRST, the final EA was released the following
month along with a finding of no significant impact (FONSI). A FONSI is issued at the
conclusion of an EA if the government agency in charge of the assessment determines that the
proposed action does not constitute a “likely significant impact”. In essence, the Corps stated
that the SRST and their cultural properties were not legitimately threatened by the
construction of the pipeline.
Immediately after the release of the EA, SRST filed a lawsuit against the Corps seeking a
preliminary injunction on the pipeline’s construction. That is, they sought to have the Federal
Government put a halt to the pipeline’s construction until the lawsuit between the SRST and
the Corps was resolved. The tribe claimed that the agency had used a fundamentally flawed
EA as a justification for not conducting any further assessment of the pipeline’s potential
environmental impacts. Therefore, the SRST posited, the Corps had failed to adequately
ensure the preservation of the tribe's cultural heritage as required under NEPA. Basically, the
crux of the issue here is that the SRST challenged the Corps’ findings, which were published
in the EA, and tried to make the case that further evaluation should be mandated under NEPA
because the original EA was deeply flawed.
Source: http://www.storybench.org/contextualizing-dakota-access-pipeline-roundup-visualizations/

The motion for a preliminary injunction was denied in September 2016, but on the same day
the district court made its ruling, the Departments of Justice, the Army, and the Interior jointly
announced that they would be withholding permits from ETP temporarily while the Army
looks into issues raised by the SRST. The decision to allow continuing construction on the
pipeline, even as three separate Federal Agencies ruled that they would withhold permits,
seems peculiar and rather short-sighted. After all, why would you go ahead and move the
construction ever-closer to a site which may not even be a suitable location for the river
crossing? Regardless, everything hung in the balance as the Federal Agencies worked towards
a final decision as to whether or not ETP should be granted federal permits.

Source: http://www.storybench.org/contextualizing-dakota-access-pipeline-roundup-visualizations/

The legal battle was in something of a stalemate until January 24, 2018, when President
Trump signed an executive order which put the case back in motion, and moving towards an
easement for ETP. Despite the warnings of several congress members not to approve the
easement, Trump backed the easement and on February 8, 2008, DAPL was finally permitted
to go underneath Lake Oahe. However, a mere two month later, before construction on the
pipeline was even completed, a leak was reported in Spink County, highlighting the urgency
of the message which the SRST have fought so hard to get out. And to some extent….its
working. Just last June, a federal judge found that the Corps had made several clear errors in
performing environmental review procedures for the easement of DAPL. While this ruling
may not lead to an entirely new EA or EIA, it does require that the Corps reexamine parts of
its environmental review process, specifically considering the degree to which the project’s
consequences are likely to be controversial. Although the SRST have endured a long and
often painful battle for their sovereignty and cultural freedom, the situation is not all grim. At
least while the legal battle continues to rage on, it gives some hope that the cultural and
environmental concerns of the SRST will be heard and acknowledged eventually.
Source: http://earthunfiltered.com/2017/02/there-is-still-not-enough-media-coverage-over-the-dapl/

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