A district court on Monday handed American Indian tribes a major victory – and a defeat for the Trump administration and the oil industry — by ordering that the Dakota Access pipeline be shut down by Aug. 5, according to a report.
The US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that a key federal permit for the project fell too far short of National Environmental Policy Act requirements to allow the pipeline to continue operating, Bloomberg News reported.
Judge James Boasberg’s ruling, which scraps the pivotal permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, requires the pipeline to end its three-year run of delivering oil from North Dakota to an oil hub in Illinois, according to the outlet.
The Standing Rock Sioux, Cheyenne River Sioux and others sued the Corps for approving the project in 2016, saying it imperiled tribal water supplies and cultural resources.
In March, the judge ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a full environmental review of the pipeline, almost three years after it began carrying oil despite protests by people who gathered in North Dakota for more than a year.
Boasberg wrote at the time that the easement approval for the pipeline remains “highly controversial” under federal environmental law and a more extensive review is necessary than the environmental assessment that was done.
Standing Rock Chairman Mike Faith had called it a “significant legal win” and said it’s humbling that the protests continued to “inspire national conversations” about the environment.
The pipeline was the subject of months of sometimes violent protests during its construction in late 2016 and early 2017 near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border.
The $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile pipeline crosses beneath the Missouri River, just north of the Standing Rock reservation. The tribe draws its water from the river and fears pollution. Texas-based Energy Transfer has insisted the pipeline would be safe.
Permits for the project were originally rejected by the Obama administration and the Corps prepared to conduct a full environmental review.
In February 2017, shortly after President Trump took office, the Corps scrapped the review and granted permits for the project, concluding that running the pipeline under the Missouri River posed no significant environmental issues.
With Post wires