Army Corps Will Not Grant Easement for Dakota Access Pipeline Crossing

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images(MANDAN, N.D.) — The Department of the Army will not approve an easement that would allow the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, the Army’s Assistant Secretary for Civil Works announced Sunday in a statement.

The Army claimed in a statement that Assistant Secretary Jo-Ellen Darcy based her decision on a need to explore “alternate routes for the Dakota Access Pipeline crossing.”

Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell released a statement in support of the decision, saying that the “thoughtful approach established by the Army Sunday ensures that there will be an in-depth evaluation of alternative routes for the pipeline and a closer look at potential impacts.”

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe also praised the decision, and thanked both the Obama administration and the many people who supported the effort to stop the pipeline from being built across Lake Oahe.

“We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement. “The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and all of Indian Country will be forever grateful to the Obama Administration for this historic decision.”

The news comes on a day when at least 2,000 U.S. military veterans have arrived at Standing Rock amid frigid cold to help battle against the construction of the pipeline.

The vets, led by Wesley Clark Jr., son of retired general and former presidential candidate Wesley Clark, began arriving in force Sunday to help protest against the controversial crude oil pipeline project in North Dakota.

They joined the months-long demonstration at what felt like a moment of heightened drama: The North Dakota governor had issued an emergency evacuation order for protesters around the site, which follows a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deadline for demonstrators to leave the area by Monday, Dec. 5.

Today’s @usarmy announcement underscores that tribal rights are essential components to analysis of #DAPL going forward.SJ pic.twitter.com/2VAiubBTLL

— Sally Jewell (@SecretaryJewell) December 4, 2016

But the evacuation order, which could have come with mass arrests, was made prior to Sunday’s statement by the Army.

Protesters and their supporters showed little inclination to back down, prior to the announcement this afternoon.

Donations to a GoFundMe account launched by Clark in support of Veterans for Standing Rock, a group he claimed would “assemble as a peaceful, unarmed militia at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation,” passed the $1 million dollar mark this morning, coming from more than 24,000 individual donors, according to a page promoting the cause.

Standing Rock protesters described the veterans’ mission as serving as a kind of “human shield” between peaceful demonstrators and police.

In addition to Clark’s “peaceful militia,” the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights told ABC News on Friday that it would send commissioners to North Dakota to monitor for any possible civil rights violations, as clashes between protesters and law enforcement have at times turned violent.

Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based company behind the Dakota Pipeline, has argued that concerns about its potential to pollute water are unfounded.

He also wrote in an internal memo to staff in September that “multiple archaeological studies conducted with state historic preservation offices found no sacred items along the route,” suggesting that the construction of the pipeline would not affect Native Americans who live in the area where it is being built.

Copyright © 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.

Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn
Share on email
Email
Share on print
Print