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According to an article at Snopes.com:
The Army Corps of Engineers has denied the easement needed to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline, according Colonel Henderson, who notified Veterans for Standing Rock co-organizer Michael A. Wood Jr on 4 December 2016.
More than 3,000 veterans had converged at the Standing Rock camp to support the Sioux in their ongoing opposition to the building of a $3.7 billion pipeline that would cross through disputed land managed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Wood said upon learning of the move, "This is history."
From a report in Al Jazeera :
The US Army Corps of Engineers has turned down a permit for a controversial pipeline project running through North Dakota, in a victory for Native Americans and climate activists who have protested against the project for several months, according to a statement released.
The 1,885km Dakota Access Pipeline, owned by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, had been complete except for a segment planned to run under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River.
"The Army will not grant an easement to cross Lake Oahe at the proposed location based on the current record," a statement from the US Army said.
The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, along with climate activists, have been protesting the $3.8bn project, saying it could contaminate the water supply and damage sacred tribal lands.
[...] "Today, the US Army Corps of Engineers announced that it will not be granting the easement to cross Lake Oahe for the proposed Dakota Access Pipeline," said Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II, in a statement.
"Instead, the Corps will be undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes."
(Score: 1) by Sourcery42 on Monday December 05 2016, @06:11PM
The Native Americans' issue with the pipeline is one thing, but environmental activists opposition to pipelines is harder to grok. If there's money in it, the crude oil gets produced anyway, you just create a minor transportation barrier getting it to users without pipelines. Largely the Bakken oil has found its way out on railcars, at times with tragic results: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster [wikipedia.org]
Railcars have long been rolling storage for dangerous chemicals. When passing a railyard near where I live I routinely make note of propane, vinyl chloride, sulfuric acid, chlorine and other unsavory chemicals. However, it isn't a mile long unit train of that shit. The sheer number of crude oil unit trains on the rails combined with the tremendous amount of stored energy in a mile long train certainly feels like it is upping the potential frequency for disasters like what happened in Lac-Megantic, no matter how safe the industry tries to make it.
That being said, is this project economically DOA anyway? I thought the Williston basin was in bust mode right now with all the cheap oil available. It would seem Energy Transfer Partners is putting in a pipeline to drain the swamp where drilling probably isn't all that lucrative at the moment.
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Monday December 05 2016, @07:37PM
The environmental objection comes down to mismanagement, cost cutting, and piss poor safety factors.
My deal is super simple. Go 3 years with ZERO incidents on the pipelines, or demonstrate a responsible safety factor and response to any event that does happen. Do that and I will be willing to discuss operating a pipeline, setting aside of course that we need to be bringing less carbon up to the surface, not more. We are at the stopping point already, but of course that is a pointless discussion because Climate Change is a hoax right?
You see, they can't stop fucking up. They truly fucking suck at it [wikipedia.org]. What makes no sense at all, is when you also look at the levels of technology they CLAIM to have in place. I forgot where the page is, but it comes direct from Enbridge somewhere stating MRI level technology to analyze micro fractures in their lines. Dual-diameter automated pigs going through pipelines, xray, automated monitoring, etc. Yet, with all of that CLAIMED, they still do remarkably worse than others with pipeline safety.
I agree in principle. Pipelines should be safer. That being said, U.S companies seem to be completely inept, unwilling, or just to corrupt to engage in the correct behaviors.
Remember, it was greedy executives that caused the massive fuckup in the Gulf. They were warned that their blowout preventer had problems by engineers, ignored it, had a party to celebrate their "excellent" safety practices, and then left before the explosion killed unlucky employees.
This is why you need to forget about technology, and concentrate on people. Technology can get us to the fucking moon, but people are what caused the Great Depression ongoing since 2008. Avarice will always fuck up technological progress, because you make more money by cutting corners than following rules.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @07:38PM
the pipe is fine with most environmentalists.
The location of the pipe and where the crude goes when it leaks--is not. This is under a lake, along and under a river -- if it leaks under or along either of those things, the mess is much worse than if it just foiled the compacted soil around itself. It will ruin water supplies.
Some people are against nearly everything, this is not that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05 2016, @07:53PM
What's puzzling to me is that the current proposed crossing is where the river/lake is ~1/2 mile wide (800 meters?) Not too far north of this, and still south of Bismarck, the river is a few hundred feet wide (100 meters).
So why did Dakota Access Pipeline choose this option that called for much more expensive boring under the wide spot in the river?
Are there actual geological or other reasons, or did it just look like it might be easier to get the Indians to give them a Right of Way, instead of other land owners?