Sioux tribal heads hail latest court ruling on Dakota Access Pipeline

YATES, N.D. – A U.S. Circuit Court decision Jan. 26 reaffirms an earlier ruling requiring full tribal and public participation in the permit process for the Dakota Access Pipeline, DAPL, much to the satisfaction of the plaintiff Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and supporters of its case from around the world.

“We are pleased that the D.C. Circuit affirmed the necessity of a full environmental review, and we look forward to showing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers why this pipeline is too dangerous to operate,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chair Mike Faith responded.

“For the pipeline to cross under our main source of water was never okay and that is what we have fought for,” he said, recalling the hundreds of tribes and tens of thousands of grassroots supporters who opposed the oil pipeline’s construction across the Missouri River’s Oahe Reservoir just upstream from, Standing Rock’s drinking water intake and headquarters at Ft. Yates.

Jan Hasselman, attorney for Earthjustice, which is helping the tribe litigate the case, called the ruling “another milestone in our four-year legal battle on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux to shut down this pipeline.”

The decision affirms “what the tribe has been saying from the start: This pipeline is a threat to clean water and Indigenous sovereignty, and we must examine the consequences it brings for the future,” Hasselman said in a written statement.

The ruling follows a Jan. 19 letter to U.S. President Joe Biden from tribal elected leaders, urging “quick, decisive action on the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) within the first 10 days of your Administration.”

Faith, together with Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chair Harold Frazier, Oglala Sioux Tribal President Kevin Killer, and Yankton Sioux Vice-Chair Jason Cooke, said the oil spill potential of the project currently in operation “poses a grave threat to the safety and sanctity of our water, to our hunting and fishing rights, and to our cultural and religious practices.”

They noted that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers easement for the crossing was deemed illegal by a lower court, a decision now reaffirmed by the appeals court.

“It is time for the United States to finally honor the treaties that it made with our tribes and respect our lands and our waters, and stop this illegal pipeline,” they said.

The easement — on unceded ancestral 1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty lands — remains invalid at least until the conclusion of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process, when the Army Corps must decide the permit issue with public and tribal input, according to Earthjustice.

In the meantime, Standing Rock has filed for an injunction to shut down the pipeline while the environmental review is proceeding.

Under the past Presidential Administration of Donald Trump, the Army Corps took no enforcement action against Dakota Access Pipeline for continuing to operate without a valid permit.

The new Administration has discretion to issue an interim shutdown order to bring the pipeline into compliance with federal law while the review proceeds, Earthjustice noted.

The ruling came on the heels of Biden’s inaugural day announcement revoking the Presidential Permit for the controversial TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL Pipeline construction, also across unceded 1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty territory.

Meanwhile E Line 3 resisters are calling for a similar proclamation to halt construction across Native wild rice stands, the Mississippi River in Minnesota, and 200 more waterways.

“President Joe Biden, miigwech for stopping Keystone XL Pipeline. #NowDoLine3!” is the rallying cry for water protectors braving the snow in a more than two-week series of daily actions on the route through Anishinaabe treaty territory, which tribal government is contesting is contesting in court.

“The Corps has indicated in court that it is now treating DAPL as an ‘encroachment” on federal lands, and that it is allowing DAPL to continue to operate while it prepares the EIS and considers what to do about the encroachment under its encroachment regulations,” the Sioux  tribal leaders’ letter states.

“It is wrong and unjust to treat DAPL as a mere ‘encroachment’ that the Corps can allow to operate,” they said. “Ours is a hollow victory if Dakota Access, LLP can continue to operate and profit from DAPL as a trespasser.”

A three-judge panel at the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals said controversy is one of the top reasons the EIS process should be carried out in the DAPL case. Regulators had required only an Environmental Assessment, which is less exhaustive.

The case concerns the “degree to which the effects on the quality of the human environment are likely to be highly controversial,” they said.

The judges acknowledged that the Oahe Reservoir “is the source of life for the tribe. It provides drinking water for over 4,200 people on the reservation. It is the source of water for irrigation and other economic pursuits central to the tribal economy. And it provides the habitat for fish and wildlife on the reservation upon which tribal members rely for subsistence, cultural, and recreational purposes.

“Moreover, the tribe’s traditions provide that water is more than just a resource, it is sacred—as water connects all of nature and sustains life,” they said, quoting former Standing Rock Chair Dave Archambault, who presided during North Dakota’s 2016-17 militarized siege of water protector spirit camps opposing DAPL construction.

The findings provide: The lower court concluded that the Army Corps’ decision not to issue an EIS violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to adequately consider whether the project’s effects were likely to be “highly controversial,” the impact of a hypothetical oil spill on the tribes’ fishing and hunting rights, and the environmental-justice effects of the project.

Among the demands the tribal leaders delivered Biden as he was on the doorstep of the White House are to instruct the Army Corps to stop DAPL operations, given that it has no easement, and to provide meaningful nation-to-nation consultation with the tribes, as well as scrutiny of alternatives including no DAPL.

 

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.net)

 

 

The post Sioux tribal heads hail latest court ruling on Dakota Access Pipeline first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

Visit Original Source