Dakota Access Pipeline Case Study

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 1168-mile crude oil pipeline crossing North Dakota to Illinois. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is a federally recognized American Indian indigenous community that has a reservation in North and South Dakota, which has asked for an injunction of the construction of the pipeline, arguing that the construction and the operation of the pipeline threatens the Tribe’s environmental and economic well-being, as well as damaging and destroying sites that has great historic, religious and cultural significance to the Tribe. The Tribe brings forth the case on the basis that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has abdicated its statutory responsibility to ensure that the construction and operation of the pipeline do not harm historically and culturally significant sites. One authorization allows the construction of the pipeline underneath Lake Oahe which is approximately half a mile upstream of the Tribe’s reservation, and another authorization allows the pipeline to discharge into waters at multiple locations in the Tribe’s ancestral lands.
US District Judge James E. Boasberg, however, says the tribe failed to show that it would suffer injury from the Dakota Access Pipeline and wrote …show more content…
This has resulted in a situation where the decision by the judge was effectively put on hold by a federal order to stop construction near the tribe’s reservation until the Army Corps of Engineers can revisit its previous decisions in the disputed portion. The government statement also acknowledged the top activist concerns and called for consideration of “nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views” for future