Judge orders Dakota Access pipeline shut down pending review

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Dakota Access pipeline shut down pending a more thorough environmental review, handing a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe three years after the pipeline first began carrying oil following months of protests.

In a 24-page order, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that he was "mindful of the disruption” that shutting down the pipeline would cause, but that it must be done within 30 days. The order comes after Boesberg said in April that a more extensive review was necessary than what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had already conducted and that he would consider whether the pipeline would have to be shuttered during the new assessment.

The Court does not reach its decision with blithe disregard for the lives it will affect,” Boasberg wrote Monday.

"Yet, given the seriousness of the Corps' NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) error, the impossibility of a simple fix, the fact that Dakota Access did assume much of its economic risk knowingly, and the potential harm each day the pipeline operates, the Court is forced to conclude that the flow of oil must cease,” he added.

The pipeline was the subject of months of protests in 2016 and 2017, sometimes violent, during its construction near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border. The tribe pressed litigation against the pipeline even after it began carrying oil from North Dakota across South Dakota and Iowa and to a shipping point in Illinois in June 2017.

Tribal Chairman Mike Faith called it a historic day for the Standing Rock Sioux and for those who have protested against the $3.8 billion, 1,172-mile (1,886 kilometre) pipeline that crosses beneath the Missouri River, just north of the reservation. The tribe draws its water from the river and fears pollution.

"This pipeline should have never been built here. We told them that from the beginning,” Faith said in a statement.

Texas-based Energy Transfer has insisted the pipeline it owns would be safe. It didn't immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Boasberg's ruling.

Jan Hasselman, an attorney for the tribe, praised the court's ruling, while noting he expects an appeal.

"It doesn't make any sense to allow the pipeline to continue operating when you're studying whether it's safe to operate,” he said.

Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, called the ruling "shocking” and noted that the pipeline is moving 570,000 barrels of Bakken oil a day. He also expects an appeal.

"I think there's a lot of questions about the authority of this liberal district court judge to make such a significant ruling,” Ness said of Boasberg, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

Energy Transfer last year proposed increasing the pipeline's capacity to as much as 1.1 million barrels to meet growing demand for oil from North Dakota, without the need for additional pipelines or rail shipments.

Before the coronavirus pandemic devastated the U.S. oil industry, daily oil production in North Dakota - the nation's No. 2 oil producer behind Texas - was at a near-record 1.45 million barrels daily. The state's output slipped to below 1 million barrels daily in May amid low energy prices and sparse demand.

Permits for the project were originally rejected by the Obama administration, and the Army Corps of Engineers prepared to conduct a full environmental review. In February 2017, shortly after President Donald Trump took office, the Corps scrapped the review and granted permits, concluding that running the pipeline under the Missouri River posed no significant environmental issues.

The Corps said that opinion was validated after an additional year of review, as ordered by Boasberg in 2017.

Boasberg had ruled then that the Corps "largely complied” with environmental law when permitting the pipeline but ordered more review because he said the agency did not adequately consider how an oil spill under the Missouri River might affect the Standing Rock Sioux's fishing and hunting rights, or whether it might disproportionately affect the tribal community.