With the state utility agencies of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois independently approving the Dakota Access Pipeline after each had conducted thorough environmental reviews our focus has shifted to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has been evaluating water crossings for the project. Their review has been a lengthy one, lasting over a year, and requiring the submission of many detailed environmental mitigation plans. One of the districts, the Omaha District, reviewing the docket has already determined that the project will not impact the environment.
The independence of the Corps’ review has come under threat from environmentalists, who have urged the Corps to restart their review based on hearsay which is simply not grounded in fact. They have also appealed to other federal agencies to intervene on their behalf. These calls ignore the months of work already put into the review of the project.
We urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to continue their review, base their conclusion on technical facts relevant to the case, not be swayed by rhetoric and politics, and expeditiously approve this important project. The opposition has publicly admitted that their push for a restart to an environmental assessment is to ultimately kill the project, not make it safer. Delays will jeopardize the thousands of jobs that would come with the construction of the project, as well as the millions of dollars in revenues that the states along the route will be collecting to re-invest into local communities.