Chad Carter, an operating engineer with years of experience working on various construction sites, knows a thing or two about the kind of men and women that large pipeline infrastructure projects such as Dakota Access require to be constructed successfully. The vice president of IUOE Local 234, based in Des Moines, wrote a column in The Des Moines Register explaining to the public the expertise of the men and women working on pipelines.
Although it may seem simple, constructing a pipeline is in fact a highly complex process that requires a wide-array of skills and expertise. Operators like myself across all the trades regularly participate in specialized training programs that allow us to employ modern technologies and work practices that often exceed state and federal requirements. (…) Our workforce is not new to pipeline construction and collectively has built thousands of miles of critical energy infrastructure across Iowa and the United States.
The Dakota Access Pipeline is slated to create between 2,000 and 4,000 jobs in Iowa during its construction. The company proposing the project has agreed to give half of those jobs to local union halls along the route, ensuring that local communities benefit from this project.
Read the full column here.