Dakota Access Pipeline
The Dakota Access Pipeline or Bakken pipeline is a underground pipeline in the United States that has the ability to transport up to 750,000 barrels of light sweet crude oil per day. It begins in the shale oil fields of the Bakken Formation in northwest North Dakota and continues through South Dakota and Iowa to an oil terminal near Patoka, Illinois. Together with the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline from Patoka to Nederland, Texas, it forms the Bakken system. The pipeline transports 40 percent of the oil produced in the Bakken region.
The $3.78 billion project was announced to the public in June 2014 with construction beginning in June 2016. During the Obama presidency the State Department estimated the project would create up to 3,900 temporary construction jobs and 35 permanent full-time jobs. During the Trump presidency the State Department estimated the project would create 42,000 direct and indirect jobs. The pipeline was completed in April 2017 and became operational in May 2017. The pipeline is owned by Dakota Access, LLC, controlled by Energy Transfer Partners, with minority interests from Phillips 66, and affiliates of Enbridge and Marathon Petroleum.
Protests against the pipeline occurred from 2016 to 2017, organized by those opposing its construction, including the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
History
Planning, 2014–2016
Prior to the Dakota Access Pipeline, light sweet crude oil from the Bakken Formation was transported mainly by rail during the North Dakota oil boom. Extraction from the area increased from 309,000 barrels a day in 2010 to more than 1 million in 2014, with insufficient pipeline infrastructure to transport the increased extraction. Plans for the pipeline were announced by Energy Transfer Partners in 2014, with Phillips 66 acquired 25% stake in the project later that same year. Energy Transfer Partners estimated that the pipeline would create between 12 and 15 permanent jobs and from 2,000 to 4,000 temporary jobs in Iowa. The $1.35 billion capital investment in Iowa was projected to generate $33 million sales tax in Iowa during construction and $30 million property tax in 2017. Energy Transfer hired "Strategic Economics Group" in West Des Moines to prepare this analysis.In September 2014, Dakota Access held an initial informational meeting with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council. Informational meetings for South Dakota and Illinois landowners were held in October 2014, and starting on December 1, 2014, in each of the affected counties in Iowa. Meetings in Fort Madison, Sioux Center, Oskaloosa and Storm Lake brought out hundreds of people expressing their support and/or opposition to the pipeline. A webinar for Brown and Hancock County, Illinois took place in February 2015.
On October 29, 2014, Dakota Access submitted the project to the Iowa Utilities Board, after Iowa Governor Terry Branstad rejected requests from community and environmental activists who asked him to block plans. In December 2014 Dakota Access submitted an application for a permit from the North Dakota Public Service Commission for the proposed route. In January 2015, Dakota Access filed the application with the IUB. In February 2015, it filed applications with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for sovereign land and floodplain permits. In April 2015, Iowa Senate Study Bill 1276 and House Study Bill 249 advanced with both Senator Robert Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, and State Representative Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, in support; it required Dakota Access "to obtain voluntary easements from 75% of property owners along the route before eminent domain could be authorized".
The Iowa Utilities Board approved the pipeline on March 10, 2016, on a vote of 3 to 0, being the last of four states utility regulators granting its approval. The approval came after 18 public information meetings, pre-filled testimony, thousands of public comments, and 12 days of public hearings. Conditions of the approval included liability insurance of at least $25 million; guarantees that the parent companies of Dakota Access will pay for damages created by a pipeline leak or spill; a revised agricultural impact mitigation plan; a timeline for construction notices; modified condemnation easement forms; and a statement accepting the terms and condition's of the board's order." The IUB stated that with the conditions, the pipeline would promote public convenience and necessity. The following day, the company stated it had secured voluntary easements on 82% of the 1,295 affected Iowa land parcels. A week later, Dakota Access filed motions with the IUB requesting expedited and confidential treatment to begin construction immediately, saying it met the conditions and that its liability insurance policies were trade secrets under Iowa law and "would serve no public purpose". Dakota Access also filed 23 condemnation suits against 140 individuals, banks, and a coal mine to gain easements through North Dakota.
A 2015 poll showed that fifty seven percent of Iowans favored the construction of the pipeline. Construction of the pipeline was also estimated to create 42,000 jobs with a total of $2 billion in wages.
Construction, 2016–2017
In March 2016, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service issued a sovereign lands construction permit. In late May 2016, the permit was temporarily revoked in three counties of Iowa, where the pipeline would cross the Big Sioux River and the Big Sioux Wildlife Management Area; these are historic and cultural sites of the Upper Sioux tribe, including graves in Lyon County. Also in May 2016, Iowa farmers filed lawsuits to prevent the state from using eminent domain.In June 2016, the IUB voted 2 to 1 to allow construction on non-sovereign lands to continue. The Sierra Club said this action was illegal before the U.S. Corps of Engineers authorized the project. In late June 2016, construction was allowed to resume in Lyon County after plans were changed to route the pipeline below the site using directional boring, instead of trenching and disturbing the soil on the surface. In December 2016, the approval was disputed in the Polk County District Court. In July and August 2016, The United States Army Corps of Engineers approved the water crossing permits and issued all but one permission necessary for the pipeline construction.
On July 27, 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sued the USACE in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The motion for preliminary injunction was denied in the U.S. District Court in September 2016. In September 2016, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe filed an appeal which was denied a month later.
In August 2016, the joint venture of Enbridge and Marathon Petroleum agreed to purchase a 49% stake in Dakota Access, LLC for $2 billion. The deal was completed in February 2017 after the final easement was granted.
In September 2016 the U.S Department of Justice received more than 33,000 petitions to review all permits and order a full review of the project's environmental effects. On September 9, 2016, the U.S. Departments of Justice, Army, and Interior issued a joint statement to temporarily halt the project on federal land bordering or under the Lake Oahe reservoir. The U.S. federal government asked the company for a "voluntary pause" on construction near the area until further study was done in the region extending around Lake Oahe. Energy Transfer Partners rejected the request and resumed construction. On September 13, 2016, chairman and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners Kelcy Warren said concerns about the pipeline's impact on the water supply were "unfounded", that "multiple archaeological studies conducted with state historic preservation offices found no sacred items along the route" and that the company would meet with officials in Washington "to understand their position and reiterate our commitment to bring the Dakota Access Pipeline into operation."
On November 1, 2016, President Obama announced his administration was monitoring the situation and had been in contact with the USACE to examine the possibility of rerouting the pipeline to avoid sacred lands. On November 14, 2016, the USACE announced that "the Army has determined that additional discussion and analysis are warranted in light of the history of the Great Sioux Nation's dispossessions of lands, the importance of Lake Oahe to the Tribe, our government-to-government relationship, and the statute governing easements through government property." Energy Transfer Partners responded by criticizing the Obama administration for "political interference" and said that "further delay in the consideration of this case would add millions of dollars more each month in costs which cannot be recovered." North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple criticized the decision saying the pipeline would be safe and that the decision was "long overdue". Craig Stevens, spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now Coalition, called the Corps's announcement "yet another attempt at death by delay" and said the Obama administration "has chosen to further fan the flames of protest by more inaction." North Dakota Senator John Hoeven said in a statement that the delay "will only prolong the disruption in the region caused by protests and make life difficult for everyone who lives and works in the area." Speaking to CBS News in November, Kelcy Warren said that it would be "100 percent that the easement gets granted and the pipeline gets built" when newly elected president elect Donald Trump came into office on January 20, 2017.
On December 4, 2016, the USACE announced, it would not grant an easement for the pipeline to be drilled under Lake Oahe and was undertaking an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes. The Assistant Secretary of the Army, Jo-Ellen Darcy said that "the best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing". Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners issued a same-day response saying that the White House's directive "is just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency." They said that the companies "fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way."
On January 18, 2017, the USACE filed its formal Notice of Intent to conduct the Environmental Impact Statement process. The notice opened a thirty-day comment on the scope of the EIS, addressing the crossing of Lake Oahe. The proposed EIS was to consider "Alternative locations for the pipeline crossing the Missouri River", direct and indirect risks and impacts, as well as their treaty rights to the lake. The same day U.S. District Judge James Boasberg denied ETP's request to delay the EIS process.
Following the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017, he signed a presidential memorandum to advance approval of pipeline construction, while stating his intention to "renegotiate some of the terms" of the pipeline bill. The order would expedite the environmental review that Trump described as an "incredibly cumbersome, long, horrible permitting process." These executive orders, which also included the Keystone XL Pipeline, outlined how the completion of the pipeline would create more jobs.
On February 7, 2017, the USACE sent a notice of intent to the United States Congress to grant an easement under Lake Oahe 24 hours following notification of the delivery of the notification. On February 9, 2017, the Cheyenne River Sioux sued the easement decision, citing an 1851 treaty and interference with the religious practices of the tribe.
The Dakota Access Pipeline had temporary workforce housing for the pipeline workers. Construction of the pipeline was completed in April 2017.