Current Status
Despite opposition from Tribes and environmental groups, on May 3, 2021, the Army Corps of Engineers announced it would keep the pipeline operational while preparing a court-ordered environmental impact statement (EIS). The pipeline still lacks a key permit from the Corps to cross under Lake Oahe in South Dakota. The Corps issued a draft EIS analyzing the impacts of issuing that permit on Sep. 8, 2023, and plans to issue the final EIS in 2025.
Why it Matters
On April 29, 1868, the U.S. government and the Sioux Nation signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie, revising the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (Horse Creek Treaty). The Treaty required the Sioux Nation to abandon thousands of acres of land guaranteed under previous treaties, though the Tribes retained hunting and fishing rights in those lands. The Treaty also established the Great Sioux Reservation “for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Sioux Nation (Art. II). The reservation’s boundaries include significant portions of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) current location.
DAPL was built by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) to transport crude oil from the Bakken field in North Dakota to Illinois. The pipeline crosses under the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and Lake Oahe, and runs within a half-mile of the current boundaries of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, through land taken from the Tribe by Congress in 1958. The DAPL also runs through important cultural and burial sites for Standing Rock and other Tribal nations.
Most of the DAPL was permitted and built under state law. However, the federal government, acting through the Army Corps of Engineers, has authority over 37 miles of the 1100-mile pipeline, where the pipeline passes over or under streams, rivers, and federal dams. The Standing Rock Sioux, other Tribes, and environmental groups oppose the pipeline because of the greenhouse gas emissions from oil that it carries, and concerns that a spill would contaminate state and tribal drinking water.
This page does not include state litigation regarding the use of eminent domain to acquire easements for the pipeline’s construction.
Key Resources
- CleanLaw Podcast Quick Take: Dakota Access Pipeline update with Hannah Perls and Carrie Jenks
