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Work has restarted on the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, according to the company leading the $3.8 billion project, after the US Army Corps of Engineers granted a specific limit.
Army officials also claim they will cut off an environmental impact study of the 1,170-mile route across four states and Native-American owned land.
The acceleration of the pipeline’s approval came after President Trump signed an executive order directing, “the acting secretary of the Army to expeditiously review requests for approvals to construct and operate the Dakota Access Pipeline in compliance with the law.” This directly reverses the Obama administration’s decision to stop construction late last year.
Before Trump was sworn in, the US Army Corps of Engineers were in the process of conducting a full environmental impact study (EIS) of the project, which the tribe fought for previously. According to the Guardian, that review would have assessed possible harms and alternative routes and could have taken years to complete.
But before the review was close to completion, Trump’s administration canceled the EIS process, waived other regulatory requirements, and allowed for immediate construction.
The company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, said late Wednesday that it had, “received all federal authorizations necessary to proceed expeditiously to complete construction of the pipeline.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, Energy Transfer Partners, based in Texas, states it expects to receive $2.6 billion in loans for the project, “within the next several days” and expects the pipeline to be operational no later than June.
Activists are threatening “mass resistance” and claiming that “it’s not over”, despite The Army Corps of Engineers acting on President Trump’s order. According to CNBC, “the movement appears to be taking on a diffuse, leaderless structure, similar to Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter.”
“The granting of an easement, without any environmental review or tribal consultation, is not the end of this fight — it is the new beginning. Expect mass resistance far beyond what Trump has seen so far,” the Indigenous Environmental Network said in a statement.