Developments on the Dakota Access pipeline have unfolded swiftly in recent weeks, with many of them propelled by the transition from President Barack Obama’s administration to Donald Trump’s. Here’s a look at what happened involving the $3.8 billion pipeline - and what’s yet to come:
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THE BASICS
A company called Energy Transfer Partners has been working for months on the 1,200-mile project as a way to get oil from North Dakota’s rich Bakken fields across four states to a shipping point in Illinois. The Dallas-based builder met stiff opposition from the Standing Rock Sioux, whose reservation on the North Dakota-South Dakota border lies near the pipeline’s path.
The tribe has argued that the pipeline, which would run under a Missouri River reservoir, threatens its water supply. The company insists the system will be safe. Thousands of people gathered from around the country to support the tribe and protest the project. Clashes between those demonstrators and law enforcement in North Dakota were violent at times, and nearly 700 people were arrested.
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THE RECENT ROLLER-COASTER RIDE
Opponents won a big victory in the waning days of the Obama administration in December. Federal agencies that have authority over the Missouri River said they would not give permission for pipe to be laid under that reservoir - Lake Oahe - until an environmental study was done. That stood to delay the project by as much as two years.
Energy Transfer Partners and allies cried foul, calling the move political. Trump had long signaled his support for the pipeline, and soon after taking office ordered that the decision be reconsidered.
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SO WHAT JUST HAPPENED?
Just two weeks after Trump’s directive, the Army Corps of Engineers granted permission late Wednesday for Energy Transfer Partners to proceed with construction of the final segment under the lake. The company started drilling immediately, with the expectation that it will take about two months to finish the pipeline and another to fill it with oil.
Pipeline opponents aren’t going away just yet. On Thursday, the Cheyenne River Sioux of South Dakota - which earlier joined Standing Rock’s lawsuit - asked a federal judge to stop the work. The tribe says the Army Corps should be required to complete the environmental study.
Opponents’ prospects on the legal front aren’t clear. Legal experts are split on whether they could successfully challenge the reversal on the Lake Oahe segment as arbitrary. But tribes can also press claims under old treaties from the mid-19th century that call on the federal government to consider a tribe’s welfare when making decisions affecting the tribe.
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PROTEST PRESENCE
The Standing Rock opposition captured the world’s attention for months in 2016, and a protest encampment swelled in size. But only a skeleton of that camp remains after winter drove some away, and the Standing Rock Sioux asked the remainder to leave. Fewer than 300 are estimated to be there now, and they are being warned to leave ahead of spring floods that happen every year when the landscape thaws.
That doesn’t mean opposition will be confined to the courtroom. Several demonstrations were held around the country Wednesday, and some protesters say they are planning to continue actions in North Dakota.
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