It was discovered on Wednesday, during a preliminary restraining order hearing against The Army Corp of Engineers, that Energy Transfer Partners, the company building the pipeline in North Dakota, may be guilty of construction on the DAPL without a proper easement.
Several sources have confirmed this including the Army Corp themselves. KFYRTV recently reported on the easement stating:
“The Army Corps of Engineers has confirmed that the company doesn’t have a written easement from the agency to build on Corps property. A Corps spokesperson says that Energy Transfer has filed the paperwork for the easement, but it’s still under review.”
Larry Janis, a spokesman for the Army Corp of Engineers, reiterated the report by saying:
“That’s true they don’t have the easement that’s required to install the segment that’s across the Oahe project.”
There is no timetable as to when the easement will be given to Energy Transfer Partners, but the agency has granted permission for the document to be written. This may explain why ETP “voluntarily” stopped construction at the work site just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near Lake Oahe, the exact place they do not yet have a written easement to construct.
Standing Rock is currently awaiting an injunction hearing by a Federal District Court Judge who is scheduled to give his decision sometime today. After weeks of protests, multiple arrests, and a very tumultuous run in with security guards last Saturday that sent several protesters to the hospital with dog bites, this injunction would be the first step towards justice for the tribes.
Not only are the Standing Rock Sioux, and hundreds of others, standing up for their right for clean water, untainted by possible oil spills and leaks from the Dakota Access Pipeline, they are desperately trying to save their ancestral archaeological burial grounds and prayer sites along the pipeline’s route.
Hopefully, this new finding, combined with the evidence that Energy Transfer never did their due diligence in locating historical sites along their path, will lead the judge to at least place a temporary injunction on the pipeline.
For right now, thousands of people are sitting and waiting for the judge’s ruling.
The following video gives background and information on Standing Rock and a view inside their peaceful protest.
Featured Image Via LastrealIndians
