Federal lawyers have asked a district court judge not close the Dakota Access pipeline while the Army Corps of Engineers conducts a previously court-ordered environmental review on the risk of a spill.
“There is a serious possibility that the Corps will reaffirm its original conclusions based in part on its conclusion that the pipeline segment under Lake Oahe is highly unlikely to spill into the lake,” lawyers for the Army Corps told a federal court judge in a brief filed late Thursday.
The Army Corps lawyers argue that closing the pipeline while the review proceeds “could actually increase the risk of an oil spill if oil that would otherwise be transported by the pipeline was instead transported by rail.” The agency is trying to make the point that moving oil by rail is far more risky and dangerous than transporting it by pipeline.
The Dakota Access pipeline is a $3.8 billion project to move oil from the North Dakota shale oil fields to market nearly 1,200 miles East to Illinois, where it will link up to another interstate segment.
Tribal groups in North Dakota, the heart of the Midwest’s shale oil boom, have opposed the pipeline because of the path it took under Lake Oahe, which the Standing Rock Sioux claims would adversely affect their drinking water supply. The Obama administration stalled the project by ordering the Army Corps to conduct more studies after it had already approved the project.
Trump signed an executive order directing the Army Corps to move forward with the project soon after being sworn in as president. But in June, District Court Judge James Boasberg responded to lawsuits by ruling that the government must reconsider parts of the environmental review that deal with the lake segment.
