A band of protesters opposing the Dakota Access oil pipeline set fire to their encampment Wednesday as a federal deadline for them to vacate the land neared.
The camp has been the staging point for a six-month-long campaign to block the 1,100-mile, $3.8 billion pipeline from being built near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation in North Dakota.
The protesters said the pipeline threatens the Sioux’s drinking water by crossing Lake Oahe, the only freshwater source of drinking water for the tribe.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave the protesters a deadline of Wednesday at 4 p.m. Eastern time to clear out. Protesters who remain at the site could face arrest and imprisonment.
The Army Corps said the threat of flooding near the encampment made staying there hazardous and life threatening, and the agency and local law enforcement said the camp’s garbage could pollute the local waterways if not cleaned up soon.
Without “proper remediation, debris, trash, and untreated waste will wash into the Cannonball River and Lake Oahe,” they said.
The Morton County Sheriff’s Department has said for months that the protesters’ presence at the camp has been an environmental blight on the area.
As the deadline approached, the protesters began setting some of the camp’s wooden structures on fire. Other protesters were seen leaving the encampment, according to reports from the site.
The departure of the protesters comes just weeks after President Trump signed an executive order directing the Army Corps to expedite approval of the pipeline.
Soon after the order was signed, the Army Corps issued the last remaining permit for the 1.5-mile stretch of the line that the Obama administration had delayed after the protests. Tribal groups sued the agency over its decision.
A decision on the court case could come before the end of the month from the district court in Washington.
