Thread: Dakota Access Pipeline Now Has Oil Beneath Missouri River

MAR 28 2017, 2:47 AM ET

Dakota Access Pipeline Now Has Oil Beneath Missouri River, Company Says

The Dakota Access pipeline developer said Monday that it has placed oil in the pipeline under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota and that it's preparing to put the pipeline into service.

Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners made the announcement in a brief court filing with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The announcement marks a significant development in the long battle over the project that will move North Dakota oil 2,000 miles through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois. The pipeline is three months behind schedule due to large protests and the objections of two American Indian tribes who say it threatens their water supply and cultural sites.

Related: Appeals Court Refuses to Stop Oil in Dakota Access Pipeline

ETP's filing did not say when the company expected the pipeline to be completely operating, and a spokeswoman did not immediately return an email seeking additional details.

"Oil has been placed in the Dakota Access Pipeline underneath Lake Oahe. Dakota Access is currently commissioning the full pipeline and is preparing to place the pipeline into service," the filing stated.


Native American protesters and their supporters are confronted by security during a demonstration against construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, September 3, 2016. Robyn Beck / AFP/Getty Images

Despite the announcement, the battle isn't over. The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes still have an unresolved lawsuit that seeks to stop the project. The Standing Rock chairman did not immediately return a call seeking comment on ETP's announcement.

The tribes argue that a rupture in the section that crosses under Lake Oahe would threaten their water supply and sacred sites and would prevent them from practicing their religion, which requires clean water.

The company disputes the tribes' claims and says the $3.8 billion pipeline is safe.

The tribes in December held up the project by successfully pushing the U.S. government for a full environmental study of the Lake Oahe crossing, which is in southern North Dakota. But the Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the Missouri River for the government, rescinded the study and gave the company permission to complete the pipeline at the urging of President Donald Trump shortly after he took office.

There were months of protests against the pipeline, mainly in North Dakota, where opponents set up a camp on Corps land between the Standing Rock Reservation and the pipeline route. At times it housed thousands of people, many of whom clashed with police, who made about 750 arrests between August and February. The on-the-ground protests waned after the Corps ordered the shutdown of the camp in February in advance of the spring flooding season.

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Feb. 22: Dakota Pipeline Protesters Make Last Stand as Deadline Passes 0:59


While the protests have abated, opposition has not.

The company on March 20 reported "recent coordinated physical attacks" on the pipeline without offering details. Authorities in South Dakota and Iowa confirmed that someone apparently used a torch to burn a hole through empty sections of the pipeline at aboveground shut-off valve sites.

North Dakota has become the second-biggest oil producer in the U.S. in the past decade, trailing only Texas. The state stands to gain more than $110 million annually in tax revenue with oil flowing through the pipe, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Associated Press writer Blake Nicholson in Bismarck, N.D., contributed to this report.

This story has been corrected to reflect that the filing was with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, not the appeals court.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dak...ompany-n739296

These protesters are insane. They do anything to that pipeline that causes a leak and they're going to be in big trouble.

To do such a destructive thing would be very, very bad. For a lot of reasons.

Also, though , keep in mind, it would be in the best interest of the pipeline company if some 'leak' appeared, that they could blame on the protestors. That would be a death knell to their protests.

There was a time, in this country, when we sort of knew who was honorable and who wasn't. We also knew many of those who were less than honorable had a threshold of dishonor.

Unfortunately today, there is no threshold of dishonor - not in our government, our corporations, our churches, our people.

Who do you believe these days?

It's sad.

S.D. looking into Dakota Access oil pipeline leak in Spink County

• By Shannon Marvel, Dakota Media Group
• 5 hrs ago 1

A leaky surge pump along the Dakota Access oil pipeline spilled 84 gallons of crude oil in April at the pump station just north of Crandon in Spink County.

That’s according to Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist with state Department of Environment and Natural Resources Ground Water Quality Program.

The pipeline, which will move oil from shale formations in western North Dakota roughly 1,170 miles to Patoka, Ill., is not yet operational. In north-central South Dakota, it cuts through Campbell, McPherson, Edmunds, Faulk and Spink counties.

According to Dakota Media Group archives, the pump station is on 10.59 acres of land in rural Spink County that Dakota Access purchased Feb. 3, 2016, from Donald Gene and Rita Mary Masat. Crandon is southeast of Redfield and east of Tulare.

“At the pipeline’s pump station there’s what’s called a surge tank, which is used to store crude oil occasionally during the regular operation of the pipeline,” Walsh said in a phone interview with the Dakota Media Group Tuesday. “And connected to that tank is a pump, which pumps oil back into the pipeline system, and the leak occurred at that surge pump.”

Richard B. Kuprewicz said pipeline pump stations are typically built in such a way that oil releases stay within the station boundaries. He is a pipeline infrastructure expert and incident investigator with more than 40 years of energy industry experience.

“The releases in the pump station are better than having it on the main line. It sounds like it occurred during the process of commissioning the line,” Kuprewicz said.

“As far as this happening during the start-up, I don’t want to make it sound like a major event, but the fact that you had oil leaving the tank says there’s something not right with their procedures. They might have been trying to hurry,” he said.

The cause could also be due to human error, he added.

“It shouldn’t happen, but if it did happen, at least it happened in the pump station. They need to figure out why this happened,” Kuprewicz said

Vicki Granado, spokeswoman for the Texas-based developer Energy Transfer Partners, said the spill was due to a malfunction during the line fill process.“Before a line goes into service you have to fill it with crude oil first,” she said.

Granado said the line-fill process should be finished within the next few weeks and the pipeline should be in service by June 1.

Walsh said all the crude oil was recovered through absorbent materials and was contained in drums, then put back into the line. Dakota Access was responsible for cleaning up the spill, which it has done, he said.


The state will not fine or issue a citation against the company since the spill was reported and cleaned up within the required time frame, Walsh said.

The spilled crude oil, which is roughly equal to two barrels, is a very small amount compared to the 470,000 barrels of crude oil the pipeline is designed to carry in a day.

“The whole pump station is lined because they have some above-ground pipeline infrastructure there, so if it does leak it makes it easier to clean up and safer for the environment,” Walsh said.

Granado said the spill stayed within the company’s workspace, or containment area, which is covered with a special lining “that does not allow anything to actually touch or hit the soil.”

Some gravel was removed from the spill site and will be taken to the Brown County Landfill after sampling of the soils is finished, according to Walsh. The Brown County Landfill routinely takes deliveries of contaminated soil from throughout the region.

Once the state receives the paperwork for disposal and spill site samples, the case will be closed, Walsh said.

This is the first and only spill in the state associated with the Dakota Access Pipeline to date, he said.

http://www.thepublicopinion.com/news...fd634f2d1.html

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Litigation on the Dakota Access Pipeline

Update: June 14, 2017, 3:50PM PT
In a victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Court finds that approval of Dakota Access Pipeline violated the law.

In a 91-page decision, Judge James Boasberg ruled that the federal permits authorizing the pipeline to cross the Missouri River just upstream of the Standing Rock reservation, which were hastily issued by the Trump administration just days after the inauguration, violated the law in certain critical respects.

The Court did not determine whether pipeline operations should be shut off and has requested additional briefing on the subject and a status conference next week.

The federal judge wrote, “the Court agrees that [the Corps] did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or the degree to which the pipeline’s effects are likely to be highly controversial.”

“This is a major victory for the Tribe and we commend the courts for upholding the law and doing the right thing,” said Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II. “The previous administration painstakingly considered the impacts of this pipeline, and President Trump hastily dismissed these careful environmental considerations in favor of political and personal interests. We applaud the courts for protecting our laws and regulations from undue political influence, and will ask the Court to shut down pipeline operations immediately.”

“This decision marks an important turning point. Until now, the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have been disregarded by the builders of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Trump Administration—prompting a well-deserved global outcry,” said Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman. “The federal courts have stepped in where our political systems have failed to protect the rights of Native communities.”

The Court ruled against the Tribe on several other issues, finding that the reversal allowing the pipeline complied with the law in some respects.
http://earthjustice.org/features/faq...litigation?crm

We need this pipeline. We need to become self sufficient and stop sending our money to terrorist Saudi Arabia.

All these proposed pipelines, gas or oil are to EXPORT to other countries - they are for profits $$$$ by the companies involved and their rich shareholders - while we suffer the burden/threats of pollution, environmental disasters, destroying vital water supplies, eminent domain loss of homesteads/property values and habitat for creatures, some struggling for survival of their species - how extraordinarily selfish! Most of the oil and gas for these proposed pipelines is NOT for our use! Saudi Arabia is buying texas oil fields. This in not @ energy independence but profiteering.
"No man shall poison the people for private profits" - Theodore Roosevelt

Officials unaware Dakota Access pipeline security unlicensed