Corps: No new impacts found in Dakota Access pipeline review

BISMARCK, N.D. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Friday completed more than a year of additional study of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, saying the work substantiated its earlier determination that the pipeline poses no significant environmental threats. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in June 2017 ruled that the Corps “largely complied” with environmental law when permitting the $3.8 billion, four-state pipeline built by Texas-based Energy Transfers Partners. However, the judge also ordered more study because he said the agency didn’t adequately consider how an oil spill under the Missouri River might affect the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s fishing and hunting rights, or whether it might disproportionately affect the tribal community — a concept known as environmental justice. The Corps said in its summary filed with the court Friday that the chances of an oil spill are low and any impacts to hunting and fishing “will be of limited scope and duration.” On the environmental justice issue, the agency said minority populations, including the tribe, and low-income groups are not at greater risk of “adverse human health or environmental effects.” The more than 100-page analysis won’t be released until a confidentiality review is completed, lawyers for the corps said in court documents. The judge said at the time that he found it likely the Corps would be able to justify its previous decisions, and that the agency “must simply connect the dots” and not “redo its analysis from the ground up.” He noted that the tribe’s water intake has been moved about 50 miles downstream since pipeline construction began, and said an alternative river crossing near Bismarck that had been studied and rejected would pass much closer to a drinking water intake that serves tens of thousands more people.