The Army Corps of Engineers has released a final environmental review for a segment of the embattled Dakota Access pipeline, providing a path for keeping the oil conduit operating.
In an environmental impact statement, the Army Corps’ Omaha District last week recommended an option in which an easement is granted for Energy Transfer’s Dakota Access pipeline to continue crossing below Lake Oahe. It includes additional conditions meant to protect the reservoir’s environmental resources.
While Dakota Access has been operational since 2017, a federal judge in 2020 said the Army Corps needed to prepare a more robust environmental analysis, later vacating the easement for the Lake Oahe crossing and ordering the line drained of oil. While a federal appeals court declined in 2021 to halt the flow of oil through the pipeline, the court affirmed the order vacating the easement.
Now, the final environmental review for the Lake Oahe crossing has identified one of five options as the Army Corps’ “preferred alternative.” Under that alternative, the Army Corps would grant the requested easement to “cross federal property at Lake Oahe with additional conditions and modifications that intend to further reduce the likelihood, intensity, and duration of a release” of oil, the review said.
