Tribal citizens and allies rally in front of the Trump International Hotel as part of Native Nations Rise in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2017. Photo by Indianz.Com / More on Flickr
A day feared by many has finally come: construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline is complete and the project will soon be going into service. A status report filed in federal court on Monday evening confirms that crude oil has been placed underneath Lake Oahe along the Missouri River. The site in North Dakota was final piece of the costly and controversial project. "Oil has been placed in the Dakota Access Pipeline underneath Lake Oahe," attorneys wrote in the two-page document. "Dakota Access is currently commissioning the full pipeline and is preparing to place the pipeline into service." And with work now complete, the wealthy backers of the pipeline no longer plan to provide status reports "unless otherwise directed by the court," the attorneys wrote. The last update had been submitted on March 20 but almost all of it was redacted so there was no way for the public to know for sure how close the pipeline was to being fully operational. The new filing, though, makes clear that crews were able to complete the final portion at Lake Oahe in less than two months, or about 49 days to be a little more precise. The firm's attorneys previously told a federal judge that the "best case scenario" was 83 days after the resumption of construction activities in North Dakota. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose northern border lies less than a half-mile from the Lake Oahe crossing, and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe feared that the pipeline would be up and running sooner than that. Yet a federal judge refused to halt construction amid concerns about the impacts of the pipeline on their treaty rights, sacred sites, religious practices and water resources. The tribes' only legal option now would be for Judge James E. Boasberg to rescind the Trump administration's February 7 approval of the pipeline. It's not clear when a decision might be reached.
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