News Dakota Access Pipeline Expands

The Dakota Access Pipeline is a 3. 8 billion dollar oil pipeline that begins in North Dakota and extends 1,000 miles underground through South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois, and transports about 600,000 barrels of fracked oil a day.

It's construction was the subject of controversy because the pipeline route was in proximity to Native American reservation territory. There were lawsuits and protests against the pipeline by the indigenous people such as the Sioux tribe, lawmakers and environmental activist groups, fearing the possibility of an oil spill contaminating the water supply of the nearby Standing Rock Reservation.

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/diversity/libraries-respond-dakota-access-pipeline-dapl

Many of the links I have provided are not new, but I thought they might still be helpful for documentation if you are not familiar with DAPL/ The Dakota Access Pipeline, and are interested in the back story. I would recommend viewing video content of the protests and commentary by investigative journalist Jordan Chariton, as well as award-winning reporter Amy Goodman who was actually threatened with jail time for covering the story.

In the fall of 2016 the US government blocked construction of the pipeline's crossing along the Missouri River resevoir when then President Barack Obama denied the permit necessary for the completion of the pipeline, expressing his concerns for the environment.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science...ily-blocks-the-dakota-access-pipeline/499454/

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/us-army-corps-blocks-dakota-access-pipeline-232172

The project was brought to a halt until 2017 when President Trump took office, approving DAPL and the keystone pipeline by using executive order to complete construction, welcoming it as a source of job creation that would promote American energy independence.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2017/01/24/po...access-pipelines-executive-actions/index.html

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/6465...-seeking-to-invalidate-keystone-xl-pipeline-p

Since the Dakota Access pipeline was built there have been at least 5 oil spills, with the largest reported accident being a 170 gallon oil leak in April of 2017 that contaminated soil in Patoka, Illinois. There may be additional unreported leakage however since oil companies are not always obligated by law to report spills in states such as North Dakota and Texas.

https://theintercept.com/2018/01/09/dakota-access-pipeline-leak-energy-transfer-partners/

The reason I am discussing the pipeline in 2019 is because there has been a recent development that concerns me. Energy Transfer Partners, the oil company that owns the Dakota Access Pipeline, is dramatically ramping up their production so that production levels in North Dakota can compete with Texas, the Nation's largest oil producer. To do this crude oil carried by the pipeline is scheduled to be doubled to over a million barrels of oil each day now.

If the pipeline expands then the dangers posed by a possible oil spill also magnify. Last week commissioners on the South Dakota Lincoln County board issued a permit for a pumping station to begin the production increase.

https://earthjustice.org/features/dakota-access-pipeline-legal-explainer-remand

https://www.apnews.com/446a7e25ec044655afd1605d4725ad8cMy

I was always opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline, and now that twice the amount of oil the line was built to carry is going to be stuffed into the line I think it is frankly a disaster waiting to happen. 1. 1 million barrels of oil is not the 580,000 it was designed for. Bear in mind also that pipeline is only half a mile from the Missouri River resevoir, the Sioux's tribe's water source. The pipeline might explode. The Native American community is of course as vehemently opposed to the pipeline's expansion as they were to it's initial construction, and continue to express concerns for their rights, drinking water supply, wildlife and the preservation of their burial grounds.

I think it is important to make others aware of this chain of events.

What can even be done at this point? So long as there's a Republican President and a Republican majority in the Senate, then this absolute travesty is going to continue. They've not exactly been listening to protests.

Another reason for me me to despise this pipeline...as if the threat of it contaminating the Ogallala aquifer, one of the largest groundwater deposits in the continental United States, wasn't enough.