Act Now to End the Dakota Access Pipeline

Standing Rock Protest Against the Dakota Access Pipeline | Photo by Peg Hunter, Flickr

The fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) continues. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers just released their draft Environmental Impact Assessment and is now taking public comments on DAPL.

DAPL violates Indigenous sovereignty and treaty rights as well as threatens crucial water resources for the Standing Rock Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes. This is all made possible by nationwide permit 12, a permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that allows pipelines to be constructed across unlimited water resources without adequate environmental review.

Please take action now and demand the Corps produce a new Environmental Impact Statement, one that accounts for the true cost of oil pipelines, and act to address public input on nationwide permit 12.

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Army Corps of Engineers

Brent

Cossette

USACE

Dear U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,

I am writing to demand an improved Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL). The September 2023 draft EIS includes an inadequate analysis of all of the environmental impacts of the pipeline, including threats to clean water, environmental justice, and especially climate. Furthermore, the permit that makes DAPL possible, nationwide permit 12, is long overdue for revision by this administration and the Corps must move to revise it now.

The U.S. Army Corps does not account for the full climate consequences or cumulative effects of DAPL in the draft EIS. The climate section of the DEIS inadequately accounts for upstream emissions as well as construction and operating emissions. The social cost of carbon analysis is oversimplified. A new DEIS is needed to provide a more substantive analysis of emissions from DAPL and their impact, now and into the future.

In failing to account for the full climate consequences of DAPL, the Army Corps is also failing to meet its obligations to the public over its revision of nationwide permit 12. Nationwide permit 12 is intended for projects with minimal adverse effects. Clearly, a nearly 1,200 mile oil pipeline does not qualify as having “minimal impact.” However, this permit treats each crossing of a waterbody as an individual project, allowing permits to be strung together to create pipelines over a thousand miles in length, like DAPL, without any rigorous assessment of the environmental impacts. In response to President Biden’s Executive Order 13990 on Tackling the Climate Crisis, the Corps announced a formal review of nationwide permit 12 in March of 2022. The public comment period closed in May of 2022. Despite overwhelming public comment in favor of significant restriction, the Corps has not yet moved to revise the permit. The climate crisis continues unabated as projects like DAPL are unconstrained by the unlimited permitting authorized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

I join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in calling for a new DEIS that more adequately addresses DAPL’s direct and indirect impacts, as required by NEPA, and I further call on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to revise nationwide permit 12 to ensure DAPL-like projects in the future adequately account for their true environmental costs.

Sincerely,

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