A federal judge has allowed Native American tribes to join another lawsuit challenging the Dakota Access pipeline as a threat to historic sites and “environmental justice,” but he refused to allow the new parties to name President Donald Trump as a defendant in the case.
U.S. District Justice James Boasberg recently ordered that the Army Corps of Engineers needs to again review portions of its environmental and cultural assessment leading up to the approval of completion of the Dakota Access pipeline, ordered by Trump shortly after he took office in January.
“A group of Native Americans who asked to join a lawsuit filed by their tribes wanted to add Trump because his administration earlier this year pushed through completion of the long-stalled pipeline,” the Associated Press reported.
Boasberg said in his order that the Army Corps of Engineers building DAPL “failed to consider the impacts of any oil spills on “fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice.”
Spearheaded by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and joined by other tribes, previous lawsuits have claimed the pipeline, which is currently operating without any issues, would threaten cultural and historical sites and could leak oil into the waters of Lake Oahe, even if the pipeline runs underground below the water source.
“The judge wrote that the Army Corps of Engineers “did not adequately consider the impacts of an oil spill on fishing rights, hunting rights, or environmental justice, or to which the pipeline’s effects are likely to be highly controversial,” the Sierra Club reported.
“While the judge did not rule whether pipeline operations must be shut off, there is judicial precedent for courts making such an order,” the Sierra Club reported.
In response, Sierra Club Our Wild America Director Lena Moffitt released the following statement:
Today’s ruling is a vindication for the Standing Rock Sioux whose only demands are that they be afforded the same rights to clean water and a protected home as millions of Americans across the country,” Sierra Club Our Wild America Director Lena Moffitt said in a statement. “As the Tribe, Water Protectors, and people across the country have declared for months, the slapdash decision approving this pipeline not only endangered the home, history, and heritage of the Standing Rock Sioux, it was illegal.
“Energy Transfer must immediately turn off this dirty and dangerous pipeline while the Army Corps conducts a thorough environmental review,” Mofitt said.
“Oil begins flowing commercially on June 1, according to a statement …. from Energy Transfer Partners,” owners of the pipeline, the Daily Caller reported.