Army Corps blocks route of Dakota Access oil pipeline

[bobabode]

"CANNON BALL, N.D. — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it won’t grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota.
The decision is a victory for the several thousand camped near the construction site, who’ve said for months that the four-state, $3.8 billion project would threaten a water source and cultural sites.
The pipeline is largely complete except for the now-blocked segment underneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. According to a news release, Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said her decision was based on the need to “explore alternate routes” for the pipeline’s crossing." WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/authorities-to-conditionally-move-from-bridge-near-protest/2016/12/04/64d914fe-ba25-11e6-ae79-bec72d34f8c9_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_ap-dakota-522pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.1fb739af044e

Thanks Obama. Move the damn pipeline.

[MrPots]

This is just temporary. When the people leave it'll be back on again. Mark my words. Big money is king in this country.

[nailer]

"CANNON BALL, N.D. — U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it won’t grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota.
The decision is a victory for the several thousand camped near the construction site, who’ve said for months that the four-state, $3.8 billion project would threaten a water source and cultural sites.
The pipeline is largely complete except for the now-blocked segment underneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. According to a news release, Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy said her decision was based on the need to “explore alternate routes” for the pipeline’s crossing." WaPo
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/authorities-to-conditionally-move-from-bridge-near-protest/2016/12/04/64d914fe-ba25-11e6-ae79-bec72d34f8c9_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_ap-dakota-522pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.1fb739af044e

Thanks Obama. Move the damn pipeline.

"Explore alternate routes" are the words of a weasel. :cool:

[catswiththum]

What bothers me is this is being reconsidered after most of the pipeline has been completed.

Were there no zoning/county-city council/review hearings for the public and local officials to voice their concerns and alternate construction routes to be explored?

If not, why not? If so, why was this allowed to progress to where a last minute scramble for ideas is necessary?

[Oerets]

Smart move, kick the ball down the road to the new guy to handle. Let him be the one calling in the troops!



Barney

[Tom Joad]

What bothers me is this is being reconsidered after most of the pipeline has been completed.

Were there no zoning/county-city council/review hearings for the public and local officials to voice their concerns and alternate construction routes to be explored?

If not, why not? If so, why was this allowed to progress to where a last minute scramble for ideas is necessary?

The way it always worked when I was working for The Florida DOT is that you had a whole process that you had to go though. You had to have a public hearing, sometimes a series of public hearings, you had to advertise it. You had to send letters to all of the adjacent property owners notifying them, then you had to give a dog and pony show at the hearing showing exactly what you were proposing and you had to take comments from the public and address all of those comments. It was quite a process.

However, nine times out of ten the only people that show up from the public are a handful of the "usual suspects" with the usual crackpot ideas. I mean seriously, who else the fuck reads those public notices in the newspaper other than a few crackpots? :rolleyes:

A lot of the time we'd end up with half a dozen consultants and another half a dozen FDOT employees giving a fancy presentation to maybe 4-5 people from the public. But the reality was most of the time this was all for show. Usually the project we were proposing was one that State Senator so and so had promised to push through for Developer X so that he could make a shitload of money off of his property. All this in return for Developer X helping fund State Senator so and so's re-election. We were just plebes that were given our marching orders to "make it happen".

So you'd go through all this hoopla and then proceed with construction.

Then, as soon as those bulldozers got out there everybody and his dog would show up screaming their tits off and writing letters to their congressman and the governor and whomever about how we were trying to run this project through without letting anyone know what was going on and the whole merry-go-round would start over. It was a real pain in the ass.

But during the whole time I worked their I vowed that once I retired I would become one of those pains in the ass. :D

So that being said, I hope these protesters keep the pressure up until this whole pipeline idea has to be scraped and all the millions of bucks that these corporate bastards have already invested ends up being wasted.

Stick it to the man!:D

[Rajoo]

Except for the section to be burrowed under the river, the rest of the pipeline has already been built, and Trump happens to be an investor in this pipeline. Would be interesting to see how he will deal with it.

[donquixote99]

Maybe he'll go for a beautiful bridge to carry the pipeline over the river.

Which would make leaks a lot easier to handle, seems to me.

[Tom Joad]

Except for the section to be burrowed under the river, the rest of the pipeline has already been built, and Trump happens to be an investor in this pipeline. Would be interesting to see how he will deal with it.

Looks like he's got maybe 150K invested.

That might be a lot for an ordinary schmuck but it's couch change for Trump.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-dakota-access-pipeline-investment_us_5841d8f9e4b09e21702e8f58

In May 2015, according to campaign disclosure reports, Trump owned between $500,000 and $1 million worth of shares of Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline’s lead developer, but had less than $50,000 invested when he sold off the remainder of his shares this summer, according to The Washington Post.

As of last May, Trump had at least $100,000 invested in Phillips 66, which owns a quarter of the oil line, according to the AP.

Still he's on record as being in favor of the pipeline, so my guess is he'll send in someone like Colonel John Chivington to deal with them Injuns. ;)

[merrylander]

What bothers me is this is being reconsidered after most of the pipeline has been completed.

Were there no zoning/county-city council/review hearings for the public and local officials to voice their concerns and alternate construction routes to be explored?

If not, why not? If so, why was this allowed to progress to where a last minute scramble for ideas is necessary?
There were hearings and the wealthy folks south of Bismark objected that the route was too close to their lands so they moved it south despite complaints from the native peoples.

[Tom Joad]

There were hearings and the wealthy folks south of Bismark objected that the route was too close to their lands so they moved it south despite complaints from the native peoples.

Now that I can believe.

We had our share of NIBYS (Not In My Backyard) when I worked for FDOT.

[finnbow]

Here's another take on the pipeline controversy. It seems that the Federal government did go above and beyond the requirements of the law in considering the tribe's concerns. A worthy read.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-false-victory-at-standing-rock/2016/12/06/32c318b6-bb3d-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html