Bismarck, ND – A federal judge found on Wednesday the state of North Dakota with the right to almost $ 28 million for responding to the protests of Dakota Access Oil Wypeline in 2016 and 2017, a victory for the State in its effort of several years to recover the costs of the federal government.
The State filed the lawsuit in 2019, Looking for $ 38 million to monitor protests. Sometimes chaotic demonstrations attracted international attention for the opposition of the Sioux Standing Rock tribe to the Missouri River of the river pipe above the tribe’s reserve. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline, for fear of oil spill contaminating its water supply.
A test was developed For several weeks in early 2024 in the Federal Court in Bismarck, the state capital. The people who testified included the former governors of North Doug Burgum, who assumed the position In December 2016 during the height of the protests, and Jack Dalrymple, whose administration responded to the Protests of the first months.
The United States District Judge, Daniel Traynor, found the US Army Engineers. UU. Responsible before the State over all claims and for more than $ 27.8 million in damages.
The judge wrote: “The final result: the United States had a mandatory procedure, that procedure did not follow, and the damage occurred to the North Dakota state. The law allows the reimbursement of this damage. More than that, the rule of law requires that this court hold the United States to remember its role in the broader image of guaranteeing peace, not chaos.”
Thousands of people camped and demonstrated in the pipe near the crossing for months. Hundreds of arrests It turned out. Sometimes, violent clashes were produced between protesters and law agents. The agents of the law of the entire State and the region responded to the protests.
“It was a violent and illegal protest. And ‘protest’ is a gentle word,” said North Dakota’s lawyer Drew Wrigley last year before trial.
The protest camps were Authorized in February 2017. A state lawyer said the protests ended in a response of more than seven months involving 178 agencies, which resulted in 761 arrests and required four days of cleaning the camp to eliminate millions of garbage pounds.
“Although the illegal protest was flourishing before everyone’s eyes and damage and dangers were so obvious, the federal government refused to offer assistance and enforce legal obligations on people who were camping,” Wrigley said.
Government lawyers said at the trial that the officials of the US Army Engineers. The government asked the judge to find a lack of legal jurisdiction for state claims, that the State has not demonstrated its claims and has no right to damage.
The pipe has been Oil transport since June 2017. Many state government officials and industry leaders support the pipe as a crucial infrastructure in the country’s producing state number 3 in the country. The pipe has approximately 5% of the daily production of the United States.
In 2017, The Pipeline Company, Energy Transfer, donated $ 15 million To help cover response costs. That same year, the United States Department of Justice gave a $ 10 million subsidy to the State to reimburse the answer. It was not immediately clear how that amount affected the damage.
Then President Donald Trump denied a 2017 state application so that the federal government covers the costs through a disaster statement.
The pipe is working while a court ordered An environmental review of the river crossing is carried out.
A recently North Dakota jury found responsible Greenpeace by defamation and others Claims filed by The pipe builder in connection With protest activities, with damage exceeding $ 660 million for three Greenpeace organizations.
