There are a number of misconceptions and myths about the Dakota Access Pipeline Project. Unfortunately, a number of media outlets, bloggers, opinion writers, and social media accounts have spread a number of similar misconceptions. Here are the facts.
- The Dakota Access is one of the most technologically advanced and safest pipelines ever built. It is entirely underground and surpasses federal safety requirements.
- The pipeline does not encroach or cross any land owned by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
- The Dakota Access Pipeline is entirely underground and will cross under Lake Oahe at a minimum depth of 95 feet below the riverbed.
- The Dakota Access Pipeline does not endanger water; the Standing Rock Sioux water inlet by early 2017 will be moved to a location more than 70 miles away from the pipeline.
- The majority of protesters are not there to protect water, as they claim, but are actually extremists opposed to any and all use of fossil fuels.
Notably, by contrast, rail cars transporting crude oil from wells owned by Native American Tribes currently cross the Standing Rock Sioux reservation without objection.
Lake Oahe, the final portion of the pipeline’s path to be constructed is also home to eight pipelines.
Many of the protesters on-site are not Standing Rock Sioux, but outsiders with a different more extremist agenda that is simply opposed to the use of all fossil fuels. They have provoked multiple dangerous and criminal confrontations with law enforcement, and caused significant damage to property, which have led local agencies to ask for extra federal help.
As Terry Etam wrote in an earlier BOE Report column, North Dakota pipeline protestors are creating environmental and economic problems for the original protesting band.
Learn more about the Dakota Access Pipeline here