Tribe files formal request for hearing on Dakota Access Pipeline expansion

BISMARCK, N.D. — The Standing Rock Sioux have requested a hearing on a plan by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline to double the line's capacity, a move the tribe believes multiplies the risk of an oil spill.

Doubling the pipeline's capacity increases the "consequences as well as the likelihood" of an oil spill, Tribal Chairman Mike Faith said in a letter to state regulators.

Texas-based Energy Transfer announced in June it plans to expand the pipeline's capacity from more than 500,000 barrels per day to as much as 1.1 million barrels. The pipeline has been moving North Dakota oil through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois since June 2017.

The $3.8 billion pipeline is less than a half mile from the Standing Rock Reservation, beneath a Missouri River reservoir that is the tribe's water source.

Read more: https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/tribe-files-formal-request-for-hearing-on-dakota-access-pipeline/article_dbc300d0-66d8-546d-bcc9-fb25fdef5a49.html