Judge OKs North Dakota request to intervene in Dakota Access pipeline lawsuit

A federal judge this week approved the state of North Dakota’s request to intervene as a co-defendant in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The lawsuit, filed in October, accuses the Army Corps of unlawfully allowing the Dakota Access Pipeline to operate without an easement, sufficient environmental study or robust emergency spill response plans, among other alleged violations. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ultimately wants a federal judge to order that the pipeline be shut down.

North Dakota argued in court filings last month that closing the pipeline, also known as DAPL, would cause the state government to lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, jeopardize thousands of jobs and hamper regional supply chains. North Dakota also claimed that a federal court order draining DAPL would violate the state’s right to regulate its own land and resources.

North Dakota seeks to intervene in latest Dakota Access Pipeline lawsuit

The Army Corps of Engineers has regulatory jurisdiction over a part of the pipeline that passes below the Missouri River directly upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation. 

Standing Rock opposes the pipeline over concerns that it infringes upon the tribe’s sovereignty, has disrupted sacred cultural sites and threatens to pollute the tribe’s water supply.

Energy Transfer, the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline, has not requested to intervene in the suit.

The case is before U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who oversaw the tribe’s 2016 lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers against the pipeline.

North Dakota in 2021 filed a motion to join that lawsuit as well, but Boasberg denied the request as the case was in the process of wrapping up.

In a separate lawsuit filed in federal court in 2019, North Dakota seeks $38 million from the United States government for costs the state says it incurred policing the Dakota Access Pipeline protests due to the alleged negligence of the Army Corps of Engineers. The suit went to trial in February.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, in operation since 2017, carries crude oil from northwest North Dakota to Illinois. Its pathway includes unceded land recognized as belonging to the Sioux Nation under an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government.