In the statement, Jo-Ellen Darcy said that the decision was based on the need to explore alternative routes for the completion of the four-state, $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline project.
“Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it’s clear that there’s more work to do,” Darcy said. “The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing.”
The project is almost completed with the exception of the segment that would have gone underneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners has said all along that they would not consider an alternative route for the pipeline.
Neither the company nor the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, which has been responsible for most of the policing, had any comment on Sunday’s announcement. The Associated Press tried to get a comment from Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault II but didn’t get an immediate response.
But according to RT.com, Standing Rock Sioux chairman Dave Archambault II has issued a statement expressing his gratitude to the Obama administration for enabling the “historic decision” to re-reroute the pipeline.
“We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and to do the right thing,” he wrote
With this small victory for the Standing Rock Sioux, we must remember that the pipeline is still going to be constructed, so the fight is not over yet. All land on this planet is sacred and its care is entrusted to us. We need to also stand with the First Nation tribes and people of British Columbia, Canada in their fight against the Kinder Morgan Pipeline.