Political Pressure led to Permit Delays for Dakota Access Pipeline, Former Exec Testifies

Participants in the trial involving Energy Transfer and Greenpeace.  (Mary Steurer/North Dakota Monitor)

(By: Mary Steurer. North Dakota Monitor) – A former Energy Transfer executive  blamed political pressure for the federal government’s decision to delay a key permit for the Dakota Access Pipeline eight years ago.

Joey Mahmoud, who oversaw the pipeline’s development, told a Morton County jury that the energy company was on track to get authorization to build the pipeline under Lake Oahe until fall 2016, when he claims protests interfered.

Thousands flocked to rural North Dakota near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to support the tribe, which is opposed to the project. The tribe considers the Dakota Access Pipeline a pollution threat and an infringement on tribal sovereignty, and claims that the pipeline has disrupted numerous sacred sites. The pipeline crosses underneath Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River, less than a half-mile upstream from the reservation.

The Department of the Army on Sept. 9, 2016, announced in a joint statement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior that it would hold off on granting an  easement authorizing the pipeline to cross beneath the river, which is under U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction. The agencies said in light of concerns voiced by Standing Rock and other tribes, the Corps would take a deeper look at whether the pipeline complies with federal law