Federal Government Seeks $28M Award to North Dakota for Pipeline Protest Costs

Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images via the North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) -The U.S. Department of Justice is appealing a federal judge’s decision to award North Dakota $28 million in damages for the executive branch’s response to the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

The case now heads to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals for review.

Thousands traveled to south-central North Dakota to protest the construction of the oil pipeline underneath the Missouri River’s Lake Oahe reservoir alongside the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in 2016 and 2017. The tribe says the pipeline poses serious threats to the environment, intrudes upon Native territory and has desecrated sacred cultural sites.

The main demonstration camp was located on land managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The state filed suit in 2019 against the federal government, arguing that the Corps unlawfully allowed, and at some times encouraged, protesters to use its land at the state’s expense.