North Dakota Working to Settle in Dispute Over Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Costs

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images via the North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – The state of North Dakota and the U.S. government have entered settlement negotiations in a yearslong lawsuit over Dakota Access Pipeline protest costs. The development comes after the executive branch indicated it would appeal a $28 million dollar judgment handed down by a federal trial court this spring.

Attorney General Drew Wrigley on Friday confirmed that the state and federal government have been in talks about a potential settlement for weeks. He said he could not share further details, but that he appreciates that both sides are open to having a dialogue.

South-central North Dakota in 2016 became the site of a major protest against construction of the oil pipeline, which crosses underneath the Missouri River’s Lake Oahe reservoir just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The tribe started the demonstrations out of concerns that the pipeline poses an environmental threat, intrudes upon unceded Sioux Nation territory and has desecrated sacred cultural sites.

The main protest camp was located on federal land managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The state filed suit in 2019 against the federal government, arguing that the Corps had directly caused the demonstrations to grow in size and intensity by allowing protesters to use its land.