Standing Rock Files New Lawsuit Seeking to Shut Down Dakota Access Pipeline

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has filed new litigation aimed at shutting down the Dakota Access Pipeline, reigniting a legal battle over the crucial conduit for Bakken oil. Tribal Chairman Steve Sitting Bear announced the lawsuit, stating the Army Corps of Engineers has moved forward without addressing the tribe's longstanding concerns.

“For ten years, Standing Rock’s concerns about this pipeline have not changed, and for ten years we have fought to protect our water, our Treaty rights, and our people,” Sitting Bear said in a press release. “Until this pipeline is shut down, we will continue to defend what generations before us protected for our children.”

The lawsuit challenges the federal easement granted earlier this year for the pipeline to cross the Missouri River upstream from the Lake Oahe reservoir. Chairman Sitting Bear stated, “We should not have to live with unanswered questions about the safety of our water.”

This new legal action was met with sharp criticism in an opinion piece published Monday, which called the lawsuit an "absurdity from an alternate version of reality." The piece argues that safety questions have been "answered empirically, immutably and definitively" by the pipeline's nearly decade-long record of safe operation since 2017.

The opinion column contrasts the tribe's statements with the pipeline's operational history, noting it has been delivering oil for 3,428 days without significant incident. It details that the pipeline was constructed using horizontal directional drilling, placing it between 95 and 115 feet beneath the riverbed in solid geologic formations, with 24-hour monitoring and emergency shut-off valves.

The piece references the comprehensive environmental impact statement ordered by a federal judge in 2020, an exhaustive multi-year review that culminated in a final statement late last year. The Army Corps of Engineers' subsequent granting of the easement is cited as the federal government's definitive action on the matter.

For Bakken operators and North Dakota's oil industry, the pipeline represents a vital piece of infrastructure. The renewed legal challenge introduces uncertainty, though the pipeline continues to operate. The litigation revisits arguments that opponents have maintained since the pipeline's construction, despite its established operational record.

The outcome of this lawsuit will be closely watched by energy companies and royalty owners across the Williston Basin, for whom the Dakota Access Pipeline remains a key route to market for Bakken crude.