North Dakota’s newly-elected Republican governor warned Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) activists Tuesday to vacate makeshift campsites before spring rains create potentially deadly flooding.
Protesters and members of Standing Rock Sioux have camped out at sites near the controversial $3.8 billion pipeline. They believe the DAPL’s construction would trample on tribal lands and could potentially poison waterways, including rivers such as the Missouri River and Lake Oahe.
“The main protest camp is located directly in the floodplain of the Cannonball-Missouri River confluence. Given the snowfall we’re having this winter and historic data on the Cannonball River, that camp will likely flood in early March,” Gov. Doug Burgum said in his State of the State address Tuesday. The Republican governor supports the completion of the project.
Burgum, who took office last month, also said that if the sites are not cleared before March, then rainfall and snow melt could “endanger the lives of the protesters and of our first responders.”
Snowstorms have pounded those hunkered down near the pipeline route, which was rejected by the Army Corp of Engineers in early December. Two massive blizzards dumped more than a foot of snow on the protesters’ encampment.
Law enforcement officials believe as few as 500 occupants remain at the camp — which is down from the 10,000 anti-DAPL activists in the area at the height of the protests. Activists and American Indians scattered earlier this month after a blizzard pelted their campsites.
Environmentalists are worried DAPL could come online after President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office on Jan. 20.
The fate of the nearly 1,200-mile-long line, which is expected to bring nearly 500,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil per day from western North Dakota to southern Illinois, will likely fall into the hands of Trump.
“I will tell you, when I get to office, if it’s not solved, I’ll have it solved very quickly,” Trump, who once invested $1 million into the project, told reporters earlier this month.
The completed project will create up to 12,000 construction jobs and provide millions in state and local revenue during the construction phase, and an estimated $129 million annually in property and income taxes, according to the Army Corps.
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