Law enforcement officials are investigating two separate incidents of vandalism in Iowa and South Dakota involving holes torched in sections of the highly contentious Dakota Access Pipeline.
A small hole was burned into the pipe last week at an unguarded valve site in South Dakota, Lincoln County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Chad Brown told reporters Tuesday. Nobody has been arrested or punished for the sabotage effort.
Some analysts argue the vandals would have been instantly incinerated had oil been coursing through the line at the time of the torching.
“If they had tried to utilize a torch to burn through the sidewall, they would have likely ignited the oil inside and been killed instantly,” McCown told reporters, adding that those responsible should face “severe criminal penalties.”
Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the so-called DAPL, said in a status report Monday that oil will begin flowing this week despite the “physical attacks along the pipeline that pose threats to life, physical safety, and the environment.”
Supporters of the DAPL, meanwhile, blasted the “eco-terrorists” for risking the lives of people in the surrounding community, not to mention potentially creating a sizable ecological disaster.
“Unable to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline through politics or in the courts, eco-terrorists have now turned to violent and lawless activities in an unfortunate and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to thwart this lawful project,” Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, told reporters.
The DAPL, which will shuttle 500,000 barrels of Bakken oil from North Dakota to Illinois, could have come under attack at some other section of the project. The project is nearly 1,200 miles long.
Environmental activist groups with a track record of eco-terrorism have denied responsibility.
Jay O’Hara, a spokesman with Climate Disobedience Center, told reporters Tuesday that the group wasn’t involved in any attacks against the pipeline. His group tried to shutdown valves on oil pipelines in North Dakota earlier this year to show support for the anti-DAPL movement.
O’Hara refused to condemn the vandalism.
“The reality is these pipeline companies are trying to burn a big [expletive] hole in the planet.”
The situation in South Dakota is similar in some respects to the incident in Oskaloosa, Iowa, where the Mahaska County sheriff said an activist used a blowtorch to blast a hole in a relief check valve earlier this month.
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