The $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline can continue to operate while the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers completes its environmental review of the project, likely to take until March 2022, but the question of a shutdown remains on the table.
At an April 9 hearing, a U.S. Justice Dept. attorney told Brian Boasberg, U.S. district court judge in Washington, D.C. that the Corps doesn't plan to shut down the 1,172-mile pipeline, which starts in North Dakota and ends in southern Illinois.