The Oglala Sioux tribe has withdrawn as a “cooperating agency” with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in developing a stricter court-ordered environmental impact statement for an easement to allow the $3.8-billion Dakota Access oil pipeline to cross water bodies near tribal lands. Three tribal chiefs called the recently released EIS draft “fatally flawed and irredeemable” in a letter to Acting Assistant Army Secretary Jaime Pinkham.
The chiefs want the Corps to terminate consultant ERM North America, which was hired to write the EIS, citing an alleged conflict of interest based on previous firm statements and court filings against the tribes’ position.