A Bakken protest in June at the state capitol.
A spokesman for the group fighting to block the building of the Bakken oil pipeline says the granting of permits by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to the company that’s proposed the pipeline won’t impact their plans for continued protest.
The Corps has approve permits for Dakota Access to cross some 60 waterways, one of the final approvals the company faced.
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement state policy director Adam Mason says,”Members of Iowa CCI weren’t completely surprised by this after the Iowa Utilities Board and the Iowa DNR kind of rubber-stamped the proposal, it was kind of what we were expecting from the Army Corps as well. However, folks are vowing tonight on.”
Mason says the path is not yet all clear for the construction of the pipeline. “You know there are landowners who are facing eminent domain who are not giving up,” Mason says, “and there’s going to be more resistance organized in the form of protest rallies, and potentially civil disobedience.” Mason says ICCI expects more people to join them as they continue trying to block the pipeline construction.
“Hopefully what we’ll see moving forward is that as our core group of the thousands Iowans who have been in engaged in resisting this project so far — we know that more and more Iowans are opposed to this as they learn more. I think that we are hopeful as the folks who are committed continue to ratchet up the tension and ratchet up the direct action , that we’ll see more folks from Iowa and from outside Iowa really come to Iowa to get involved in this,” according to Mason.
The Iowa Utilities Board gave Dakota Acess approval to begin working on the pipeline while they waited for the final approval from the Corps. The pipeline will cut across 18 Iowa counties.