Judge Orders Environmental Review Of Controversial Dakota Access Pipeline

[thorny_locust]

Not mundane or (I hope) pointless; but I don’t see where else to put it.

Judge Orders Environmental Review Of Controversial Dakota Access Pipeline

The judge found that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers made a “highly controversial” decision when it approved the federal permits for the project.

He ordered the agency to prepare a full environmental impact analysis, saying that it previously failed to answer major questions about the possibility of oil spills, among other concerns.

“The many commenters in this case pointed to serious gaps in crucial parts of the Corps’ analysis – to name a few, that the pipeline’s leak-detection system was unlikely to work, that it was not designed to catch slow spills, that the operator’s serious history of incidents had not been taken into account, that that the worst-case scenario used by the Corps was potentially only a fraction of what a realistic figure would be – and the Corps was not able to fill any of [the gaps in the analysis],” Boasberg stated.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

I’m glad to see this judge’s order, but doubtful that the might and money of the oil industry will be turned aside. Still, a glimmer of hope is better than no hope at all.

[Esprise_Me]

This is good. Thanks for sharing.

[PastTense]

Greenpeace must pay at least $660m over Dakota pipeline protests, says jury

In the end, more than half the jurors selected to hear the case had ties to the fossil fuel industry

Well surely they would be impartial!

[LurkMeister]

Considering that Trump has publicly stated that protesters at Tesla dealerships should be treated as “domestic terrorists”, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if we will start seeing cases of protesters being arrested and charged under variations of “public disruption”.

[PastTense]

Judge says Greenpeace must pay $345 million in pipeline lawsuit, cutting jury...

Greenpeace, for its part, intends to seek a new trial and will appeal if denied, saying, “we still believe that the remaining claims are legally unfounded.” The group has said the lawsuit is meant to chill free speech and the right to protest.

Quite true.