OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – The Army’s refusal to grant a permit for the Dakota Access oil pipeline to cross beneath the Missouri River has focused more attention on alternative routes, but several other options already have been considered and rejected as being more risky and expensive.
Some questions and answers about the Dakota Access pipeline and its route:
WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THE PIPELINE?
Nearly all of the 1,172-mile, $3.8 billion pipeline has been built by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners except for a mile-long section across federal land and beneath Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir. But the project is in limbo because the Army suggested Sunday that it now needs a more detailed environmental review than it received initially.
The pipeline is designed to carry oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa to a shipping point in Patoka, Illinois. State regulators in all four states approved the route through their territory. The proposed route skirts the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation that straddles the North Dakota-South Dakota border, and the tribe objects to the project, saying it could threaten drinking water and destroy sacred sites.