Oil Is Flowing Through the Dakota Access Pipeline

After months of protests, more than 750 arrests, and high-profile interventions by both the Obama and Trump administrations, the first part of the battle over the Dakota Access pipeline has ended.

Oil is now flowing through the pipeline—and, crucially, beneath Lake Oahe in North Dakota, which is sacred to local Lakota and Dakota people and their only source of water.

But the battle over the pipeline is not over yet. A legal challenge to the pipeline—and to President Donald Trump’s rapid approval of it in January—is awaiting summary judgement in federal court in the District of Columbia.

The pipeline“more direct, cost-effective, safer and more environmentally responsible … than other modes of [crude-oil] transportation, including rail or truck.”