Tribe says Corps' pipeline findings preordained

BISMARCK, N.D. -- The Native American tribe leading the fight against the Dakota Access oil pipeline said Thursday a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers document shows the agency concluded the pipeline won't unfairly affect tribes before it consulted them.

Standing Rock Sioux officials say the document, which they shared with The Associated Press, bolsters the tribe's claim the Corps disregarded a federal judge's order to seriously review the pipeline's potential impact on the Standing Rock Sioux and three other Dakotas-based tribes and to not treat the study as a "bureaucratic formality."

"This was a rigged process intended to justify a dangerous and illegal pipeline," Standing Rock Chairman Mike Faith said in a statement to the AP.

The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday. The Corps has said previously the four tribes suing to shut down the pipeline delivering North Dakota oil to a shipping point in Illinois have been difficult to work with. And the agency did meet with the tribes before it presented its study findings to U.S. District Judge James Boasberg.

The tribes fear the pipeline could spill oil into the Missouri River and pollute water they rely on for drinking, fishing and religious purposes. Boasberg said the Corps "largely complied" with environmental law when permitting the pipeline, but he also ordered it to further study the pipeline's impact on the tribes.

Boasberg later said he "expects the Corps not to treat (this) as an exercise in filling out the proper paperwork" after the fact, though he also said he thought there was a "serious possibility" the agency would be able to substantiate its prior conclusions.

The Corps in August 2018 announced it had completed the work and it confirmed the agency's earlier determination the pipeline does not pose a higher risk of adversely affecting minorities. The four tribes have since challenged the conclusion, and the Corps in early February turned over to the tribes the documents it used to make its decision. The records are shielded from the public because some contain pipeline information perhaps useful to vandals or terrorists.