Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners LP, the same firm in the midst of a merger with Tulsa’s Williams Companies, has successfully won agreement with every landowner along its $3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline in the Dakotas. But the pipeline has picked up opposition from movie star Leonardo DiCaprio who said he is “standing with the Great Sioux Nation to protect their water and lands.”
It leaves a little less than 4 percent of the total affected property owners who have not made agreements with Dakota Access LLC, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners. The pipeline, also known as the Bakken pipeline will stretch 1,168 miles, running from the North Dakota Bakken region through South Dakota and Iowa and Illinois. It will have a capacity to carry 570,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
But the Sioux Nation is fighting it because it will cross the Missouri River, one of the largest water resources in the U.S. DiCaprio, also an environmental activist and clean energy advocate is urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop the construction of the pipeline.
a petition drive is underway and has been signed by nearly 46,000 supporters, just short of 4,000 to reach a goal of 50,000 signatures.