A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must pay $28 million to the state of North Dakota to cover damages caused by protesters who gathered by the thousands in 2016 and 2017 to object to the since-completed Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project. The pipeline currently carries more than a half a million gallons of crude oil a day across four states. 

U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor on April 23 found that the Corps “abandoned the rule of law” when it didn’t enforce its own procedures by either forcing them to leave or requiring protesters to get a special use permit to use federally owned land for their encampment. Traynor determined that the Corps is at fault for negligence, public nuisance and civil trespass. 

In his ruling, Traynor said the Corps intentionally avoided its duty to require a mandated special use permit and falsely announced that a permit had been granted, which prevented law enforcement from removing the protestors. 

“Essentially, the Corps invited and encouraged the DAPL protestors and their violent and tumultuous behavior on and off Corps-managed land, and North Dakota had to clean up the mess,” Traynor wrote.

“For months, North Dakota dealt with protest activity that originated from Corps-managed land, spread to other areas of North Dakota, and endangered the health and safety of North Dakota, its citizens, its property and its law enforcement officers who kept the peace at the protests,” he added.  

Protestors camped near the state’s Standing Rock Reservation to try to stop the pipeline’s construction. The project was not located on the lands of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe but ran underneath Lake Oahe, the reservations source for drinking water, which was seen as polluting and desecrating Native American land. 

Traynor called the damage to state and private property caused by the protest “unfathomable … human excrement pits, shoddily constructed structures used for housing, makeshift roadways, burnt public vehicles and violent clashes with law enforcement were common throughout the events of this case.”

North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong (R) applauded the ruling as a “major win for North Dakota and the rule of law.” 

In its complaint against the Corps, filed in 2019, the state sought $38-million to cover damages caused by the encampment that it estimates reached between 5,500 and 8,000 people at its peak. 

Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said in a news release that the federal government reimbursed the state $10 million in 2017 to pay for some of the damages caused by the protest. In addition, Dallas-based oil and gas company and pipeline developer and operator Energy Transfer provided $15 million that same year to the state to cover protest-related costs. 

In a separate case in March, a North Dakota jury decided that the environmental nonprofit Greenpeace must pay $660 million in damages to Energy Transfer as Greenpeace took part in a publicity campaign that delayed the pipeline and increased the cost by $300 million. Greenpeace plans to appeal the verdict. 

A Corps spokesperson declined to comment on the judgment against it, saying that the Corps does not comment on litigation. The U.S. Dept. of Justice, which represented the Corps in the case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it will appeal the decision.