An agency of the US government has said it will allow the $3.8bn Dakota Access oil pipeline to cross the Missouri River close to the site of indigenous American community - a move previously blocked after huge protests.
In December, the Army Corps of Engineers said it had turned down permission for the North Dakota Access Pipeline to pass under Lake Oahe, a reservoir formed by a dam on the Missouri River.
The then Assistant Army Secretary for Civil Works, Jo-Ellen Darcy, declined to issue permission for the crossing, saying a broader environmental study was warranted given the Standing Rock Sioux’s opposition.
The Corps launched a study of the crossing on January 18, just two days before Barack Obama left office, that could have taken up to two years to complete. However, the company building the 1,200-mile pipeline that will transfer oil from the Dakotas to a shipping point in Illinois, Energy Transfer Partners, said the decision was politically motivated.
President Donald Trump signed an executive action on January 24, telling the Corps to quickly reconsider Ms Darcy’s decision. He also made it easier for a separate company, TransCanada, to push ahead with another project, the Keystone XL pipeline.
