Dakota Access pipeline developer misses year-end deadline to plant trees

[turbinetree]

Source: The Guardian

Energy Transfer Partners only planted about 8,800 of the 20,000 trees required along the pipeline’s route in 2018

The developer of the Dakota Access oil pipeline missed a year-end deadline to plant thousands of trees along the pipeline corridor in North Dakota. The company said it was still complying with a settlement of allegations it violated state rules during construction.

Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), which built the $3.8bn pipeline that is now moving North Dakota oil to Illinois, is falling back on a provision of the September 2017 agreement that provides more time should the company run into problems. The company must provide 20,000 trees to county soil conservation districts along the pipeline’s 359-mile route in North Dakota.

The deal with North Dakota’s public service commission settled allegations that ETP removed too many trees in some areas and that it improperly handled a pipeline route change after discovering Native American artifacts.

The agreement required the company to replant trees and shrubs at a higher ratio in the disputed areas, along with an additional 20,000 trees along the entire route. ETP filed documents in October detailing efforts by a contractor to plant 141,000 trees and shrubs, but the PSC asked the company a month later to provide more documentation that it had complied with all settlement terms.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/01/dakota-access-pipeline-energy-transfer-partners-plant-trees-deadline

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But this fucking firm can hire thugs to water cannon and pepper spray people, fighting for their sacred burial grounds..................

[kimbutgar]

1. Maybe they are hoping that one of orange maggots agencies will cancel that agreement

[DRoseDARs]

2. The second half of the article is important, paints a different picture...

Company attorney Lawrence Bender recently submitted a report from contractor KC Harvey Environmental further detailing the replanting efforts in the disputed areas. He noted that in some areas where landowners refused trees, the trees were reallocated to other landowners “who had the space and desire to accommodate more plantings”.

Only about 8,800 of the required 20,000 additional trees were planted in 2018. There were several factors, including equipment and staffing issues, difficulties finding willing landowners and poor planting conditions, according to Perennial Environmental Services, which ETP hired to handle the work.

A soil conservation district in one of the seven counties refused to participate at all because it didn’t feel any of the 15 tree species identified in the settlement agreement were suitable. The agreement allows for the work to continue into 2019 if there are problems with the tree supply “or other market conditions”.

ETP can't force private landowners to take trees, nor can they force a district to do anything but tell them to go fuck themselves. That this pipeline is happening at all is grotesque, but criticize them for legitimate reasons. If their difficulties complying end up costing them further right to continue construction then good.

[OnlinePoker]

3. ...it didn't feel any of the 15 tree species identified in the settlement agreement were suitable

Shouldn't they be trees that are native to that county? If they're bringing in non-native species, I wouldn't want them either.

[DRoseDARs]

4. What that number tells me is either the contractor is very bad at the thing they were hired to do...

...and this is a third party contractor, hired by ETP to do the planting, or the district had no intention of participating in the pipeline's existence and were intentionally making it difficult. Either way, lol.