In U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe members claimed the 1,172-mile pipeline construction project could damage water used in sacred Lakota ceremonies.
Judge James Boasberg said that damage couldn’t occur until oil was moving through the pipeline. He ordered the developer, Dakota Access, to provide weekly reports about when oil could reach the Oahe reservoir, whose shores are partly homeland for the tribes.