CEO says controversial Dakota Access pipeline is 60 percent finished

Protesters against the Dakota Access pipeline gather outside the White House on Tuesday.
(Image credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

In a memo to employees, Energy Transfer Partners chief executive Kelcy Warren vowed to finish building the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, which the Standing Rock Sioux tribe says will disturb sacred ground in North Dakota and adversely affect drinking water for the tribe and those further downstream.

The $3.8 billion project stretches across 1,172 miles and through four states. There is opposition from the Standing Rock Sioux and several other groups, with many protesting near the tribe's reservation and calling for an end to the construction. But Warren disagrees, The Associated Press reports, writing on Tuesday that the project is nearly 60 percent finished and that "concerns about the pipeline's impact on the local water supply are unfounded." He also said the company has "designed the state-of-the-art Dakota Access pipeline as a safer and more efficient method of transporting crude oil than the alternatives being used today," and will work to "communicate with the government and media more clearly in the days to come."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.