While I’ve seen quite a bit of coverage of the Dakota Access pipeline project, none of the reports provided any specifics about the pipeline.

So I decided to satisfy my curiosity with a little research.

After sifting through the multitudes of non-substantive news articles and even more thinkpieces, I eventually landed on some primary materials. Along the way I also found out the alternatives that were considered and discarded.

What became clear is that this pipeline and others like it are needed as long as crude oil production continues. The other transport options, truck and rail, simple do not have the capacity to carry the amount of crude oil being produced. Oil transport has been causing significant delays in the shipment of grain and other foodstuffs for several years.

Without a major economic shift away from fossil fuels or the elination of domestic oil production, pipelines like this will be here to stay.

The pipeline, known as DAPL, is a way to transport at least 570,000 barrels of crude oil per day from the Bakken and Three Forks oil fields in North Dakota to an oil storage facility near Patoka, Illinois.1

In North Dakota, DAPL runs from the oil-rich northwestern corner of the state and exits from the middle of the state’s southern border into South Dakota.

During the planning stage, the Army Corp of Engineers evaluated where DAPL could cross the Missouri River. Two locations were evaluated. One crossed upstream of North Dakota’s capital, Bismarck, and was considered an alternative route.2

The second route was the crossing at Lake Oahe, south of Bismarck but upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. This crossing was preferred because it would make the pipeline:

The estimated cost would be also be $22.5 million less than the North Bismarck crossing.

During the environmental assessment, the ACoE also looked at the need for a pipeline as compared to other forms of oil transport. As there is no existing pipeline, there was no option expand capacity. Both trucking and rail transport were also considered.

Trucking was ruled out for several reasons.

— Environmental Assessment, Dakota Access Pipeline Project, July 2016, §2.1.2

Railroad transport was also found to not be a viable option for a multitude of reasons.

— Environmental Assessment, Dakota Access Pipeline Project, July 2016, §2.1.3

The report goes onto cite exactly how much backlog currently exists in the US rail system.

— Environmental Assessment, Dakota Access Pipeline Project, July 2016, §2.1.3

The ACoE also considered the option of not taking any action at all.

— Environmental Assessment, Dakota Access Pipeline Project, July 2016, §2.2

Based on these factors, the alternative route north of Bismarck was discarded in favor of the Lake Oahe crossing.