WASHINGTON – Weeks after U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and his colleagues sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting the administration halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline until affected tribes are consulted and a full environmental review is conducted, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has announced that such a review will indeed need to be completed prior to any additional work.

“In order to protect the drinking water sources for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and to protect public health in the region, I voiced my solidarity with those asking the federal government to follow its own procedures before allowing such an enormous threat to the drinking water of the Native American tribe. I am pleased to see the Army Corps of Engineers has listened to lawmakers and the very people who would be impacted by a potential breach or spill from the proposed pipeline,” said Senator Cardin, a senior member of the Environment and Public Works Committee. “After a thorough environmental review, officials should seek an alternate route for the Dakota Access Pipeline. A risk too great for the people of Bismarck, N.D., and their drinking water certainly should be too great a risk for the nearby people of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.”

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