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Page 6A TV TIME East Oregonian Wednesday, November 30, 2016 Pipeline protest arrests strain North Dakota’s court system BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The hundreds of arrests during the months of protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota have created an unprecedented burden for the state’s court system, which faces huge cost overruns and doesn’t have enough judges, lawyers and clerks to handle the workload. Police have made nearly 575 arrests since August during clashes at the protesters’ main camp along the pipeline route in southern North Dakota and at protests in and around the state capital, Bismarck, about 50 miles to the north. That’s far more arrests than these areas typically deal with and it could lead to delays in bringing cases to trial, experts say. “We don’t have suffi cient judges to get all of those cases heard in a timely fashion,” said Sally Holewa, North Dakota’s state court administrator. The state judicial system will ask the Legislature next year for an additional $1.5 million to cover protest-re- lated costs. That amounts to about 1 ½ percent of its current two-year budget. “This is a fi rst,” Holewa said. “The judicial branch has never had to ask for a defi ciency appropriation in its history,” which dates back more than a century. The protest-related cases also are putting a pinch on the organization that provides public defenders in North Dakota. The Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents might seek an additional $670,000 from the Legisla- ture, which amounts to about 3 ½ percent of its current two-year budget, according to its executive director, H. Jean Delaney. “It is highly unusual,” Delaney said. “We did make a Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives to a press confer- ence at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa Tuesday. Canada PM approves controversial pipeline to Pacifi c Coast TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday approved one controversial pipeline from the Alberta oil sands to the Pacifi c Coast, but rejected another. He approved Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline to the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, British Columbia , but rejected Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, B.C. These are the fi rst major pipeline decisions for Trudeau, whose Liberal government is trying to balance the oil industry’s desire to tap new markets in Asia with environmentalists’ concerns. “The project will triple our capacity to get Canadian energy resources to interna- tional markets beyond the United States,” Trudeau said at an Ottawa news confer- ence. “We took this decision today because we believe it is in the best interests of Canada.” Alberta, which has the world’s third largest oil reserves, needs infrastructure in place to export its growing oil sands production. Approving Trans Mountain helps diversify Canada’s oil exports. Ninety-seven percent of Canadian oil exports now go to the U.S. “We are getting a chance to sell to China and other new markets at better prices,” Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said. “And we’re getting a chance to reduce our dependence on one market and therefore be more economically independent.” Houston-based Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to Vancouver Harbour in Burnaby will increase the capacity of an existing pipe- line from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day. But there remains oppo- sition to the Trans Mountain pipeline in British Columbia, the birthplace of the Greenpeace environmental movement. There is no guar- antee it will get built despite Trudeau’s approval as it faces strong opposition from envi- ronmentalists and indigenous leaders. Vancouver, B.C. Mayor Gregor Robertson said he was profoundly disappointed by Trudeau’s decision and said it would bring seven times the number of oil tankers to Vancouver. Interim federal opposition Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said she supports the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, but doubts it will be built because of the opposition. Trudeau rejected the Northern Gateway project to northwest British Columbia which passes through the Great Bear Rainforest. Northern Gateway would have transported 525,000 barrels of oil a day from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacifi c to deliver oil to Asia, mainly energy-hungry China. About 220 large oil tankers a year would have visited the Pacifi c coast town of Kitimat. The fear of oil spills is especially acute in the pristine corner of northwest British Columbia, with its snowcapped moun- tains and deep ocean inlets. Canadians living there still remember the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off an Alaska export hub. 1989. Trudeau also promised to introduce legislation for a moratorium on crude oil tanker shipping on B.C.’s north coast. “The Great Bear Rain- forest is no place for a pipeline and the Douglas Channel is no place for oil tanker traffi c,” Trudeau said. Northern Gateway was approved by the previous Conservative government but a federal appeals court blocked it, ruling that aborig- inal communities had not been adequately consulted. That put the decision on Northern Gateway in Trudeau’s hands. Trudeau also approved a lesser known Enbridge pipeline replacement called Line 3 that will carry oil from Alberta to the U.S. Midwest. That pipeline will carry oil from Alberta, through northern Minnesota to Supe- rior, Wisconsin. The Line 3 project would double the existing pipeline’s volume to 760,000 barrels a day. Notley said Trans Moun- tain and Line 3 are critical to the oil-rich province’s economic future. The importance of Trudeau’s decisions on pipelines only grew after the Obama administration turned down TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline that would have taken Alberta oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Pres- ident-elect Donald Trump has expressed support for Keystone XL. Trudeau noted that more oil would end up being transported by rail if more pipelines are not built. There have been a number of accidents involving oil trains during the past decade. AP Photo/James MacPherson, File In this Nov. 26 fi le photo, organizers of protests against construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline speak at a news conference near Cannon Ball, N.D. (similar) request once before, during the oil boom, in the 2013-15 biennium. It’s kind of interesting — it was kind of a similar situation, where court cases really grew.” The commission has accepted more than 225 protest-related cases. They are being handled by 65 defense attorneys, and the commission is seeking more. South Central District Court, where the cases are being handled, didn’t immediately have data on the total number of cases or any backlogs. However, Holewa said the sheer volume of cases raises concerns about the defendants’ right to a speedy trial and due process. “Any time justice is unduly delayed, it causes issues,” she said. “You have issues with people’s memories, and (in this case) you also have people from out of state — not just those charged, but also police offi cers from out of state. All of that makes it essential that we try to get these cases heard timely.” The $3.8 billion pipeline to carry North Dakota oil to a shipping point in Illinois is nearly complete, aside from a stretch beneath a Missouri River reservoir in southern North Dakota. People from around the country have taken up the tribe’s cause, with thousands of them congregating at the protest camp. Fewer than 8 percent of the protesters who have been arrested are from North Dakota, according to the Morton County Sheriff’s Offi ce. Nearly one-fourth are from the West Coast. Most of the cases are being handled in state court. The federal court system appar- ently is feeling an impact, however. In court documents requesting a delay in an unconnected case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Delorme told the judge that protests were “consuming signifi cant time and attention.” U.S. Attorney Chris Myers declined to say how many cases the federal court system is handling. Several pipeline protesters are suing Morton County, the city of Mandan and North Dakota law enforcement offi cials in federal court in Bismarck, saying their civil rights were violated during a clash with authorities.
