NATION/WORLD
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 7A
Judge denies request
to halt Dakota Access
oil pipeline work
By SAM HANANEL
and BLAKE NICHOLSON
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — A
federal judge on Monday
refused to stop construction
on the last stretch of the
Dakota Access pipeline,
which is progressing much
faster than expected and
could be operational in as
little as 30 days.
U.S. District Judge James
Boasberg ruled after an hour-
long hearing that as long as
oil isn’t flowing through the
pipeline, there is no imminent
harm to the Cheyenne River
and Standing Rock Sioux
tribes, which are suing to
stop the project. But he said
he’d consider the arguments
more thoroughly at another
hearing on Feb. 27.
That gives the tribes hope
that they still might prevail,
Cheyenne River Chairman
Harold Frazier said.
“To put that pipeline in the
ground would be irreparable
harm for us in our culture,”
he said.
The tribes requested the
temporary injunction last
week after Texas-based
Energy Transfer Partners
got federal permission to lay
pipe under a Missouri River
reservoir in North Dakota.
That’s the last big section
of the $3.8 billion pipeline,
which would carry oil from
North Dakota to Illinois.
The tribes say the pipeline
would endanger their cultural
sites and water supply. They
added a religious freedom
component to their case last
week by arguing that clean
water is necessary to practice
the Sioux religion.
“The mere presence of
the oil in the pipeline renders
the water spiritually impure,”
said Nicole Ducheneaux,
lawyer for the Cheyenne
River Sioux tribe.
But Boasberg said any
immediate harm to the tribe
“comes from when the spigots
are turned on and the oil flows
through the pipeline.”
Despite the setback,
American Indian activist
Chase Iron Eyes said pipe-
line opponents will continue
fighting the project in the
courts and maintaining an
on-the-ground presence in
the drilling area, “in peaceful
prayer and in dignity as we
assert our rights to protect our
environment, our economy
and our sovereignty.”
ETP spokeswoman Vicki
Granado said last week that
the drilling work would
take about two months and
that the full pipeline system
would be operational within
three months. But David
Debold, a lawyer for Dakota
Access, said work is going
more quickly and suggested
the pipeline could be ready
for oil in as soon as 30 days.
“We’re not in a position
where we can agree to any
kind of stopping of the pipe-
line,” Debold said.
Granado did not imme-
diate respond to a request
for details Monday on why
the work is proceeding more
quickly than expected.
Energy Transfer Partners
received final approval from
the Army last week to lay
pipe under the reservoir and
complete the 1,200-mile
pipeline. Drilling work began
immediately under Lake
Oahe, which is the water
source for both tribes.
The company’s attorneys
filed court documents early
Monday
urging
Boas-
berg to reject the tribes’
request, calling the new
religious freedom argument
“exceedingly tardy,” ‘’not
construction-related” and a
“last-minute delay tactic.”
“Dakota Access has the
greatest respect for the reli-
gious beliefs and traditions
of (tribes). The emergency
relief sought here simply is
not necessary to protect the
exercise of those beliefs or
preserve those traditions,”
wrote William Scherman, a
company attorney.
The Corps also filed court
documents Monday arguing
that a work stoppage isn’t
warranted, saying the tribes
will have plenty of time to
make their case before oil
flows through the pipeline.
Work under Lake Oahe
had been held up in the courts
until President Donald Trump
last month instructed the Army
Corps of Engineers to advance
construction. The Army is
involved because its engi-
neering branch manages the
river and its system of hydro-
electric dams, which is owned
by the federal government.
Drivers see higher
premiums after
not-at-fault crashes
By JENNIFER C. KERR
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Most
drivers don’t expect to be hit
with a rate hike on their auto
insurance after a car accident
that wasn’t their fault. But
a consumer group says it
happens, and it’s a problem.
The Washington-based
Consumer Federation of
America says it found rate
hikes on annual premiums as
high as $400, in some cases.
In the report released
Monday, the group analyzed
premium quotes in 10 cities,
including New York and
Chicago, from five of the
nation’s largest auto insurers.
The researchers found that
Progressive
aggressively
used a not-at-fault penalty,
surcharging drivers in eight
of the 10 selected cities.
Rates in Oklahoma City and
Los Angeles did not change.
Oklahoma and California
prohibit not-at-fault penal-
ties.
The group said GEICO
and Farmers raised rates in
some states by 10 percent or
more. Allstate had occasional
penalties. State Farm was the
exception, with no increases
on premiums for not-at-fault
accidents.
“Most people know that
if they cause an accident or
get a ticket they could face a
premium increase, but they
don’t expect to be punished
if a reckless driver careens
into them,” said Bob Hunter,
CFA’s director of insurance
and the former insurance
commissioner of Texas.
In response, the Insurance
Information Institute said the
underwriting of a new auto
insurance policy requires
the collection of much more
information beyond what
CFA gathered from the auto
insurers’ websites.
Loretta Worters, vice
president of communications
at the industry trade group,
says it also is rarely clear-cut
as to who the at-fault party
is after a collision. But she
said one reason rates may
rise for the not-at-fault driver
is subrogation — when an
insurer, after paying a loss,
seeks to recover money from
the at-fault driver’s insurer.
Neil Alldredge, a senior
vice president at the National
Association of Mutual Insur-
ance Companies, says the
report “only underscores the
fact that insurance rates can
vary widely from company
to company, based on how
different companies may
weigh the many different
factors that are considered in
determining rates.”
Among the cities tested,
drivers in New York City and
Baltimore paid out the most
for doing nothing wrong,
the consumer group said.
In Baltimore, premiums
increased more than $250
and in New York City, it
was about $400. In Chicago
and Kansas City, the average
increase was about $100.
The federation’s report
found that people with
moderate incomes often saw
bigger premium increases
than upper-income people.
That seemed to mirror
average premiums in the
report even for people with
clean driving records and no
accidents, with middle-in-
come people generally
seeing higher premium rates
than those people with bigger
incomes.
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
Erosion caused when overflow water cascaded down the emergency spillway is seen, bottom, as water con-
tinues to flow down the main spillway, top, of the Oroville Dam, Monday in Oroville, Calif. The water level
dropped Monday at the nation’s tallest dam, easing slightly the fears of a catastrophic spillway collapse that
prompted authorities to order people to leave their homes downstream.
Calif. dam managers dismissed
flood concern 12 years ago
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
and JUSTIN PRITCHARD
Associated Press
Environmental activists
and local government
officials warned more than
a decade ago about the risk
of catastrophic flooding
below a major Northern
California dam — the very
scenario that threatened to
unfold over the weekend,
forcing the evacuation
of nearly 200,000 people
downstream.
State and federal regula-
tors dismissed those fears at
the time, saying they were
confident the hillside that
helps hold back billions of
gallons of water was stable
and did not need to be rein-
forced with concrete.
That decision has come
under scrutiny now that the
hillside — or emergency
spillway, as officials call
it — has been put to its first
test in the Oroville Dam’s
nearly 50-year history.
Over the weekend, water
from the storm-swollen
reservoir behind the dam
spilled down the unpaved
slope, causing such heavy
erosion that authorities
feared a huge breach could
open and send a 30-foot-
high torrent down the
Feather River, devastating
thousands of homes. The
dam is about 70 miles north
of Sacramento.
The danger appeared to
Paul Kitagaki Jr./The Sacramento Bee via AP
Paula Gillock, 53, waits in line for breakfast at the
Silver Dollar Fairground on Monday in Chico, Calif.
She left her home in Gridley and slept in her car with
her cat Mimi after residents were evacuated from
the possible failure of the emergency spillway at the
Oroville Dam.
ease slightly on Monday
as the water level behind
the dam dropped, but more
rain was in the forecast, and
residents as far as several
dozen miles downriver in
Yuba City were not allowed
back into their homes.
In 2005, at the start of
dam’s still-unfinished reli-
censing process, environ-
mental groups asked federal
regulators to require that the
California Department of
Water Resources “armor”
the hillside — or reinforce
it, typically with concrete
or boulders — to prevent
potentially
catastrophic
erosion from water escaping
around the side of the
770-foot-high dam.
The groups said soil,
rocks and other debris could
be swept into the river
below, damaging highway
bridges and power plants. In
a worst case, they warned, a
major breach would unleash
floods that could take lives
and destroy property.
But the water resources
department dismissed the
need to fortify the natural
earthen barrier and insisted
the hillside would not be
in danger if water flowed
down it. In a final environ-
mental impact report dated
June 2008, state officials
wrote that no “significant
concerns” about the hill-
side’s stability had been
raised in any government or
independent review.
The Federal Energy
Regulatory
Commission,
the agency that oversees
the dam’s relicensing and
received the request for
armoring, agreed that paving
was not needed.
On Monday, Bill Croyle,
acting head of the Depart-
ment of Water Resources,
refused to comment on the
2005 concerns, saying he
was not familiar with the
warnings and would need to
research the matter.
“I think that the warning
that was given should have
been taken with the utmost
seriousness,” Bob Wright,
an attorney at Friends of
the River, which raised
the concern along with the
Sierra Club and South Yuba
River Citizens League, said
Monday. “We’re talking
about the danger to life and
property.”
Starting
last
week,
officials had been trying to
relieve pressure on the dam
by releasing a torrent of
water through an adjacent,
concrete-lined
channel
designed to handle heavy
flows. When a section of that
channel began to crumble,
dam managers eased off
those controlled releases.
Water then began spilling
down the hillside.
A FERC spokeswoman
said the original, 50-year
license for the dam expired
in January 2007 but has been
automatically renewed each
year pending a full renewal.