Dakota Access Pipeline suffered a minor oil spill in April.
The spill occurred at a rural pump station and didn’t pose a threat to the public’s drinking water, local authorities said.
“It was immediately contained and cleaned up,” said Brian Walsh, an environmental scientist at South Dakota’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
He said the incident was caused by a mechanical failure and mitigated by a liner that provides secondary containment.
Its construction has been strongly opposed by Native Americans and environmentalists.
“This just proves their hastiness is fueled by greed not in the best interest for tribes or the Dakotas,” Joye Braun, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux, said in a statement put out by Indigenous Environmental Network, a nonprofit that has opposed Dakota Access.
“Do we have more spills just waiting to happen?
This is our home, our land and our water,” Braun said.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe continues to fight Energy Transfer Partners in court in an effort to halt the project’s expected opening next month.
“This is what we have said all along: oil pipelines leak and spill,” Standing Rock Chairman Dave Archambault II said in a statement about the incident.