PSC Recommends $15,000 Fine Against Dakota Access Pipeline for Routing Around Artifacts Without Permission

Last week news broke that the Public Service Commission hadn’t been notified of cultural artifacts found along the Dakota Access Pipeline route. Today the PSC announced that they would be pursuing a $15,000 fine against the company for the lack of notification.

You can read the full release below. This excerpt describes the fine, and also points out that DAPL did immediately contact the State Historical Society about the find, which was protected at all times. The problem wasn’t that DAPL wasn’t respectful of the archaeological find. It’s that they didn’t take the additional step of contacting the PSC about the route change to avoid it:

I spoke with Public Service Commissioner Julie Fedorchak about this situation last week (audio here). “They didn’t report to us until we went to them with it,” she told me, but she also said she wasn’t in favor of a maximum fine for the alleged infraction, which would be $100,000 (or $10,000 per day for a 10 day delay in notification).

“I don’t view this as the worst possible violation so I wouldn’t support a maximum fine,” she said.

Here’s the full release from the PSC:

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