In 2020, looks like the infamous Keystone XL pipeline is finally going to be built. The pipeline will pass near many Native communities and reservation lands in western South Dakota, and a portion of the pipeline will be built under the longest undammed river in the contiguous United States. The portion of the pipeline which crosses the US-Canada border is tentatively scheduled to be constructed in April 2020.

– On 21 January 2020, the South Dakota Water Management Board (the state-level agency that oversees water rights) approved 5 critical water access permits for TC Energy (formerly TransCanada, the developers of the pipeline) to tap water from the Cheyenne, White, and Bad rivers for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Throughout 2019, Oglala / Lakota and other local Native communiities consistently criticized the Water Management Board and the South Dakota governor’s support of 2019 legislation which would’ve severely punished activists protesting or even “encouraging” protesting against pipeline construction; during the dispute, in May 2019, the leadership at Pine Ridge reservation unanimously voted to ban South Dakota governor, Kristi Noem, from entering the reservation until and unless she rescinded her support of the law. The ACLU and a local judge eventually had the legislation dismissed as unconstitutional.

– The next day, on 22 January 2020, the White House and US Department of the Interior announced that they were granting a critically important “right of way” permit for the construction of Keystone XL pipeline on about 45 miles of land in eastern Montana. The Keystone XL pipeline had basically been stalled in 2015 by the former US presidential administration. The key roadblock to building the pipeline? The US federal government still hadn’t granted Keystone XL and TransCanada access to some BLM land in eastern Montana, making this Montana landscape the only meaningful remaining obstacle preventing the oil pipeline from beginning its construction on US land.

– 29 January 2020: That same notorious “anti-protesting” and so-called “riot-boosting” law that got South Dakota governor Kristi Noem banned from Pine Ridge? On this day, Governor Noem formally announced before state congress that she will again reintroduce a slightly altered version of the law before the legislature this year. The House State Affairs Committee agreed to introduce the draconian anti-protesting bill, HB 1117, on her behalf. Observers believe the law is clearly and specifically meant to intimidate activists intending to protest construction of Keystone XL.

– In several stories in late January 2020, the Williston Herald reveals that a spokesperson for TC Energy confirmed that TC Energy filed a critical updated status report with the US District Court of Montana in mid-January 2020. TC Energy said that it would be moving heavy equipment into storage yards in Montana and South Dakota in February 2020 in anticipation of construction; worker camp modules will then be installed at construction sites in April 2020. The worker crew sites have already been permitted by each state. The company also claimed that it will be building access roads to these sites soon, including some access road construction in Nebraska.TC Energy claimed that, in April 2020, they will build the 1.2 mile segment of the pipeline that crosses the US-Canada border.

The pipeline will be built under both the Missouri River and Yellowstone River, the longest undammed river in the contiguous United States.