Lake Oahe became a point of contention in protests to block the Dakota Access Pipeline. The construction project has been controversial for its environmental impacts, and several Native American tribes in the Dakotas and Iowa have opposed the project. These include several Sioux nations and the Meskwaki. In 2016 a group from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation brought a petition to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and sued for an injunction to stop the project.