Scott Olson/Getty Images Fireworks fill the night sky above Oceti Sakowin Camp as activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied for the Dakota Access Pipeline near the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation on December 4, 2016 outside Cannon Ball, North Dakota. 
 
 OCETI SAKOWIN CAMPGROUND, N.D ― The Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters celebrated a historic victory Sunday after federal authorities halted construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. 
 
 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced that it had denied the final easement required for the $3.8 billion project to cross under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. The Army said it will now explore alternative routes pending an environmental impact study. 
 
 The 1,172-mile pipeline starts at the Bakken Formation in northwest North Dakota near the Canadian border and runs southeast to southern Illinois. 
 
 The Standing Rock Sioux, which had been joined in a months-long protest by environmental, human rights and social justice activists, opposed the oil pipeline due to concerns over water contamination, environmental destruction and damage to ancestral sites. 
 
 “My hands go up to all the water protectors who have stood up to protect tribal treaty rights and to protect Mother Earth,” Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said in a statement Sunday. “Thank you for Standing For Standing Rock.” 
 
 See more images from the victory below. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Dakota Access Pipeline protesters celebrate as they march back to the Oceti Sakowin campground after they found out the Army Corps of Engineers denied the easement to drill under Lake Oahe on Sunday, Dec. 4, 2016. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Drummers at the Oceti Sakowin campground perform a victory song. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Lance King, 33, an Oglala Lakota from Lyle, South Dakota, celebrates with Kayti Bunny after the announcement that the Army Corps of Engineers denied the easement to drill under Lake Oahe for the Dakota Access Pipeline. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Lita Boyd, a veteran of the U.S. Army, leads a group of veterans to the checkin area at the Oceti Sakowin campground north of Cannon Ball, N.D. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Cornel West speaks during a multi-faith congregation at the Oceti Sakowin campground. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Dakota Access Pipeline protesters celebrate after learning that the Army Corps of Engineers denied the drilling permit to drill under Lake Oahe near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Tamara Bliss Sharp of Oakland, Calif. prays at the Oceti Sakowin campground. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Dakota Access Pipeline protesters sing and celebrate after the Army Corps of Engineers announced they won't be granting the easement to drill under Lake Oahe. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Thousands gather in the main area of the Oceti Sakowin campground to celebrate after the Army Corps of Engineers announced they will not be granting a drilling permit. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Evan Porter, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, checks into the Oceti Sakowin campground. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Horse riders meet at the Oceti Sakowin campground. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Dakota Access Pipeline protesters participate in a victory march to the Oceti Sakowin campground. 
 
 Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images The Showdown at Standing Rock is a win for Native Tribes. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers turned down a key permit for a the Dakota Access Pipeline that was slated to drill beneath the Missouri River and through sacred Sioux grounds on Dec. 5, 2016. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Rob McHabey, right, a U.S. Navy veteran, walks with Ben Wright, left, a U.S. Army Veteran, at the Oceti Sakowin campground. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Dakota Access Pipeline protesters congregate on North Dakota Highway 1806 north of Cannon Ball, N.D. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Dakota Access Pipeline protesters celebrate as they watch a group of veterans march into the Oceti Sakaowin camp. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images Troy Fairbanks, right, of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe cheers after hearing Chief Arvol Looking Horse announce to members of over 300 nations that the pipeline's construction has been halted. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images Activist Brenda Cohen cries tears of joy as she celebrates at Oceti Sakowin camp on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images Activists hold hands during a prayer circle as they try to surround the entire camp at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 Josh Morgan for The Huffington Post Chief Arvol Looking Horse arrives to the Oceti Sakowin campground north. 
 
 JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images Activists celebrate at Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images A Sioux American flag hangs upside down at the encampment at Oceti Sakowin camp on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images Troy Fairbanks, right, of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, holds back tears as he hugs a friend after hearing Chief Arvol Looking Horse announce, to members of over 300 nations, that the US Army Corps of Engineers will no longer grant access to the Dakota Access Pipeline to put their pipe line on the boundary of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 Stephanie Keith / Reuters People celebrate in Oceti Sakowin camp as "water protectors" continue to demonstrate against plans to pass the Dakota Access pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images Activist Brenda Cohen cries tears of joy as she celebrates at Oceti Sakowin camp on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 Scott Olson/Getty Images Native American and other activists celebrate after learning an easement had been denied. 
 
 Stephanie Keith / Reuters People celebrate in Oceti Sakowin camp. 
 
 Scott Olson/Getty Images Native American and other activists celebrate. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images Native americans lift up their hands to celebrate their victory. 
 
 Stephanie Keith / Reuters Arvol Looking Horse, spiritual leader of the Sioux nation, participates in a ceremony in Oceti Sakowin camp. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images US Navy veteran Bob McHaney, left, and Bill Runningfisher, of the Gros Ventre nation, right, press their fists together in solidarity while on a bridge near Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images Activists celebrate at Oceti Sakowin Camp. 
 
 JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images U.S. Navy deep sea diving veteran Rob McHaney (C) holds an American flag as he leads a group of veteran activists back from a police barricade on a bridge near Oceti Sakowin Camp on the edge of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/Getty Images The encampment at Oceti Sakowin camp on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. 
 
 Lucas Jackson / Reuters A woman looks out over the Oceti Sakowin camp as activists celebrate. ||||| CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share As Standing Rock protesters rejoice over the decision to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, questions remain. USA TODAY NETWORK 
 
 Protesters in Philadelphia demonstrate in solidarity with members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota over the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline on Dec. 1, 2016. (Photo: Matt Rourke, AP) 
 
 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' announcement Sunday halting construction of the Dakota Access pipeline was met with jubilation among protesters. 
 
 
 
 In the biggest blow yet to the much-contested pipeline, the Corps denied an easement for the pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, a Corps reservoir on the Missouri River in North Dakota and the major source of water for the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. That segment remained the only contested portion of the 1,172-mile pipeline, which is almost complete. 
 
 Tribal members and others have protested the project for months, worried that a pipeline breach could threaten the drinking water supply. 
 
 "Although we have had continuing discussion and exchanges of new information with the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access, it's clear that there's more work to do," Jo-Ellen Darcy, the Army's assistant secretary for civil works said in a statement Sunday afternoon. "The best way to complete that work responsibly and expeditiously is to explore alternate routes for the pipeline crossing." 
 
 Darcy said the pipeline should undergo an environmental impact statement — a process that could drag on for months. The decision means construction will likely not be completed during President Obama's remaining weeks in office. 
 
 President-elect Donald Trump's administration, widely viewed as more friendly to energy interests, could reverse the Corps' decision after he takes office Jan. 20. 
 
 
 
 Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault has said he sees a re-route as a major victory, but many protesters have vowed to continue the fight until the $3.8 billion project is shut down. 
 
 Could that happen? 
 
 Pipeline owner Energy Transfer Partners and its backers don’t think so — four states and the Army Corps of Engineers granted permits for the pipeline, and construction is more than 92% complete — but opponents remain hopeful. 
 
 Here are a few of the areas opponents are focusing on as paths to a possible shutdown. 
 
 1. Standing Rock wins in court 
 
 The tribe filed a federal lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers during the summer shortly after the agency signaled its intent to approve an easement for drilling under Lake Oahe, a more than 200-mile-long reservoir on the Missouri River that extends from South Dakota into North Dakota. 
 
 The tribe asked for an immediate injunction on two grounds: 
 
 • That the Corps failed to adequately consult with the tribe to identify historically significant sites along the pipeline route. 
 
 • That granting the easement would do irreparable harm to tribal history; parts of the Standing Rock Reservation already were flooded with the creation of the lake in the 1960s. 
 
 U.S. District Judge James Boasberg rejected both arguments Sept. 9, saying the tribe was offered the chance to consult but refused until the process neared an end, and that it had no proof the current route would cause irreparable harm. 
 
 That doesn’t mean the case is over. The ruling was restricted to the tribe’s claims on alleged violations of the National Historic Preservation Act. 
 
 The underlying lawsuit also argues that the Corps’ permitting process violated the Clean Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the Rivers and Harbors Act. None of those claims has been fully litigated. 
 
 2. The federal government delays or stops the project 
 
 Sunday's announcement that more study of the pipeline is required offers another avenue for opponents. 
 
 Delays and re-routes add financial strain to pipeline projects and create more openings for opposition, according to Jane Fleming Kleeb of Bold Nebraska. 
 
 Kleeb’s group helped push for a re-route of the Keystone XL Pipeline around Nebraska’s Sandhills and the Oglala Aquifer in 2011. That forced that pipeline’s owner, TransCanada, to further study environmental impacts and effects on natural resources and to negotiate with more landowners, she said. 
 
 “Whenever a re-route happens, it reopens all those discussions,” Kleeb said. 
 
 The continued delays of Keystone XL forced a review hearing at the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission in 2015. Ultimately, President Obama chose to deny a permit for KeystoneXL, and TransCanada has filed a lawsuit. 
 
 Members of the clergy join protesters against the Dakota Access crude-oil pipeline Nov. 3, 2016, in southern North Dakota near Cannon Ball. (Photo: James MacPherson, AP) 
 
 3. Re-routes or delays could endanger the project’s financial feasibility 
 
 Delays alone could do major financial damage to Energy Transfer Partners. The company indicated as much in court filings in the Standing Rock lawsuit. 
 
 In an Aug. 18 declaration to the court, Joey Mahmoud, Dakota Access vice president, wrote that the company had committed to completing the pipeline by Jan. 1. 
 
 “The long-term transportation contracts give shippers a right to terminate their commitments if (Dakota Access Pipeline) is not in full service per the contract deadline,” Mahmoud wrote. 
 
 A delay in the start of operations would cost about $913 million, Mahmoud wrote, rising to more than $1 billion by 2018. Stopping work would cause “grave and irreparable impacts to DAPL (the Dakota Access Pipeline), its workers, the landowners, economy, both the state and federal government and the environment.” 
 
 Travelers arrive at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline as they walk into a tent next to an upside-down american flag in Cannon Ball, N.D., Dec. 2, 2016. (Photo: David Goldman, AP) 
 
 Opponents now speculate that financial harm from protest-related delays alone could be enough to stop the pipeline’s completion. 
 
 “It’s pretty clear they’re not going to have oil flowing on Jan. 1,” said Lorne Stockman, research director of the non-profit outfit Oil Change International. “It’s going to happen. They’re going to have to renegotiate those contracts.” 
 
 When the project was announced in 2014, the price of oil was $70 to $80 a barrel. The long-term contracts common in the pipeline industry might be more difficult to lock in with oil at $45-$50 a barrel, Stockman said. 
 
 The embrace of natural gas and the ramp-up of U.S. energy production have played into the extended price slump, and energy analysts are concerned about long-term lows. The chief financial officer of Royal Dutch Shell, Simon Henry, had said the world will hit peak oil demand within five to 15 years. 
 
 “The world in which they would renegotiate those contracts is not the world in which they negotiated the original contracts,” Stockman said. 
 
 However, company spokeswoman Vicki Granado said the January date would not affect shipping volumes or the project as a whole. 
 
 “There is no Jan. 1 deadline,” Granado wrote in email. 
 
 4. Iowa landowners win in court 
 
 Most of the attention focused on the Dakota Access Pipeline has been aimed at protest camps in North Dakota, where thousands have visited and hundreds have been arrested in clashes with law enforcement. 
 
 But opponents have another front line in their battle against the pipeline: the cornfields and courtrooms of Iowa. 
 
 The state has had its own protests and arrests as well, said a former state lawmaker and radio host who opposes the pipeline, Ed Fallon. 
 
 “We’ve had more people arrested in Iowa over this than we’ve ever seen, even going back to the Vietnam War,” Fallon said. 
 
 Pipeline opponents are using an eminent-domain law that Fallon championed in 2006 in hopes of booting Dakota Access from the state. The law says eminent domain can be used only to take property for defined public purposes. 
 
 Water, electricity, and natural gas delivery are explicitly included in the statute. Crude oil is not. 
 
 People protest the Dakota Access pipeline from inside the Iowa Utilities Board building Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016, in Des Moines. (Photo: Charly Haley/The Register) 
 
 Des Moines lawyer Bill Hanigan represents 15 landowners in a half-dozen Iowa counties where land was taken for pipeline construction through eminent domain. 
 
 Hanigan’s clients argue that both Iowa law and the U.S. Constitution bar the use of eminent domain to condemn property for a crude-oil project. 
 
 “Crude oil has no value unless it’s refined. It’s a raw material,” Hanigan said. “We need lumber to build homes, so would we condemn farms to build someone a private highway to haul lumber?” 
 
 Hanigan believes the already-built pipeline beneath his clients’ property and every barrel of oil that flows through it are considered trespassing. 
 
 Hanigan believes the Iowa case, which will be heard later this month, has the potential to shut down the project, but he doesn’t think either side has a clear path to victory — in Iowa or anywhere else. 
 
 “It ain’t over,” Hanigan said. “It’s still a big shooting match.” 
 
 Contributing: Kevin Hardy, The Des Moines Register. Follow John Hult on Twitter: @ArgusJHult 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2gEH1el ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A Native American tribe has been celebrating the decision 
 
 Two firms behind a controversial oil pipeline in the US have accused the White House of political interference for failing to approve its completion. 
 
 The US Army said it would not authorise the final section of the Dakota Access Pipeline to allow alternative routes to be considered. 
 
 The decision is a win for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who have protested against the pipeline for months. 
 
 But the next US president, Donald Trump, says he supports the project. 
 
 The multi-billion, 1,200-mile (1,900 km) pipeline, crossing four states, is intended to slash the costs of transferring crude. It is nearly complete except for a section planned to run under Lake Oahe, a reservoir on the Missouri River. 
 
 The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their supporters fear it will contaminate drinking water and run over sacred burial sites. 
 
 Months of protests, on federal land, have seen clashes between the demonstrators and law enforcement. 
 
 The final stretch required a permit from federal authorities but on Sunday, the US Army Corps of Engineers refused to grant it so it could undertake "an environmental impact statement to look at possible alternative routes". 
 
 The two firms involved, Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics, attacked the move as a "purely political action". 
 
 Noting that the project already has court approval, the companies accused the White House of abandoning the rule of law "in favour of currying favour with a narrow and extreme political constituency". 
 
 The battle continues: By James Cook, BBC North America Correspondent 
 
 The Battle of Standing Rock is far from over. 
 
 A memorandum from the US Army Corps of Engineers might strongly suggest that the pipeline will be re-routed but it does not actually say that will happen. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's James Cook visits the Standing Rock camps 
 
 It talks of "consideration" and "discussion" of other locations and of a "more robust analysis of alternatives" before permission "is granted for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross the Missouri river on Corps land". 
 
 The Corps also acknowledges that the project has been ruled lawful by the courts. 
 
 Plus it hardly needs pointing out that Barack Obama, whom the protestors praise for this decision, will soon be succeeded by Donald Trump, a supporter of the project who has previously invested in Energy Transfer Partners and may still hold stock in a related firm, Phillips 66. 
 
 It would be a very big surprise indeed were Mr Trump not to try to reverse a move by the Corps of Engineers which one Republican in North Dakota said sent a "very chilling signal" for the future of infrastructure in the US. 
 
 Both companies added they "fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe". 
 
 Republican North Dakotan politicians too have piled in, with Governor Jack Dalrymple calling the decision a "serious mistake" 
 
 In contrast there has been jubilation among protesters, who have numbered in their thousands, enduring bitter cold at encampments. 
 
 Adan Bearcub, a Native American and military veteran, said "this is the best news that I've heard forever - best news for Native people, native country, the whole United States - all the people. Water is so precious." 
 
 How social media saw it 
 
 The US army's decision has delighted high-profile opponents of the pipeline, such as actress Shailene Woodley, who was arrested at a protest in October. 
 
 Image copyright @shailenewoodley 
 
 Singer Alicia Keys shared a picture and a famous Native American quote. 
 
 Image copyright @aliciakeys 
 
 Police have been criticised for using excessive force during the protests, something Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein appeared to allude to. 
 
 Image copyright @DrJillStein 
 
 But there were also warnings the victory could be short-lived. ||||| Ome Tlaloc walked through the North Dakota hills with a flashlight and a walkie-talkie, scouting for police in the prairie dark. Earlier that evening, I'd met the 30-year-old on Highway 1806, where he'd been sitting behind a makeshift barricade. Now he was doing reconnaissance. The Morton County Sheriff's Department and the National Guard, stationed ahead of us on the road, were planning to raid the camp where Tlaloc and hundreds of other protesters had been living for the past week. The barricade was meant to stop the cops, or at least to slow them down. As he walked, Tlaloc listened to his radio for the code words that would signal when he and his comrades were to spring into action: "Eagle's Claw." 
 
 The Standing Rock Sioux reservation sits in the Dakota Prairie Grasslands, an endless sweep of elephan­tine hills once home to millions of members of the Lakota Nation. Today, it's inhabited by fewer than 9,000 of their surviving descendants, and one of the few places in America where buffalo roam wild. In late July, the Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners informed the Standing Rock Sioux that in five days its subsidiary would begin construction on a section of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) next to the reservation. After that, members of more than 200 Native American tribes and their allies gathered to block what would be America's longest crude oil pipeline. Their encampments of teepees, tents, and RVs were mostly ignored by the media until private security guards set dogs on protesters and a few journalists were arrested, sparking a national conversation about tribal sovereignty, environmental racism, and police brutality. 
 
 The October night I met Tlaloc, the stakes in the #NoDAPL movement were as high as they'd ever been. If the "water protectors," as the protesters called themselves, were cleared out, the pipeline would continue east under the Missouri River, coming within 1,500 feet of Lake Oahe, the Standing Rock Sioux's water supply. A leak or spill, activists believed, would poison the drinking water of as many as 10 million people, nearly all of them on Native American reservations. The protesters' goal was to block construction until March 2017, when Dakota Access would have to reapply for a federal construction permit—a delay that might make the project financially unfeasible. If the protesters were removed before then, Dakota Access would complete the 1,172-mile pipeline that would transport up to 570,000 barrels of crude a day. (On December 4, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that it would not approve a permit for the pipeline to run beneath Lake Oahe.) 
 
 Tlaloc stopped at the top of a ridge. Off in the distance was the trench holding the lengths of 30-inch metal pipe. "An old Sioux prophecy says that a black snake will come to destroy the world at a moment of great uncertainty," he said. "Unless the youth stop it." 
 
 Back at the barricade, men in camo fatigues sipped cowboy coffee and waited. Pup tents formed a circle around a pit fire. "They've killed us before," said Harry Beauchamp, a 63-year-old Assiniboine from Montana. Resting his cowboy boots on a soup pot, he told us about his participation in the 1973 standoff between members of the American Indian Movement and law enforcement agents in South Dakota that ended in the deaths of two Native American activists. A few weeks earlier, he'd been attacked by a dog brought in by a pipeline security contractor. His future son-in-law, he said, was bringing him a rifle. "I'm not going to let this be another Wounded Knee," he said. 
 
 The next day, a pale sun burned through the morning haze, backlighting 200 sheriff's deputies and National Guardsmen in full riot gear. Behind them were an armored personnel carrier, a land-mine-resistant truck, and the pipeline's private security force—overseen by TigerSwan, a North Carolina firm that's done work for the US government in Afghanistan and Iraq. "This is a state highway," a police commander said into a loudspeaker. "You must clear the road." 
 
 On August 19, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple, who served as an adviser to Donald Trump's presidential campaign, had declared a state of emergency, and the National Guard mobilized three weeks later. On September 3, security contractors turned dogs on the protesters. Not long afterward, Standing Rock Sioux tribal chairman Dave Archambault II asked the Justice Department to investigate civil rights violations against activists. "This country has a long and sad history of using military force against indigenous people—including the Sioux Nation," he wrote. "[W]hen I see the militarization taking place in North Dakota against Indian people, I am genuinely concerned." 
 
 Over the next 12 hours, I watched as grandmothers with red feathers in their hair, Oglala elders in cer­emonial regalia, and teens astride horses were teargassed, tased, and arrested. Cops fired rubber bullets at protesters and blasted them with earsplitting whines from Long Range Acoustic Devices. As the police marched down the highway, the crowd, echoing Black Lives Matter protesters, held their arms in the air and shouted, "Hands up, don't shoot!" 
 
 Native Americans are more likely to be killed by police than members of any other group, even African Americans. More than 1 in 4 Native people live in poverty. (The average individual income on the Standing Rock reservation is $4,421.) Native unemployment levels are nearly double those of the overall population; their youth suicide rate is the highest in the nation. 
 
 Many at Standing Rock saw the threat of environmental catastrophe as inextricable from racial injustice. An early proposal to route the Dakota Access Pipeline through Bismarck, 45 miles north of the reservation, was rejected by the US Army Corps of Engineers because of concerns that it could harm the municipal water supply. (Bismarck's population is 92 percent white.) "But it's okay if it poisons Natives' water, right?" said Chanse Adams-Zavalla, a 22-year-old who grew up on the Maidu reservation just north of Santa Barbara, California. He wore a camouflage backpack that had "Fuck Off" written on it and a matching camo cap that said "Smile More." In May 2015, the coastline near his reservation was ravaged by the rupture of an oil pipeline. "It's disgusting what happened to my people, bro, and we're still being treated that way," he said. 
 
 Young protesters with red bandannas over their faces dragged tree trunks onto the highway and set them on fire. A heavyset teen stood before the flaming barricade, his back to the police. "Stop lighting these barricades on fire, brothers!" he said. "I'm a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe." He paused and looked at his feet like he might cry. "After this, I have to live here." 
 
 "Sellout!" a young man in a balaclava shouted, hurling a tire onto the pyre. Someone else picked up the chant. "Sellout! Sellout!" 
 
 The scene underscored the conflicts within the anti-pipeline movement. Some activists, led in part by a group of protesters who lived in a compound called Red Warrior Camp, were committed to stopping the pipeline through direct action. While many Standing Rock Sioux were out on the front lines, Archambault was also lobbying Washington in hopes of a legal victory. In early November, Red Warrior Camp was asked to leave Standing Rock for promoting tactics that the tribal leadership thought were too extreme. There were also tensions between white-led environmental groups like 350.org, which focuses on climate change, and Native activists, who believe the larger issue is one of tribal sovereignty and the unfinished struggle for Native American rights. The protesters were spread among three encampments, including a largely Native camp and another filled with white activists that I heard described as the "Brooklyn" of Standing Rock. 
 
 Back at the barricades, Miles Allard, a Sioux man with a white mullet, rushed to the assistance of the teen who'd tried to calm the crowd. "The only way we're going to win this is by prayer," Allard said. "If we use violence, we will lose." 
 
 "I didn't come here to lose," Beauchamp said, dropping a bundle of kindling onto the pavement before walking off in anger. "And I didn't come here to fight my own brothers. I quit. I'm going home." 
 
 "Why do they want to kill us?" asked LaDonna Allard over breakfast at the Prairie Knights Casino and Resort, the area's largest employer. Allard, a Sioux woman, was hosting a protest camp on her land; she was accompanied by her husband, Miles, who had called for nonviolence at the barricades a few days earlier. The police had won those clashes, clearing the road and arrest­ing 142 protesters, including the Allards' daughter, Prairie. (During a prior arrest, Allard said, her daughter was stripped naked, left in a cell overnight, and asked repeatedly, "Who's your mother?") Construction resumed on the pipeline, whose North Dakota section was roughly 95 percent complete. 
 
 Allard recalled the life of her great-great-grandmother, Nape Hote Win, who as a nine-year-old survived the 1863 Whitestone massacre, an attack by the US Army 50 miles east of Standing Rock. She was held in a prisoner-of-war camp for seven years. That battle paved the way for the Standing Rock Sioux to be confined to their current reservation. Allard's father had to flee his land in 1948 after the government dammed the Missouri, flooding his farm. Her father and son were buried along the pipeline's path. 
 
 On Election Day, Energy Transfer Partners announced that it would defy a request from the Obama administration to postpone construction and would begin tunnel­ing under Lake Oahe in two weeks. CEO Kelcy Warren had given more than $100,000 to support Trump, a stockholder. "Overall, I'm very, very enthusiastic about what's going to happen with our country," Warren told investors after the election. In mid-November, the Army Corps of Engineers stepped in and said it would not allow completion of the pipeline until there had been further review of its environmental impact. Reaffirming that decision in early December, the Corps said it would consider alternate routes for the pipeline. ETP attacked the decision as "the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency." 
 
 "We're in a war," Allard said, beginning to cry. "How did this happen? I did nothing wrong. I have a right to say 'no.' I have a right to live in my own country, on my own land." 
 
 Later that night, I passed Beauchamp's tent, but it was empty. He had gone back to Montana, feeling bitter and defeated. Adams-Zavalla, however, was in great spirits. "This isn't the end of our movement," he said. "It's the beginning." Fifty horses had just arrived from the Oglala-Sioux reservation, as had 100 Native American youth runners who'd jogged from Arizona. That afternoon the Seven Council Fires had been lit for the second time since 1862, a ceremony in which the seven branches of the Dakota Sioux demonstrated their unity. "When my grandkids ask me where I was during Standing Rock," Adams-Zavalla said, "I know what I'm going to tell them." 
 
 "Even if somehow, someway, they build this pipeline," he went on, "they've inadvertently sparked a whole generation of us indigenous folks and everyone who wants to stand with us to fight for Mother Earth. We're going to inherit this planet, bro, and everyone's welcome to inherit it with us if they want." 
 
 Around us, protesters were chopping wood, battening down tarps, and getting ready for the long Dakota winter. On a hill overlooking the camp, DAPL roughnecks labored away. The moment was uncertain, yet jubi­lant—each side racing toward the future it imagined. ||||| Gallery: Darlene King is a Choctaw Indian from Michigan who came to support her friend, Dawn White Bull-Bacon, a great-granddaughter of Chief Sitting Bull. About being at the protest camp, she said, "It takes me back in time to have your family life destroyed. I am walking this land that great people walked. It's a spiritual thing here. You feel it." 
 
 Gallery: Domed shelters are going up among traditional tipis as places to gather in the cold of the rapidly approaching winter. 
 
 Gallery: China Bullock, 28, a Long Island Shinnecock, was waiting for her computer to boot up. "I am protecting Mother Earth. I am making sure my relatives out here are secure for the winter." 
 
 Gallery: Lance King is a Lakota Sioux who lived in the Twin Cities for 26 years and recently moved back to Kyle, on the Pine Ridge Reservation to assume his lineage as the descendant of Chief Mathew King, Noble Red Man. "I am bringing that spiritualism with me. The traditional ways are still here." He is wearing a Wapaha or chief headdress. 
 
 Gallery: Steven Paul is a Nez Perce affiliated Native American who says "my father, my mother have taught me this way of life: anything good is going to have an obstacle in front of it. It's a world wide ceremony to protect the Earth." He received this drum as a gift recently. 
 
 Gallery: Northern Cheyenne member Talon Lonebear and his fiancee JoRee LaFrance, a Crow Agency member watched as AJ Taptto, a Navajo, tried to save her precarious Jenga tower from collapsing on Thursday, Dec. 1 at Oceti Sakowin camp. 
 
 Gallery: Protesters are adjusting to winter conditions on the prairie by using wood stoves inside army tents and tipis, as well as building wind breaks. 
 
 Gallery: Jonathan Shields, who is from Portland, helped fill some containers with water using a bucket because it was partially frozen and would not flow through a spigot. 
 
 Gallery: Jonathan Shields, who is from Portland, helped fill containers with water using a bucket because it was partially frozen and would not flow through a spigot on Friday, Dec. 2 at Oceti Sakowin camp. "This is about making billions of dollars for a handful of people," says Shields about why he is opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline. 
 
 Gallery: Several hundred veterans attended an orientation at Sitting Bull College. As part of the three-hour session they were cleansed with sage. 
 
 Gallery: U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, hugged Brenda White Bull, coordinator of the veterans march, at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D. 
 
 Gallery: Standing Rock Reservation Chairman Dave Archambault addressed several hundred veterans at an orientation at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D. They were cleansed with sage at the beginning of the three-hour proceedings and later instructed to be peaceful and nonviolent. 
 
 Gallery: U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault waited to talk to several hundred veterans who arrived to show support for the Dakota Access Pipeline protest. 
 
 Gallery: Clyde Bellecourt, one of the founding members of the American Indian Movement, greeted veterans, including Ronald Long of Red Lake, after an orientation at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., where veterans arrived at Standing Rock Reservation. 
 
 Gallery: Leonard Crow Dog and Clyde Bellecourt, two of the founding members of the American Indian Movement, greeted veterans after an orientation at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., where veterans arrived at Standing Rock Reservation. 
 
 Gallery: U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, addressed several hundred veterans at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D. 
 
 Gallery: Leonard Crow Dog and Clyde Bellecourt, two of the founding members of the American Indian Movement, listened during an orientation for veterans at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., where they arrived at Standing Rock Reservation. 
 
 Gallery: Wesley Clark Jr. is the organizer behind a veterans march to support the protesters of the Standing Rock Reservation. 
 
 Gallery: Leonard Crow Dog and Clyde Bellecourt, two of the founding members of the American Indian Movement, held hands during an orientation at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., where veterans arrived at Standing Rock Reservation. 
 
 Gallery: Leonard Crow Dog, one of the founding members of the American Indian Movement, received a gift of tobacco and greeted veterans after an orientation at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D.. where veterans arrived at Standing Rock Reservation. 
 
 Gallery: Veterans march coodinator Brenda White Bull addressed several hundred veterans at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, N.D., on Sunday, Dec. 4. 
 
 Gallery: Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman David Archambault gifted a blanket to Chris Turley, an Osage veteran who walked from Oklahoma to Fort Yates, N.D., to support the protesters. 
 
 Gallery: At Oceti Sakowin Camp, protesters celebrated Sunday after the Army Corps of Engineers delayed an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to drill under Lake Oahu. 
 
 Gallery: At Oceti Sakowin camp, protesters celebrated on Sunday, Dec. 4,after the Army Corps of Engineers delayed an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to drill under Lake Oahu. 
 
 Gallery: The mood was celebratory around the sacred fire where drumming and singing was prevalent after the news was announced Sunday. 
 
 Gallery: Katibunny Roberts and her husband, Lance King, of Kyle, S.D., celebrated the Army Corps' denial of an easement to bury a section of the Dakota Access pipeline under the Missouri River on Sunday. King recently moved back to his ancestral Lakota homeland. He is a descendant of Chief Mathew King, known as Noble Red Man. On the right is Lazaro Tinoco of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in Washington. 
 
 The increasingly tense standoff over the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota boils down to a clash between economic and cultural interests. 
 
 For North Dakota and the oil industry, the 1,172-mile pipeline is critical to bringing a prized resource to Gulf Coast and Midwest markets in a way that is less expensive and safer than rail. 
 
 “It’s the interstate highway for Bakken oil,” said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, a trade group. 
 
 For the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and tribes across the country, the $3.7 billion pipeline is an affront to native water rights and cultural heritage, the latest in a long history of assaults on tribal sovereignty. 
 
 “At some point, you have to take a stand,” said Laura Waterman Wittstock of Minneapolis, a Seneca Indian who hosts a weekly American Indian news show on KFAI radio. 
 
 The pipeline, which crosses four states, is 92 percent complete — a key exception being the contested water crossing near the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. Protests there by American Indians and climate change activists are at a crescendo. 
 
 Video (03:39): N.D. pipeline protesters face new test: Winter Video (03:39): N.D. pipeline protesters face new test: Winter 
 
 Law enforcement has used water hoses, tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse crowds in the past 10 days. North Dakota’s governor and the Army Corps of Engineers have ordered the evacuation of some 5,000 protesters. 
 
 The dispute is rooted in the fracking revolution that transformed North Dakota into the nation’s second largest petroleum producer after Texas. It’s been a boon for North Dakota’s economy, despite the slump in oil prices. 
 
 But North Dakota’s oil supply grew faster than its transportation network. So producers mostly moved the oil by train. 
 
 Shipping oil by pipeline costs one-half to one-third as much as it does by rail car. And pipelines — though they can break and cause massive spills — are considered safer than tank cars, which have derailed and blown up in recent years, causing worry in Minnesota and nationwide. 
 
 Dakota Access, the brainchild of Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, would pump up to 570,000 barrels per day of oil through a pipeline up to 30 inches in diameter to Patoka in south-central Illinois. 
 
 From Patoka, Bakken oil would flow to prime refinery hubs, particularly in Louisiana and Texas. “What the Dakota Access Pipeline does is create a more direct route to the Gulf Coast,” said Sandy Fielden, director of oil research at Morningstar Inc. 
 
 Regulatory questions 
 
 The pipeline, which runs 99 percent on private land, was proposed in 2014 and got the green light for construction earlier this year. 
 
 Energy Transfer Partners originally planned to route the Dakota Access across the Missouri River about 10 miles north of Bismarck. But during an environmental review with the Corps of Engineers, that route was rejected. 
 
 It would have added 11 miles of pipeline and crossed 165 additional acres with multiple roads and wetlands involved, according to the Army Corps. In addition, due to its proximity to Bismarck, the pipeline would have crossed near wells that contribute to the city’s drinking water. And it would have run up against a state residential buffer requirement. 
 
 By the time Energy Transfer brought its proposal to North Dakota regulators, the preferred route no longer crossed above Bismarck. It crossed Lake Oahe, near Cannon Ball, N.D., and the confluence of the Cannonball River — home to the Standing Rock Sioux. 
 
 When North Dakota approved the plan in January — after 13 months in the regulatory process — it was the last of four states in the pipeline’s path to do so. Unlike the proposed $2.6 billion Sandpiper project through Minnesota, which Enbridge has now abandoned, the tribes and environmental groups did not object during the state process. 
 
 Had the tribe filed an objection, “they would have had a seat at the table,” said Julie Fedorchak, chairwoman of the North Dakota Public Service Commission. From the regulators’ view, because the Dakota Access largely parallels an existing natural gas pipeline in North Dakota, it is sited on “previously disturbed land,” Fedorchak said. 
 
 Environmental review 
 
 In July, the pipeline company cleared another hurdle when the Corps approved its environmental review. 
 
 That’s when the Standing Rock protests began intensifying. Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault declined to be interviewed for this report, but the dispute centers around the lake, a dammed reservoir of the Missouri River that is a sacred area for the tribe and a source of its drinking water. 
 
 Hunkered down: Protesters adjusted to winter conditions at Oceti Sakowin Camp near the Standing Rock reservation. 
 
 The tribe sued the Corps in federal court, asking for an injunction to halt the Corps’ permit. The Corps, the tribe argued, violated the federal Clean Water Act and the National Historic Preservation Act, shirking its legal duty to consult the tribe. 
 
 Standing Rock said it “repeatedly conveyed” to the Corps its concerns about the Dakota Access. Yet “the tribe has never been able to participate meaningfully in assessing the significance of the sites that are potentially affected by the project,” court filings say. 
 
 In September, James E. Boasberg, a federal judge for the District of Columbia, denied the injunction, saying the tribe “largely refused to engage in consultations.” 
 
 As protests grew in size and intensity, the Corps decided in September that further analysis was warranted. In November, the agency called for even more study and tribal input. 
 
 Waiting for Trump 
 
 Today, the pipeline is in limbo, while protesters vow to fight into the winter. Energy Transfer Partners can’t finish the pipeline under Lake Oahe without a formal easement from the Corps. 
 
 The company is betting on the new Trump administration to pave the pipeline’s way. Kelcy Warren, its CEO, recently told the Wall Street Journal that in the “worst case,” the easement from the Corps would come Jan. 20 — the day of the inauguration. 
 
 Warren declined to be interviewed for this story. Trump disclosed this year that he owns $15,000-$50,000 of stock in Energy Transfer Partners, though he previously held a stake of up to $1 million. 
 
 “I am protecting Mother Earth. I am making sure my relatives out here are secure for the winter.” China Bullock, Long Island Shinnecock 
 
 While the Dakota Access Pipeline does not cross the Standing Rock reservation, it runs within a half-mile of it. 
 
 The pipeline, buried 95 feet below the lake’s bottom, would be within 20 miles of the tribe’s current drinking water source. But when a new tribal water filtration station opens next year, drinking water will be tapped about 70 miles from the pipeline, according to a recent Reuters report. 
 
 Standing Rock argues in court documents that it has a strong historical and cultural connection to the land the pipeline crosses, even if the tribe doesn’t own it. The tribe says it’s the successor to the Great Sioux Nation, which once covered parts of the Dakotas and Minnesota. 
 
 Despite promises made in the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty with the Sioux Nation, the federal government betrayed the tribes by stripping away vast tracts of Indian land over the next 40 years, Standing Rock argues in court filings. 
 
 The government’s transgressions weren’t confined to the 19th century, the tribe says. In 1958, the Corps — without consent — took 56,000 acres of tribal land for the dam project that would create Lake Oahe. 
 
 A living issue 
 
 More than a century of government backtracking on treaties is a living issue among American Indians, and it guides some protesters. 
 
 “The treaties are seminal to the relationship between the American Indian people and the United States, ”said Wittstock, the radio host. 
 
 Wittstock said the protests have created a unity among American Indians not seen in at least 40 years. Indians from all over the country have flocked to Standing Rock, including Wittstock’s two daughters and granddaughter. 
 
 Tribes have been giving Standing Rock financial support, too. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, which owns Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake, has donated to help Standing Rock respond to “challenging legal, sanitary and emergency needs,” the tribe said in a statement. 
 
 The Red Lake Band of Chippewa gave $5,000, and Red Lake Chairman Darrell Seki visited North Dakota in September to present it. He said Standing Rock has galvanized Indians because the pipeline is another attempt to destroy tribal land and water resources. 
 
 “These lands that you call the United States, these were tribal lands. You guys are foreigners. You guys are trespassing.” 
 
 mike.hughlett@startribune.com 612-673-7003 ||||| CANNONBALL, ND — On Sunday evening, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers effectively halted construction on the Dakota Access pipeline, announcing that it would look into alternative routes instead of burrowing under Lake Oahe. The decision comes as a stunning victory for the many protesters gathered at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. 
 
 Demonstrators have sustained their protest of the 1,172-mile pipeline — which, according to the Army's statement, would have carried around 470,000 barrels of oil daily — for months. The pipeline's route threatened to contaminate the Missouri River's water supply and to disturb sacred ancestral lands, the Standing Rock Sioux have argued. Protests have turned increasingly violent, with around 2,000 veterans coming to the aid of water protectors over the weekend as the Army Corps of Engineers threatened to evict them. 
 
 "We wholeheartedly support the decision of the administration and commend with the utmost gratitude the courage it took on the part of President Obama, the Army Corps, the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior to take steps to correct the course of history and do the right thing," Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II wrote in a statement. 
 
 It's a huge and unexpected victory, one that's come as a welcome surprise to the thousands of people who've been protesting the pipeline's constructions as temperatures have begun to drop below 0. Here's a look at how activists on the ground are celebrating the win. 
 
 A line of cars carrying veterans and supplies into camp, Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic 
 
 Indigenous elders at Oceti Sakowin Camp after they made the announcement on Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic 
 
 The Sacred Fire at Oceti Sakowin Camp, the moment they announced the news on Dec. 4, 2016 — and the first place the news was announced anywhere Source: Andrew Stern/Mic 
 
 The sunset at Standing Rock, Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic 
 
 Protesters celebrate at Standing Rock on Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic 
 
 Protesters celebrate at Standing Rock on Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic 
 
 Protesters celebrate at Standing Rock on Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic 
 
 Flags wave in the wind at Standing Rock on Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Jack Smith IV/Mic 
 
 Tribal elders at the sacred fire, Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Quincy Ledbetter/Mic 
 
 Tribal elders at the sacred fire, Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Quincy Ledbetter/Mic 
 
 Tribal elders at the sacred fire, Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Quincy Ledbetter/Mic 
 
 Tribal elders and others at the sacred fire, Dec. 4, 2016. Source: Quincy Ledbetter/Mic 
 
 Dec. 4, 2016 at 7:14 p.m.: This article has been updated.
– After months of protests by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and their supporters, the US Army Corps of Engineers on Sunday said it would consider alternate routes for the Dakota Access pipeline that didn't travel under North Dakota's Lake Oahe, effectively putting the brakes on the nearly finished pipeline's construction. What that means, how the news was received, and where we go from here: The Huffington Post had a photographer on the scene, and shares images of "what victory ... looks like." Mic similarly shares a dozen photos that show how the win was received. So what's next? The Argus Leader focuses on some protesters' cry to get the 92%-complete pipeline shut down for good, and looks at the challenging ways that could come to pass: via the tribe's court effort, due to the financial impact of a delay, or via a court battle somewhere else entirely—Iowa. The protesters could be dealt a blow in short order, though, reports Bustle, which looks at what's next through the lens of the Environmental Impact Study the Army has ordered. There's a court hearing this Friday related to a claim brought by the company constructing the pipeline, and one possible outcome is that the court could override the Army’s decision. At the BBC, James Cook points out that the Army Corps' memorandum "might strongly suggest that the pipeline will be re-routed but it does not actually say that will happen." He briefly digs into the language, and is pretty unequivocal in his expectation that a President Trump will try to reverse the Corps' move. The BBC also has reaction from Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics, two companies involved, who accuse the White House of attempting to "curry favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency." For deep reading, head to Mother Jones and dig into "How a Movement Was Born at Standing Rock." There, Wes Enzinna writes for the Jan/Feb issue, "Many at Standing Rock saw the threat of environmental catastrophe as inextricable from racial injustice," noting that a preliminary plan to take the pipeline through Bismark was turned down by the Army Corps over worries about that city's water supply. "Bismark's population is 92% white," notes Enzinna. More deep reading: The Minneapolis Star Tribune looks at the "long complicated road" and goes back to the start: "The dispute is rooted in the fracking revolution that transformed North Dakota."