The Dakota Access Pipeline Is Safe, Efficient, and Environmentally Sound

At Energy Transfer and with the Dakota Access Pipeline, safety is our top priority. We have long-standing commitments to the safety of our people, our communities, our environment, and our assets. We do this because it makes good business sense, but more importantly, it is the right thing to do. These commitments are held as fundamental core values and are an integral part of us as a partnership and a corporate citizen.

Energy Transfer has a comprehensive pipeline integrity program which enables real time monitoring of our assets 24 hours a day, 7 day a week, 365 days a year. This includes a supervisory control and data acquisition computer system, in-line inspection tools, aerial patrol, ground patrol, and remotely actuated valves, to name a few. Our goal is to provide safe and reliable service to the communities we cross and to the customers we serve.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is built to be one of the safest, most technologically advanced pipelines in the world. Its safety factors and state-of-the-art construction techniques and redundancies, including construction and engineering technology, meet or exceed all safety and environmental regulations.

For example, we non-destructively tested 100% of the mainline girth welds by x-ray or ultrasound, while it is only required for 10% of welds to be tested. We installed the pipe nearly two feet lower than the minimum requirements in agricultural areas and exceeded the separation distance between the pipe and all drain tile. All mainline valves have motorized actuators that enable remote closing to isolate pipeline segments as needed. All mainline valves qualify as Emergency Flow Restriction Devices (EFRD). These are just a few examples of how we exceeded requirements.