"No immediate ruling made on Dakota Access pipeline work", 28 Feb 2017

A federal judge said Tuesday that he'll decide within a week whether to temporarily halt construction of the final section of the Dakota Access pipeline over claims that it violates the religious rights of two Indian tribes...Boasberg is considering a request by the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux tribes to order the Army Corps of Engineers to withdraw permission to lay pipe under Lake Oahe...Tribal attorney Nicole Ducheneaux argued...that the mere existence of an oil pipeline under the reservoir that provides water to neighboring reservations violates their right to practice their religion...Ducheneaux said the judge appeared to be questioning the sincerity of the tribes' beliefs and stressed there was no other source of clean water available near the tribe...American Indian activist Chase Iron Eyes...attended the hearing and said afterward that "from the way that the judge was asking questions, it's clear that American or Western (courts)...lack a place intellectually or spiritually to comprehend the sacred relationship between the original peoples of this hemisphere and the waters..."