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Mo. Environmental Group Sues Army Corps Over Pipeline Project

Updated at 5:00 p.m.

A St. Louis-based environmental group has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for failing to provide information about a multi-state oil pipeline project.

The Missouri Coalition for the Environment says the Corps unlawfully withheld documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

The group is trying to find out more about plans by the Canadian energy company Enbridge to build a 600-mile pipeline that would carry oil through parts of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Great Rivers Environmental Law Center attorney Henry Robertson is representing the Coalition in the suit.

"We were interested in Enbridge’s applications that showed the route of the pipeline, and the environmental impacts,” Robertson said. “We were also interested in […] risk to endangered species. We were also concerned about plans for dealing with spills.”

Robertson says the Coalition wants to stop construction of the pipeline, which began last week.

Robertson says unlike the controversial , the Enbridge project has largely flown through under the radar ― even though both pipelines would carry tar sands oil from Canada.

“There have been some serious spills and leaks from tar sands pipelines, and it’s much more difficult to clean up and deal with than regular oil,” Robertson said.

Robertson says producing tar sands oil also contributes more to climate change than producing conventional crude.

When asked to discuss the lawsuit, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it does not comment on pending litigation.

You can find out more about the pipeline in by Tina Casagrand for the St. Louis Beacon.

Follow Véronique LaCapra on Twitter@KWMUScience

Copyright 2020 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit .

Veronique is a science & technology reporter for KWMU in St. Louis.
Véronique LaCapra
Science reporter Véronique LaCapra first caught the radio bug writing commentaries for NPR affiliate WAMU in Washington, D.C. After producing her first audio documentaries at the Duke Center for Documentary Studies in N.C., she was hooked! She has done ecological research in the Brazilian Pantanal; regulated pesticides for the Environmental Protection Agency in Arlington, Va.; been a freelance writer and volunteer in South Africa; and contributed radio features to the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. She earned a Ph.D. in ecosystem ecology from the University of California in Santa Barbara, and a B.A. in environmental policy and biology from Cornell. LaCapra grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and in her mother’s home town of Auxerre, France. LeCapra reported for St. Louis Public Radio from 2010 to 2016.
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