CANNON BALL, N.D. (AP) - Authorities this week cleared the last holdouts from a Dakota Access pipeline protest camp on federal land in North Dakota, but it will be a while before the region returns to normal.
There's tons of debris to be cleared. There's a highway bridge that remains closed. Pipeline drilling continues. There's a court battle lingering. And hundreds of protesters remain in the area.
Many in the closed camp have gone to other camps nearby on the Standing Rock Reservation. But the status of those camps is unclear.
Protest leader Joye Braun says there's a dispute over whether two camps are on private land or tribal land. And people haven't been able to get into another camp established on private land by the Cheyenne River Sioux because of a Bureau of Indian Affairs roadblock.