Morton County, N.D (KFGO) - The million dollar clean-up of three camps used by Dakota Access Pipeline protesters in south central North Dakota is nearly complete.
A contractor hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed work at the largest of the camps and another just south of it. Both are on Corps of Engineers-owned land. A third protest camp not originally in the clean-up plan, located on property owned by the the Corps of Engineers and the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, is more than a third complete.
Corps spokeman Captain Ryan Hignightsays one of the big concerns has been about hazardous waste on the properties which could get washed into the Missouri River, contaminating the Oahe reservoir and other downstream locations.
Hignight says several locations have been where there was human waste but it was minor. He says, "those at the camp said they were doing a lot to compost or remove it. That's not to say it's not out there we just haven't found it."
More than 7,000 cubic yards of debris and garbage, filling 1600 rollout dumpsters has been collected so far. Hignight says the Standing Rock Sioux tribe has also collected propane tanks and lumber for recycling or use left behind when the camps were evacuated about two weeks ago.
