Six agriculture groups from South and North Dakota have filed a friend of the court brief asking a federal court that stopped the Dakota Access Pipeline from operating to be allowed to be back up and running again. South Dakota Corn Grower’s Association Executive Director Lisa Richardson says having DAPL running would help ensure commodities from the Dakotas can get out to export markets via the Pacific Northwest.

She says because South Dakota has limited access to the Pacific Northwest to export markets, limiting that even further by stopping the DAPL project creates even higher transportation costs.

Richardson adds that not only are the costs of shipping commodities sent skyrocketing with the limited access, it also increases costs of getting ethanol out to both domestic and export markets.

Both the South Dakota Farm Bureau and Soybean Growers Association have joined the South Dakota Corn Growers in this court challenge. Also joining them are the North Dakota Farm Bureau, North Dakota Grain Dealers Association and North Dakota Grain Growers Association.