The Latest: AG approves ranch sale to pipeline developer

BISMARCK, N.D. – The Latest on the protest against the Dakota Access oil pipeline (all times local):

4:30 p.m.

North Dakota’s attorney general has signed off on a purchase of ranch land by the company developing the Dakota Access pipeline.

Energy Transfer Partners bought some 6,000 acres of ranch property near an encampment where the Standing Rock Sioux and others have protested the pipeline for months. The company said the land, part of a century-old operation known as the Cannonball Ranch, would give its workers better access to its construction sites and the finished pipeline.

State law generally bars corporations from owning agricultural land, though there are exceptions.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said in a statement Tuesday that the purchase was temporarily necessary for commercial development. He said he would monitor how the land is used to make sure the company is complying with the corporate farming law.

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1 p.m.

The father of a 21-year-old woman from New York says his daughter was seriously injured while protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline in North Dakota.

Wayne Wilansky says 21-year-old Sophia Wilansky is having a second surgery on a damaged arm at a Minneapolis hospital and might lose the arm. He says his daughter told him she saw a law enforcement officer throw an object at her that exploded.

Wilansky was injured during a clash late Sunday near the camp along the pipeline route in southern North Dakota where protesters have gathered for months.

The Morton County Sheriff’s Office has said authorities didn’t use any concussion grenades and suggested an explosion heard during the skirmish might have been caused by small propane tanks that authorities said protesters had rigged to explode.

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11:45 a.m.

An official says North Dakota likely will have to borrow more money to police protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline now that the costs have exceeded the $10 million in emergency spending authorized by the state.

State Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong says law enforcement costs related to the protests that have been ongoing since August reached $10.9 million last week.

She says it’s “very likely” that officials will need to request more money from the state’s Emergency Commission, which earlier approved borrowing $10 million from the state-owned Bank of North Dakota.

The CEO of pipeline developer Energy Transfer Partners says he made a verbal offer to Gov. Jack Dalrymple to reimburse the state. Dalrymple’s spokesman says no formal offer has been made.