PIERRE, S.D. (KELO AM) The South Dakota Highway Patrol has been fully reimbursed for the troopers and resources sent to North Dakota to help handle the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
"The total highway patrol cost was $518,154 and 38 cents and we have been 100 percent reimbursed by the state of North Dakota." Highway Patrol Spokesman Tony Mangan tells KELO.COM News.
Mangan says the reimbursement was for about 8,800 manhours and other expenses related to the protest deployment.
Native American tribes and environmental activists protested the pipeline for months just above the South Dakota border near Cannonball, North Dakota, where the pipeline was crossing the Missouri River. There were hundreds of arrests over many months.
Dakota Access is now moving North Dakota oil across eastern South Dakota, right by Sioux Falls and across Iowa, to a distribution center in Illinois.