UPDATE MARCH 17, 2022:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Standing Rock Sioux Tribe stemming from a road washout nearly three years ago that killed two people. Heavy rain in July 2019 washed away a section of roadway on the Standing Rock reservation. In the dark hours of the early morning, two motorists were killed when they unknowingly drove their vehicles into a deep culvert where the road washed away. The victims’ families argued the washout could have been avoided if the BIA has adhered to road maintenance standards it had adopted.
AUGUST 2, 2019:
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – A culvert that washed out from under a highway on the Standing Rock Reservation in July 2019, killing two people when they drove into the chasm, had been identified for replacement seven years ago.
Ron His Horse Is Thunder, the tribe’s director of transportation and planning, tells the Bismarck Tribune that the culvert was bowing but not considered dangerous.
The culvert and road above it eroded after a 7-inch rain fell. His Horse Is Thunder says that scouring caused the culvert to collapse, rather than the structure failing.
But His Horse Is Thunder said the culvert is a symptom of a lack of funding for many road projects on reservation land.
A 60-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man, both from Mobridge, S.D., died after the roadway failed.
