Environmentalists have a bit of a problem when it comes to practicing what they preach.

According to a North Dakota Fox affiliate, the North Dakota Access Pipeline protesters left enough trash to fill 250 trucks. The same protesters who stood their ground in Standing Rock to prevent the final 1.5 miles of a 1,700-mile pipeline from being built have become the thing they hate: polluters.

"Standing Rock Environmental Protection Agency and Dakota Sanitation are working together to try and advert an environmental tragedy," says Tom Doering, Morton County Emergency Manager. "There's a lot of work to be done."

Cleanup efforts have been stymied by the weather where trash has been frozen creating "massive chunks of junk."

The Army Corps. of Engineers have closed the 50-acres of once pristine land where grass has been removed or destroyed. "The unauthorized placement of structures, vehicles, personal property, and fires" have created soil erosion from a lack of vegetation. If the trash remains, a spring flood could send toxic sludge into the neighboring Cannonball River and Lake Oahe. These are the same bodies of water that NoDAPL protesters argued the pipeline would pollute.

President Trump issued an executive order in the early weeks of his presidency to finish construction of both the Dakota Access pipeline, but also the Keystone XL pipeline. Environmentalists will more than likely continue to protest the construction of both pipelines, and risk further environmental calamity as a result of their inability to dispose of waste properly.