For Energy Transfer Partners, the Texas-based company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, Feb. 23 was a good day.

After months of waging a public and at times bloody battle with protesters bivouacked outside its construction site in North Dakota, law enforcement officers razed the encampment and arrested the holdouts. Meanwhile, roughly 1,700 miles east, the company completed the final edits requested by regulators to its application to start building the Rover natural gas pipeline, a $4.2 billion project through Ohio.

That project had sailed through the permitting process, and these markups would be its last. Project manager Buffy Thomason wanted to extend thanks to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, so she emailed the firms lobbyist in the state, Art Arnold, that evening.

Its awesome, she wrote in an email, which was obtained by HuffPost. Its such a beautiful thing. Please tell your contact how much we appreciate their help.

Arnold forwarded the message to Laura Factor, the agencys assistant director, less than an hour later. In the same email, Arnold called the OEPA staff among if not the most honest and helpful people Ive encountered. (OEPA Director Craig Butler described Arnold and Factor as good friends in a separate exchange with an agency colleague.)

Theyve done their jobs without beating us up in the process, Arnold added. Theyve offered options when we were stuck. Theyve pointed us in the right direction so we could build the pipeline and stay within their good graces.