The Seattle City Council on Tuesday voted unanimously to cut ties with banking giant Wells Fargo over its role as a lender to the Dakota Access pipeline project as well as other business practices. The measure directs officials to end the city's contract with the SF-based bank once it expires in 2018 and not to make new investments in Wells Fargo securities for 3 years.

Wells Fargo manages more than $3 billion of Seattle's operating account, processing everything from payroll and vendor payments to revenues collected from city business taxes to city fines.

Seattle's measure comes on the same day that the Army told Congress that it will allow the $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, completing the disputed 4-state project. The stretch is the final big chunk of work on the 1,200-mile pipeline that would carry North Dakota oil through the Dakotas and Iowa to a shipping point in Illinois.

Environmental activists across the country have called on several banks to stop financing the construction of the oil pipeline as well as on individuals to pull their money out of those banks.

Wells Fargo has said it is one of 17 involved in financing the pipeline and that it is obligated by carry out its credit agreement. The bank is providing $120 million of the $2.5 billion.