Betty Mills
By Betty Mills
After attending a family funeral in Bowman, we drove east out of New England on Highway 21 where golden fields stretched for what seemed miles, sometimes from down one hill to the top of the next. It was the North Dakota harvest season of my youth with no sign of the prosperity and the tension of the oil patch injecting a chaotic note into an otherwise reassuring view.
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Posted in Betty Mills, Columnists
Tagged Bakken, Betty Mills, compare, conservative, enterprise, Gas, greed, industry, money, New Deal, North Dakota, Oil, oil fields, Roosevelt, Texas, Time and Again
Charlie Barber, Mandan
Reprinted by permission of the author and the High Plains Reader
By Charlie Barber
Amillion people spread out over this state [North Dakota] is not going to seem very populated.”
- Harold Hamm, Chairman and CEO of Continental Resources
“We kind of feel like we’re drinking out of a fire hose right now.”
- Ward Koeser, Mayor, Williston, ND
“The genuine man of action is not intent on renovating the world, but on possessing it.”
- Eric Hoffer
“Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some.”
- Eric Hoffer
“History is made by juveniles.”
- Frederick Gentles
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Posted in Charlie Barber, Columnists, Development, Land, Opinion, Politics
Tagged bad, Bakken, Bismarck, Bloomberg, business, Charlie Barber, column, delusion, democrat, development, Eric Hoffer, evil, fact, Fantasia, fiction, Future, Gas, goodness, health, High Plains Reader, history, important, Keystone XL, labor, land, local, Mandan, Mickey Mouse, natural, Oil, oil genie, Oil Sorcerer, Opinion, Pipeline, politics, republican, resources, right, Tar Sands, These Two Pipelines, Troll Wizard, voting, wellness, world, wrong
From Dakota Resource Council
Some landowners in the Oil Patch say the State of North Dakota must stop ignoring major problems with current pipeline development while it promotes more oil pipelines as called for by the recent Governor’s pipeline summit.
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Posted in Community, Current Affairs, Development, Land, Politics
Tagged Alliance Pipeline Company, Bakken, Brenda Jorgenson, Dakota Resource Council, development, Economy, environment, Gas, history, Jack Dalrymple, Keystone XL, landowners, local, market, North Dakota, Oil, Pipeline, Pipeline Summit, politics, ranchers, Steve Davis, vote, White Earth
By A.L. “Bud” Johnson.
Reprinted by permission of the author and the High Plains Reader
Recent news stories express concern over rising oil and gasoline prices and their possible adverse effect on the recovering US economy. Consequently, it might be useful to review the causes for rising prices, as well as to cite some significant benefits to North Dakota and the U.S. economy.
Dear Editor:
North Dakota has the strongest law in the United States on restoration of mined farmland, but the state Supreme Court’s recent Coal Lake ruling threatens to make it a dead letter.
The court upheld the Public Service Commission’s decision that recreation was a “higher and better” use for 86 acres of mined land than raising crops.
The coal companies think up these alternatives and so far the PSC has given its blessing to all of them – golf courses, dirt bike tracks, shooting ranges, waste disposal pits. Adding these to what’s considered a “higher and better” use exempts the coal company from meeting farm productivity standards. Continue reading
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Posted in Letters to the Editor, Opinion
Tagged 1970, 70000, agricultural land, Bakken, Bismarck, coal, Coal Lake, Dakota, Dakota Resource Council, DRC, economic, Economy, enforcement, environment, Falkirk Mine, farming, federal law, foresight, Future, Gene Wirtz, good business, government, health, history, land use, law, leaders, legislative, living, North Dakota, Oil, oil wells, one time harvest, Opinion, politics, ranching, regulation, restoration, rural land, smart, state, state law
Bismarck, ND–The North Dakota Economic Security and Prosperity Alliance (NDESPA) will be hosting a town hall style meeting in Bismarck entitled ‘Bismarck-Mandan Speaks!’ The meeting is June 4, 2012 from 6:00-8:30 p.m. at the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Library.
“It seems we cannot turn on the radio or TV, open a newspaper or visit with a neighbor without hearing about the remarkable changes happening all across North Dakota” says Paul Ronningen, State Director for the Children’s Defense Fund and chairman of NDESPA.
“And while many community meetings are being held concerning these changes, little has been done to successfully engage local people in dialogue or ask people to share their experience in this new economy. We want to hear about real day to day experiences, creative ideas for solutions and thoughts on how to improve the public policies necessary to make a real difference for people in our community,” added Ronningen.
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Posted in Community, Current Affairs
Tagged Bakken, Bismarck, childcare, Children's Defense Fund, Event, housing, NDESPA, North Dakota, North Dakota Women's Network, oil boom, Paul Ronningen, Planning, poverty, Renee Stromme, violence
The proposed waste site is toward the bottom of this photo, which looks west over the White Earth Valley. Photo by Terry Evans
By Laura Knudsen
Earlier this year, the North Dakota Industrial Commission approved building an oil waste treatment plant near White Earth. Tervita Corporation, formerly CCS Midstream Inc., of Canada is seeking to build the plant at the top of the White Earth Valley. The plant would treat the waste water that oil drilling brings up and separate it into solid waste, saltwater and recoverable oil.
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Posted in Community, Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics
Tagged Bakken, Canada, CCS Midstream Inc, destruction, Economy, environment, Event, foresight, Future, Industrial Coimmission, landfill, local, nature, ND, North Dakota, oil drilling, Tervita Corporation, unsustainable, waste, White Earth
Charlie Barber, Mandan
Part 1 of a series. Republished by permission of the author and the High Plains Reader, Fargo, ND. By Charlie Barber
And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away; so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage.” – Micah, 2:2
“I don’t want to be there [Williston] anymore.” – 3rd Generation Williams County farmer
“Not only do we [the longtime inhabitants of western North Dakota] feel abandoned by our so-called ‘leaders,’ but we also feel that we are under major assault by the oil industry and the outsiders they bring along.” – John Heiser
“For the rich men thereof are full of violence, and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies, and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.” – Micah, 6:12
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Posted in Arts & Entertainment, Charlie Barber, Community, Opinion, Politics
Tagged Bakken, Big Brother, Charlie Barber, eminent domain, North Dakota oil, Pipeline, Williston
Pipeline expansions and present pipeline. From Anthony Swift, NRDC switchboard.
By Barb Price
Discussions about the Keystone XL pipeline have been throwing around numbers like candy at a parade. Supporters of the pipeline have been making promises of up to 250,000 jobs being created; lowered gas prices; energy security; thousands of gallons of North Dakota oil being sent south in the pipeline. . . It goes on and on.
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Posted in Community, Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics
Tagged 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 20123, 2013, analysis, anywhere, bad, Bakken, Barb Price, Bismarck, coal, creating jobs, early estimate, economic, Economy, employment, environment, everywhere, Fargo, Future, Gas, initial estimate, job, job creation, Keystone, Keystone XL, local, long term, Mandan, Minot, misguided, nature, no jobs, no permanent jobs, North Dakota, numbers, Obama, Oil, Opinion, permanent jobs, person-years, pipeline project, republican, Republican Party, studies, stupid, Tar Sands, temporary, Trans-Canada, TransCanada, unsustainable, work, wrong, wrongheaded
By Betty Mills
Education comes in many forms and when they bump into each other, I feel duty bound to sort things out. Let’s start with a lecture complete with some compelling graphs explaining why the changes in our climate which some attribute to global warming is a natural phenomenon and not the result of anything we human beings have helped to produce.
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Posted in Betty Mills, Columnists, Community, Current Affairs, Politics
Tagged Aquifer, Bakken, bias, Bismarck, care, community, consideration, education, environment, Future, information, Keystone XL, legislation, nature, North Dakota, Obama, Ogallala, Oil, oil boom, Pipeline, science, studies, truth, water