SCHMID: LOOKING BACK - TOP TEN NORTH DAKOTA STORIES OF 2014
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
TOO GOOD TO LAST
Looking back, 2014 may have been a high-water year for North Dakota. All the stars were aligned. The Federal Reserve said the state was experiencing “unprecedented prosperity.” Joel Kotkin writing in Forbes said North Dakota led the nation in virtually every indicator of prosperity. The state was tops in individual “well-being” and led the nation in income mobility.
BOOMING BAKKEN CITIES
The Fargo Forum called Williston the fastest-growing small city in America. The city had a population of 15,000 in 2010, today it’s around 30,000 and 50,000 is not out of the question. Because of infrastructure requirements, Williston’s budget is nearly as large as Fargo’s. Smaller Oil Patch cities such as Killdeer and Watford City are growing even faster than Williston. Business derived from the Oil Patch is causing Minot to have the largest investment boom in recent history.
CASSELTON
The railroad oil spill, explosion and fire in Casselton was not only the biggest in North Dakota history, it was the biggest rail oil spill in U.S. history. The incident happened outside Casselton and there were no deaths or injuries, but the possibility of this type of rail accident in the heart of a city stoked imaginations. Casselton helped provoke a national debate about the safety of transporting volatile North Dakota crude oil by rail. Late in the year, the North Dakota Industrial Commission adopted rules requiring oil companies to reduce the volatility of crude oil before shipping.
OIL PATCH TRAFFIC
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said “North Dakota stands out as an exceptionally dangerous and deadly place to work.” The construction and oil industries are the most dangerous and in North Dakota over 60 percent of the deaths in those industries take place on the road. Nowhere in the state are there more traffic fatalities than in the Highway 85 corridor in McKenzie County, the heart of the Oil Patch. The county accounts for nearly 20 percent of the state’s traffic fatalities despite over $300 million of recent improvements to Highway 85.
BISON GAME DAY
On January 10th, the NDSU Bison football team will play for its fourth straight national championship in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision. In September, ESPN’s College Game Day, the biggest nationally televised sports program, returned to downtown Fargo for the second year in a row.
TEX HALL AND TROUBLE
On December 28th, the New York Times printed an investigative report titled “In North Dakota, a Tale of Oil, Corruption and Death.” Here’s a quote from a tribal elder and historian that summarizes the article: “Now you have a murder, a hit man, and a five-time convicted felon operating as an oil contractor working directly with the chairman.” That former chairman is Tex Hall and the article is about tribal mismanagement and oil-related corruption on the Ft. Berthold Reservation.
FIGHTING SIOUX STILL NOT DEAD
You may have thought the last nail has been driven in the Fighting Sioux coffin, but the issue is not dead. A committee formed to develop a process for a new UND nickname has been stalled by the reservoir of respect and admiration for the old nickname and logo. Meanwhile, none of UND’s constituencies, the Sioux tribes in particular, have benefited from the loss of the name. A letter from Frank Burggraf, who played on two UND national championship hockey teams, was one of the most-read online articles at the Grand Forks Herald. He said all of the objectives of the search committee have been met by a readily available name -- that name is Sioux.
DICKINSON STATE UNIVERSITY -- IF IT’S NOT ONE THING IT’S ANOTHER
DSU has been in a nose dive following an academic scandal, which, among other things, awarded bogus diplomas to Chinese students. Enrollment dropped 40 percent in three years. In November, the state Attorney General pushed the DSU Foundation into financial receivership for serious ethical and financial failures. Donations to the foundation for student scholarships were diverted to questionable real estate activities.
KEYSTONE XL
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven has led unsuccessful efforts in the U.S. Senate to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada. The Obama Administration and the Senate have blocked the pipeline, which would pass near the southwest corner of the state and carry North Dakota oil. With Republican control of Congress, it is almost a certainty the pipeline will be approved early in 2015.
WHAT’S AHEAD
North Dakota’s economy is based on two commodity sectors -- oil and agriculture. Both sectors have taken a dive and the state’s 2015 prospects are uncertain. The oil price decline could be very serious -- if oil prices fall below a certain threshold for five consecutive months, the oil extraction tax disappears entirely for up to two years. That would cost the state billions, not to mention indirect consequences. NDSU Extension projects that almost all of the state’s corn farmers will lose money in 2015.
DakotaBeacon