Dakota Beacon

DAPL DEVELOPER ENERGY TRANSFER and the Army Corps of Engineers are asking the federal appeals court in the District of Columbia to keep the pipeline operational during their appeal of a shutdown order from a lower court.  The appeal has been joined by 14 groups representing oil, agriculture, business and municipal interests.  One is the Western Dakota Energy Association, a group representing counties, cities and school districts in oil-producing parts of ND.  The American Petroleum Institute and the ND Petroleum Council are examples of other organizations supporting the appeal.  The essence of the appeal is the lower court “never balanced the injunction’s economic harm against the small risk of an oil spill.”  The pipeline company said the chance of a major pipeline leak occurring at the Missouri River crossing is one in 200,000 years.

THE PANDEMIC PICTURE IN ND  After nearly five months of the pandemic, what are the patterns in ND?  Cass County (Fargo) dominates with 49% of the state’s total cases and 79% of deaths.  Burleigh (Bismarck) has 12% of total cases, but only 3% of deaths; Grand Forks County is close behind with 10% of cases and 4% of deaths.  Morton County (Mandan) and Williams County (Williston) rounded out the top five with 4% and 3% of cases, respectively, and a similar percentages of deaths.  The remaining 21% of cases is spread widely among other counties, which are getting a higher percentage of cases in the second wave.  The underlying statistics were assembled by the Fargo Forum as of July 24.

HE’S SEEN ENOUGH  Coronavirus cases in Bismarck-Mandan (Burleigh-Morton counties, if you like) have tripled this month.  Gov. Burgum has ordered a task force modeled after one in Cass County to get B-M below the state average.  Health authorities have determined the above increase is highest among young adults and is probably attributable to gatherings around the Fourth of July.

DELAYED SHOCK  A Forum editorial scolded the NDGOP for a platform alleged to be unfriendly to the LGBT community.  The editorial said, “All NDGOP leaders must join in denouncing the platform language, and the party should strike the provisions from the platform.”   Columnist Rob Port pointed out the anti-LGBT language in the GOP resolutions had been there for years and it was only this year that a number of parties, including the Forum, professed shock.

THE COAL CREEK STATION (electric power producer) in Underwood, ND, is scheduled to be closed and hundreds of jobs will be lost.  Conventional wisdom is that lignite coal will steadily be replaced by natural gas and alternative energies which are both less expensive and less polluting.  Rob Port has a different take — he believes electricity markets are distorted by massive tax credits given to wind and the credits are killing the coal industry.  Port urges an end to the credits.

“THEY’RE HIGH NEEDS, there's a lot of trauma in that population, they're not typically dangerous, but they're risky. We have to attend to those.”  — Part of a presentation by ND Dept. of Corrections director Leann Bertsch about closing the women’s prison in New England and relocating the inmates to Mandan.  She said “the remoteness of the New England facility often acts as a barrier to services and family visitation for the women who are housed there” and "I think the writing's on the wall (about the relocation).”

TIME FOR A CHANGE?  ND is one of four states with biennial (every two years) legislative sessions — the other three are Montana, Nevada and Texas.  Columnist Mike Jacobs argues that it’s time for ND’s legislature to meet annually.  The change would allow a more prompt response to changed conditions, such as the pandemic and plunge in oil prices.  Annual sessions would also be more democratic, because some major decisions are now made by small groups between sessions.

DO YOU HEAR A CHOKING SOUND?  A consultant who designs major tourist attractions was hired to to study the future of Frontier Village in Jamestown.  They concluded the Village had little future, but the study was turned around to focus on the National Buffalo Museum.  The consultants rolled out a major project called Buffalo City Park that would put Jamestown on the map, but comes with a price tag of $47-57 million.  For Jamestown (pop. 15,000) this is a big bite to chew.

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT!  Jerry Hennessey, manager of the Ashby Farmers Elevator in Minnesota, looted and bankrupt the cooperative.  He’s in federal prison.  The fraud persisted for many years and I wondered how it escaped the attention of the bookkeeper.  Well, it didn’t.  Furthermore, she had her own game — she is charged with stealing $88,000.  Kimberly Goeden (47) of Fergus Falls will enter a plea in county court.  Directors of the cooperative who slept through the episode should be next in line, but probably won’t.

SHOW MORE RESPECT  You have probably ignored Halstad, Minnesota, a small town on the Red River near Hillsboro, ND.  No more of that, Halstad is soon to be famous as home to the “World’s Largest Sugar Beet.”  The 21-foot, 10,000 pound sculpture highlights Halstad’s pride in its most important industry and the reason residents sport T-shirts reading “You Can’t Beet Halstad.”

DAKTOIDS:  Another ND newspaper ends carrier delivery.  The Minot Daily News is now delivered by the USPS, but reaches subscribers the same day it’s published.  The paper is not published on Sundays . . . Coronavirus cases have been reaching new daily highs in ND —federal health officials have put the state on the high-risk list . . . Continental Resources (one of ND’s largest oil producers) chairman Harold Hamm expects to see "a decent recovery" for the oil industry by year's end, with more wells coming online in 2021.