SCHMID: LOOKING BACK FROM THE LEFT COAST - MAY 11, 2015
ANOTHER OIL TRAIN FIRE A Forum headline Wednesday read “City evacuated.” The article went on to say “The small North Dakota community of Heimdal and surrounding farmsteads were evacuated after an oil tanker train derailed.” Small indeed, Heimdal has less than 30 people. Six cars derailed and four burned. Heimdahl is very close to ND’s continental divide, perched between the Sheyenne River which ultimately flows north to Canada and the James River which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The rivers are less than 10 miles apart at points near Heimdal.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL featured ND in two articles last Friday:
Each year, the USDA makes $2 billion of preventive planting payments for crops that can’t be planted. The WSJ said the majority of the payments go to the wet Prairie Pothole Region much of which is in ND. Critics call the program “needless and costly;” supporters say it protects farmers from forces beyond their control.
The other article discussed ND’s revamp of the way it taxes the oil industry. The state legislature chose a stable tax rate to replace a variable rate system which created sharp swings in tax collections. The new rate is one percent lower than the old and critics claim it throws a bone to the oil industry which could cost billions. Supporters say it makes state revenue more predictable and encourages the oil companies to maintain production during periods of low prices.
HERALD COLUMNIST MIKE JACOBS summarized the just-concluded 2015 legislative session. He said, “the overarching theme of this session was ‘oil anxiety.’ Worry was widespread about oil prices, taxes, regulations, jobs, transportation and safety. Especially about prices.” Hence, the tax revision noted above by the WSJ. Jacobs remarked on the “relative clarity of the new formula and the stability it will bring to the state’s revenue stream.” He said the Legislature also made important changes related to higher education, the most important of which was a requirement that the Chancellor of the University System share plans regarding the system with legislative leaders.
UND asked for suggestions for a new nickname -- there was an avalanche. The school received 842 pages of names. The winner by far was “Fighting Sioux” -- listed almost 5,800 times. Too bad, the Nickname Committee refused to consider it.
NOT HELPFUL Over the long history of the UND Fighting Sioux controversy there has been one consistently loud and negative voice -- the shrill, parochial view of editors at the Fargo Forum. In an editorial this week, the Forum, with characteristic hyperbole, likened Fighting Sioux supporters to racists, homophobics, bullies and sexists.
TOWERS CRUMBLE, BUT PEACE DOESN’T The next time you visit the International Peace Garden on the ND/Manitoba border something will be missing. Four 120-foot-tall concrete towers will be gone. The towers were built 32 years ago and are beyond rehabilitation. The towers were built to foster peace -- it seems to have worked, so far, the warlike Canadians have not invaded.
“A ONE-STOP SHOP FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT” -- The president of the Bank of ND explained the purpose of a $17 million expansion of their Bismarck campus. The proposed 40-50,000 square foot facility will have as tenants almost every state agency involved in economic development. The expansion will not require general state funds and is intended to operate at a profit.
WATFORD CITY has growing pains -- its population was 1,700 in 2010 and is expected to reach 20,000. However, housing growth is not taking place the way the city would like. There are eight apartments for every single-family home and more apartments are being built. The little city is sprawling -- an article by Lauren Donovan of the Bismarck Tribune indicates Watford City has a footprint the size of Minot.
IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN, you just didn’t think it would be this big. A pair of foreign fraud artists raised more than $62 million for a Ponzi scheme involving “man camps” in the Bakken oil fields of ND and Montana. In Ponzi schemes, money from new investors is used to pay early investors. Man camps are barracks type housing for workers in the oil fields. The opportunity to earn “guaranteed returns” of 25 percent annually was generously spread among 980 investors from 66 countries. The SEC and the ND Securities Commission are mopping up the battlefield. A Forum article noted there were no investors from ND.
HEALTHY SELFIES Forum health columnist Meredith Holt usually gets around to the subject of weight control. Meredith knows about what she writes -- as an adult, her weight has fluctuated from 115 to 315 pounds. She takes “selfies,” not, mind you, because of an unhealthy concern about her appearance, rather, because she considers it a good way to monitor her health.
DAKTOIDS: Cheyenne Brady, an NDSU student from New Town (Ft. Berthold Reservation), was crowned Miss Indian World in New Mexico . . . The Red River Valley is one of the windiest places in the U.S. due to its flatness and location in the path of the Polar Jet Stream -- average wind speed this April was about 13 mph . . . Bill Marcil Sr. and his wife Jane, owners of the Forum companies, recently donated $1 million to the T. Roosevelt Medora Foundation as the “lead gift” for a $7 million Life Skills Center center for summer workers in Medora.
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