Dakota Beacon

UNQUALIFIED ENTHUSIASM  “You’re sitting on the last, best undeveloped tourism land in the country.” — Bob McTyre, founder of Apogee Attractions, the consulting firm which recommended the $60 million Buffalo City Park in Jamestown and the guiding visionary behind the park.  Apogee stands to benefit from a $500,000 contract to provide planning for the project.  Apogee estimates that the project would increase ND’s economy by $62 million and boost economic output by $38 million.  Apogee’s views were good enough for the Fargo Forum which said in an editorial, “It’s a bold idea to take unused state land near Interstate 94, with the towering ‘world’s largest buffalo’ statue as a beacon, and transform it into an attraction that will draw hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.”

TIME FOR CIRCUMSPECTION  The statement about the proposed site being the best in the country is a mouthful.  Making this claim about a buffalo pasture in the middle of one of the most sparsely populated states deserves circumspection.  After all, the statement qualifies as a “theoretical  maximum.”  Wouldn’t it make sense to wait until independent financial and investment specialists have reviewed the project before becoming effusive?  So far, we have heard only the views of a self-interested party.

ROB AND MELANI WALTON, who made the Roosevelt Library a reality with a $50 million donation, have purchased a $4 million, 1,900-acre ranch adjoining Medora and the Bully Pulpit Golf Course.  Rob is an heir to the Walmart fortune.  His wife Melani was born in Williston, grew up on a ranch in eastern Montana and is a graduate of Dickinson State.  The avowed purpose of their purchase is conservation. 

“IT’S NOT GOING TO SHUT DOWN.  I think this administration is finding out certainly how critical (energy) supply is to America, to national security.” — Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm referring to the Dakota Access Pipeline while speaking to the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck.  At the same conference, Hamm’s counterpart at Energy Transfer, the owner of the DAPL, expressed similar views.  Kelcy Warren also announced that a $2.4 billion windfall his company earned from the February storm-related surge in natural gas prices would allow the company to enter the plastics business.  He said ND would have difficulty establishing petrochemical plants because it is too far from water needed to access global plastics markets.

OMDAHL DOESN’T BUY IT  Herald columnist Lloyd Omdahl has a long history in ND government.  As mentioned here last week, the 2021 ND Legislature lavished a basket of benefits on the coal industry — tax benefits, credits and lines of credit totaling hundreds of million dollars.  Omdahl said, “The reality is that using lignite for coal-burning generators is no longer feasible, economically or environmentally.  But the Legislature decided to bail out the coal industry rather than accept the economic realities.”

MARK KENNEDY was president of UND from 2016 to June 2019.  He was excellent at setting priorities and getting things done, but in the process rubbed many the wrong way, particularly faculty members.  After UND, he became president of the much larger University of Colorado, where he encountered opposition similar to that which he faced at UND.  Kennedy is negotiating to leave the CU System and attributes his decision to a new Board of Regents with a different focus and philosophy.  The Minneapolis StarTribune highlighted the Colorado situation and noted: “Kennedy is a former Republican congressman who served Minnesota House districts before he was defeated by Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar in the state's 2006 Senate election.”

GET UP AND GO TO WORK  “Nearly 30% of those claiming the benefits live out of state.” — An observation in a Forum article saying ND will stop offering federal pandemic unemployment benefits because of a statewide workforce shortage.  Gov. Burgum said the federal benefits “provide a perverse incentive for North Dakotans to stay unemployed.”

A DANGEROUS PLACE TO WORK  ND ranked among the five most dangerous states in which to work from 2016 to 2019.  In that regard, it tends to be bunched with other small oil producing states such as Alaska and Wyoming.

JAMESTOWN has suffered many ups and downs as promising new businesses have not gone forward because of financial or market reasons.  The most recent news is an upper — ADM announced a $350 million plan to redevelop the former Cargill Malt  plant for soybean processing.  The plant will employ 70 people and process 150,000 bushels of soybeans per day.  Soybean oil from the plant would be shipped to Marathon Petroleum’s Dickinson Refinery to make renewable diesel.

AG OUTLOOK IMPROVES  Giant new tractors should be rolling out of farm equipment dealerships.  Look at the price performance of ND’s leading ag commodities during the past year: Corn doubled, soybeans up 80% and wheat up 40%.

LOW-VALUE MEDICAL PROCEDURES are those once thought to be effective, but now found by validated studies to be ineffective.  Spinal fusion for low back pain is an example of one of those procedures.  A study by the Lown Institute, a non-partisan think tank, identified 50 hospitals which were best at avoiding the low-value procedures.  Big names were largely absent from the list.  Included in the Top 50 was the West River Regional Medical Center in Hettinger, ND, Monument Health in Deadwood, SD, and four hospitals in Minnesota.  The list of 50 worst hospitals was dominated by hospitals located in Florida (14) and Texas (10).  Minnesota was the fourth best state, SD the fifth and ND 12th.

DAKTOIDS:  ND is one of only two places in the world with paddlefish, the other is China — the paddlefish snagging season started in the Williston area on May 1 . . . The ND Newspaper Association awarded the Fargo Forum first place for General Excellence, the GF Herald second and the Bismarck Tribune third . . . Jodi Rave Spotted Bear of the MHA Nation (Ft. Berthold Reservation) has been awarded a Bush Foundation fellowship to advocate for freedom of the press in Indian Country.