Dakota Beacon

WORST OF THE WORST  Last week, the mayors of ND’s five largest cities signed a letter urging residents to wear masks.  A GF Herald editorial today said, “Unfortunately, in the week since the letter was published, COVID-19 cases have risen even further in Grand Forks and throughout the state. North Dakota now leads the nation in per-capita cases. This is a developing crisis.”  And indeed it is.  The mayors of Fargo and Grand Forks issued mandates for masks, other cities are considering the same.  On a per-capita basis, the counties housing Bismarck and Mandan lead the state’s larger cities and have active cases representing over one percent of their populations.

RURAL COUNTIES HIT HARDEST  A Forum article pointed out that the most cases per capita in ND are found in rural counties.  It gave as an example Foster County, with a population of just over 3,200, which reported an average of 258 active cases per 10,000 residents, compared to a 117 case average in Cass County (Fargo).  Foster County had the highest average in the state.

A RISKY NOTION  Jamestown’s economic development corporation sponsored a poll regarding how Legacy Fund money should be invested.  The poll found that 79% of voters supported investing more of the fund in ND and 15% were in favor of investing the entire $7 billion fund in the state.  It’s not surprising that on first blush, many voters would welcome a flood of Legacy money for their favored local projects.  This is a risky, if not dangerous, notion.  ND’s economy already has a lop-sided dependence on ag and energy and when the two go down together, as we have seen recently, it’s very painful.  ND is one of the least economically diversified states.  Investing the Legacy Fund in ND doubles down on this risk.  Hopefully, there will be voter education.  A modest allocation of Legacy money to ND could permit the fund to maintain its soundness and diversification.

OIL PRODUCTION LEVELING OFF  Some journalists need a math editor.  The Minot Daily News reported that ND oil production rose from 1.04 million barrels a day in July to 1.16 million barrels in August (an increase of 11.7%).  The MDN described the increase as only a “slight improvement.”  The Star Tribune was much more enthusiastic, they said ND “oil output soared 14% in August.”  In other words, one newspaper understated the increase, while the other exaggerated it.  The ND Dept. of Mineral Resources said that output will not increase much further unless the current price of around $40 a barrel increases.  They believe the price needs to reach $45 a barrel before producers start fracking wells which are already drilled and placing those wells in production.  The price needs to reach $55 a barrel before they start drilling new wells.

THE LINE 3 PIPELINE has been completed in Canada, in a corner of ND and in Wisconsin.  The line is intended to run from Alberta, Canada, to Superior, Wisconsin.  The holdout is Minnesota where tribal groups and environmentalists have pressured regulators to prevent the pipeline.  Motives differ, but the environmentalists want to limit the transportation of oil from Canadian oil sands.

INTERMODAL  The Bismarck Tribune said, “The term ‘intermodal' refers to containers that can be used to ship products via truck, rail or ship, with little human interaction. Product being shipped does not need to be unloaded and repacked as it moves between different types of transportation.  Gov. Burgum announced last week that BNSF will provide an intermodal unit train at a facility in Minot.  The state has been struggling since 2008 to get this service going, but facilities in Bismarck and Minot failed.  Burgum called an intermodal train that arrives in Minot next week a “game-changer” — the intermodal rail service will reduce shipping costs for certain farm products by as much as 25%.

BONANZA MAN  In 2012, UND awarded Hiram Drache the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters for being one of the premier interpreters of agriculture and entrepreneurship in the region.  He was a farmer, prolific author, academic, speaker (1,089 speeches in 36 states) and radio host.  Dr. Drache was on the Concordia faculty from 1955 to 1991 having had 6,970 students who took two or more semesters from him.  He received a MA from the U. of Minnesota in 1951 and a Ph.D. from UND in 1962.  His specialty was the history of entrepreneurship in regional agriculture beginning with ND’s Bonanza farms.  He died this week at 96.

AN UNHAPPY SCENE  The NDSU Faculty Senate fired and replaced its president, Carlso Hawley.  Now they are prepared to really get down to business — they are considering dismissing recently appointed Provost Margaret Fitzgerald and giving university President Dean Bresciani a vote of no-confidence for making the appointment.

SUPER SUNFLOWER YEAR  Kansas may be the Sunflower State, but ND is the number one producer.  ND is expected to produce 1.23 billion pounds this year, nearly half of the USDA’s estimate of national production.  Estimated ND sunflower production for 2020 is up 64% from last year, when weather was a problem during both planting and harvesting.

BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW  About 83% of the nation’s canola acreage is in ND — this is a very good year for farmers who produce that crop.  But ND is a piker compared to Canada which dominates world canola production.  Here’s what you didn’t know — the word canola is a contraction of “Canadian oil, low acid,” or can-o-la.

SID HARTMAN was a legendary sportswriter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  He died this week still writing at age 100.  A colleague wrote, “He just beats people down, and he’s brazen. In this world of ‘Minnesota Nice,’ he’s the antithesis of that.”  Hartman was loyal to Minnesota teams and even preferred Minneapolis teams over those from St. Paul, which he referred to as “East Berlin.”  During the college hockey season, he reserved a special disdain for the UND Fighting Sioux.

“I WAS NAIVE.  I was dumb, you know? I shouldn’t have went. I did; I can’t change that, so I just got to move forward.” — A motorcyclist form Nebraska who believed he caught a severe case of coronavirus in Sturgis, SD.  Within weeks of the Sturgis rally there was a surge in cases in the Dakotas and surrounding states.  This all from a Washington Post article which took SD and its governor to task for holding the rally.  The article quoted the Kaiser Family Foundation: “Holding a half-million-person rally in the midst of a pandemic is emblematic of a nation as a whole that maybe isn’t taking [the novel coronavirus] as seriously as we should.”  The Sturgis City Council said motorcyclists would come in any case and their authority was limited — “There absolutely was no right decision.”