Month: March 2017

I need to clarify a few things and bring you up to date on the ongoing saga of the proposed new bridge across the Little Missouri River north of Medora. A project which, if completed, could be an environmental disaster for the North Dakota Bad Lands. That’s why I keep writing about it. To review, … Continue reading So, Who’s Going to Pay for the New Bridge Over the Little Missouri River?

Update: Dakota Goodhouse has written an excellent response to this article. go look at it here. When was the last time someone called you a dipshit? I swear, I hadn’t heard that word in 20 years, or maybe 30 or 40, until this week, when somebody called me that in a comment at the bottom … Continue reading Of Cougars, Dipshits, and Teddy Roosevelt

  In the early 1990s, a group of 17 conservation organizations, as diverse as the National Wildlife Federation, the Bismarck-Mandan Bird Club, the North Dakota Wildlife Society and the Fargo-Moorhead Audubon Society, gathered under a symbolic big tent, and produced a document outlining the dangers facing the North Dakota Bad Lands, and offering a plan … Continue reading The North Dakota Bad Lands: Still on the Brink

Okay, at first it was just a sly hint, a trickle of wishfulness, but it’s become a pretty serious subject of open discussion now, both on social media and on the street: How long do you think Trump will last as President? Some say he’s going to commit an apparently impeachable offense, and Congress will … Continue reading How Long Will Trump Last? Make a Guess!

In high school we called him “Slick.” He was handsome, swarthy, athletic, a bit of a rebel, with slicked back hair and cool clothes. He was Fonzie before Fonzie was invented. He didn’t seem to mind the nickname Slick back then, but after we all grew up and moved away and fought in wars and … Continue reading Slick

Well, it looks like Jason Halek is finally going to the pokey. Remember Jason? He’s the fellow who dumped more than 800,000 gallons of salty, oilfield wastewater into an abandoned oil well southwest of Dickinson in Stark County, North Dakota, and then attempted to cover it up. And his partner in crime, Nathan Garber, might … Continue reading The Long, Strange Saga of Jason Halek Comes to an End

A thousand trucks a day. That’s what Billings County Commission Chairman Jim Arthaud bragged to the Dickinson Press one day, a number of years ago, when he was asked how many vehicles would use a new bridge over the Little Missouri River north of Medora. A lot of water has flowed beneath that proposed bridge … Continue reading The Little Missouri Crossing: How to Take a Bad Idea and Make It Worse.

The engineering firm drafting the Environmental Impact Statement for Billings County’s request to put a new bridge across the Little Missouri River north of Medora has determined the best place to put the bridge is just 17 miles north of Medora, about a third of the way—as the crow flies—between the two current bridges near … Continue reading New Little Missouri Bridge Site Selected–And No One’s Going to Be Happy