Category: Law, Government, Politics

Halek Operating. Remember them? I wrote about them a couple times earlier this summer. Those stories are here and here. But let me just refresh your memory. That's quicker. Halek is the company, run by a fellow named Jason Halek, that was fined $1.5 million by the North Dakota Industrial Commission for illegally dumping 800,000 … Continue reading “Drill Some Really Awesome Wells”

Well, okay, now there’s a list. On paper. Well, at least on a computer screen. It’s a list that the North Dakota Industrial Commission is “considering for at least one Commission member to tour” as they look at protecting places that have particularly sensitive archeological, paleontological, historical, recreational or environmental characteristics. That’s a start. I wrote … Continue reading The Industrial Commission Has A List. What Next? How About A Breather?

LET IT BE     Monday night, with about 31,000 of my best friends, I saw Paul McCartney give the best concert I have ever seen in my life. I don’t say that casually, because I have seen a lot of concerts. A lot. I’ve seen Neil Young, many times, the Moody Blues even more. I’ve seen … Continue reading Things I’m Thankful For

Cancel The Industrial Commission Tour Bus After a couple of dustups over whether or not to grant oil and gas drilling permits on Killdeer Mountain and next door to the Elkhorn Ranch, the North Dakota Industrial Commission announced with great fanfare last Spring it would take a tour of oil country and begin making a … Continue reading Oil Patch Update. Careful, This Could Ruin Your Day.

North Dakota’s Department of Trust Lands has left the door open just a crack to an oil and gas company that wants to drill in the middle of a national wildlife refuge, but state and federal wildlife officials may be able to slam it shut before that happens. A few weeks ago I wrote here … Continue reading Wildlife Refuges Not Out Of The Woods yet

I just love it when I make a dire prediction, saying something bad is going to happen, and it turns out I am wrong. It’s happened twice this week, and I couldn’t be more pleased. First, I have been moping around the back yard for a month predicting we wouldn’t get a raspberry crop this … Continue reading Raspberries For Me, And A Raspberry For A Big Oil Company

When the summer weather gets so nice that you just can’t stand to be indoors, and when the garden is coming in like gangbusters, it’s hard to sit down at the typewriter and do a blog post. I said typewriter because I’m going to do a summer rerun of something that I first wrote on … Continue reading Summer rerun

Sometime late this week, some dedicated staff people at the North Dakota Game and Fish Department are going to decide whether or not it would be a good idea for an oil company to drill an oil well in the middle of a national wildlife refuge in western North Dakota. When they decide, they are … Continue reading An Oil Well On A National Wildlife Refuge?

Bought any salt and pepper shakers lately? Yeah, me neither. Maybe the last ones I bought were when I got my first college apartment in 1965. I guess salt and pepper shakers last so long that you don’t have to buy them very often. But I thought I’d buy some this weekend. Lillian and Chelsea … Continue reading Me and Jimmy Buffet: Searchin’ For That Lost Shaker . . .

Fracking. The technology that is bringing undreamed-of wealth to some and unrelenting heartbreak to others is threatening one of our most treasured spots, a place many say is the birthplace of America’s conservation movement. Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the only national park named for a President of the United States, covers about 70,000 acres in … Continue reading Threats To The Elkhorn Ranch: A Primer