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These days you can ride the light rail into lower downtown, an area that was half rail yard, half urban blight back when Dynasty was wrapping up, and look up at the bright blue sky reflected in the facades of brand new, steel and glass residential/office/retail buildings. A gleaming white arc-like structure stretches over the stop for the Amtrak trains, and beyond that, the century-old, but beautifully refurbished Union Station rises up, it's neon telling you to "Travel by Train." The vibe is futuristic hip, a far cry from that old quasi-Houston feel.
Or maybe not. See that new energy-efficient building adjacent to Union Station? It is the headquarters for Antero Resources, one of the top oil and gas companies drilling in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays in the East. Apollo Exploration employees look out at all the new buildings from a couple blocks away. Noble Energy and Encana Oil and Gas have offices on the other side of downtown; in between are Anadarko, Halcon Resources, EOG Resources, QEP Resources and plenty more. One estimate has 30 percent of Denver's downtown office space occupied by oil and gas industry workers.
Over the last couple of decades, Denver has transformed itself into a greener, transit-oriented city, and a trendy magnet for millennials. Fossil fuels have helped drive the metamorphosis. According to statistics recently released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Denver now has one of the healthiest gross domestic products in the nation. The metro area's GDP grew by 4 percent in 2013, about half of which is attributed to extractive industries. Close to 30,000 people are directly employed by the fossil fuel industry in northern Colorado, either in Denver offices or the oil fields of Weld County, which yielded some $4.5 billion worth of crude last year. Greeley, a cow-town north of Denver with a massive meatpacking plant, saw its GDP jump by a whopping 10 percent, and it has nothing to do with cattle.
The story's similar across the West: The shale oil boom has pulled old energy towns — thrown into a slump by the sudden and massive deflation of natural gas prices a few years ago — back into the black, as well as creating some new ones. Among the top performing metros are Casper, Wyoming, Fargo, North Dakota, and Bakersfield, California. Jimmy Carter's dream is finally coming to fruition: Domestic oil production has reached levels not seen since Blake Carrington and Alexis Colby were duking it out on Dynasty, and oil companies are raking in record profits — $1.8 billion for Anadarko last year, $2.6 billion for EOG Resources. Now if someone would just make another Western soap opera that includes wistful, moonlit dialogue scenes on drilling rigs.
Since all the big energy states tax the oil and gas that comes from the ground, those state governments should be flush, too. And in some cases they are. Alaska regularly pulls in around $4 billion per year from energy production taxes, and North Dakota's severance tax revenues totaled more than $2.5 billion in 2013, or more than $3,500 per resident. Colorado, meanwhile, only got about one-sixteenth what North Dakota did (and just $28 per resident). That's despite the fact that Colorado produces about one-fifth as much oil as North Dakota, and nearly ten times the natural gas.
Colorado, it turns out, has one of the lowest effective severance tax rates in energy country. A Headwaters Economics analysis found that Colorado would collect about $1.2 million in taxes from the same well from which Wyoming or North Dakota would collect $2.2 million. And a Colorado Legislative Council study earlier this year painted an even more disparate picture. When exemptions and tax credits are figured in, Colorado has an effective severance tax rate of just 1.5 percent, compared to North Dakota's 10.7 percent.
In theory, that would lure drillers to set up their rigs on the Colorado rather than the Wyoming side of the state line, thus giving Colorado the jobs, as well as state and local taxes and impact fees, those rigs bring. But a look at drilling activity in oil and gas fields that cross state lines show no such preference — geology and land ownership, and perhaps regulations, appear to be more influential. Similarly, despite the fact that Colorado has a 4.63 percent corporate income tax, and Wyoming has none, oil companies tend to set up shop in Denver, not Cheyenne. Regardless, another study, this one out of the University of Michigan, found that many states have actually been lowering their tax rates as production has increased.
Severance tax allocation varies from state to state — some goes to general funds, Wyoming sends kids to college, Alaska sends checks to everyone. Ideally some of the money's put away into a trust fund, or used in a way that makes the affected communities more able to weather the next bust. A repeat of the 80s crash is unlikely — the preceding boom was driven less by scarcity than by geopolitics, first, and then federal energy policy, including massive subsidies, which were discontinued by the Reagan administration. This boom is driven by drilling technology and the rising price of oil, which is fueled by burgeoning demand from China, India and developing countries. That's not likely to go away entirely, but every boom busts someday, and when it does, Colorado may regret throwing away all those would-be severance tax revenues.
But when that day comes, Denver will be far better prepared to deal with it. Despite energy's outsized role, the economy is far more diversified than in the early '80s — finance, high tech and so-called cleantech, which includes wind and solar companies, are also big sectors. Plus, public funds have been invested wisely in infrastructure, transportation and in making the city a desirable place for companies — including oil companies — to relocate, with or without high taxes.
And as long as the oil and money are flowing, those script writers may as well start working on a Dynasty for the millennial set.
Jonathan Thompson is a senior editor at High Country News.
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Schultz is one of just two large-scale bobcat farmers in North America. For 32 years, he and his wife, Carol, have raised the animals for fur in Arengard, North Dakota — population 115 — a dot on the state's western border, just south of Williston. Schultz is an erstwhile trapper who hated to see skinned beavers go to waste and figured he could raise cats on the recycled meat. He sells his skins to Canadian auction houses, which ship the furs to Russia, China, Japan and Italy. A good fur, speckled with constellations of black spots against a snow-white belly, fetches him up to $1,100.
"I grew up on a farm, and we raised hogs and cattle and sheep and chickens," Schultz, who currently keeps around 130 cats, told me earlier this week. "It's always rewarding when you watch something go from little to big. It's just a different kind of farming, is all it is."
The last thing Schultz ever expected was international infamy. Yet infamy is what's been thrust upon him, brought on by the confluence of an oil boom, an environmental review and a coalition of animal rights activists.
Arnegard sits at the heart of the Bakken region, the sprawling oil patch now yielding a million barrels of crude per day. When production in the Bakken spiked, so did truck traffic past the Schultz Fur Farm. Soon, as many as 25 semis were roaring by his property every hour, raising a racket and kicking up dust. The stressed-out bobcats responded by killing their offspring. (Although Schultz started his farm with wild-caught stock, today all his cats are born in captivity.) Forty percent of his kittens were slain by their mothers.
Schultz decided it was time to flee the Bakken and move to central Montana's Fergus County, far from the tumult of the oil patch. On June 18 of this year, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (MFWP) completed a pro forma environmental assessment and recommended that Schultz receive a license to operate his relocated farm. The state then opened the assessment to a public comment period — and the fur hit the fan.
The comment period quickly turned into a referendum not on the environmental impacts of Larry Schultz's bobcat farm, but on the ethics of farming animals for fur at all. Thousands of comments poured in, some from places as far away as New Zealand. A petition demanding the rejection of Schultz's application garnered 12,000 signatures. The internet howled its disgust. One typical comment, on the website of the Missoula Independent: "This asshole wants to move because the mothers kill their young, basically it hurts his profits, f--- him."
When activists from California called his house to castigate him, he tried to point out that the loss of animal life was inherent to any farming operation. They didn't listen. "They can be an animal rights person, that's their opinion, that's fine," Schultz told me. "Just like I can have an opinion about them being a vegetarian."
Schulz's predicament isn't surprising: Fur farms have long been a favorite target of animal rights activists, and for good reason. Animals at many farms are confined to tiny, wire-floored cages; suffer from self-mutilation; and are sometimes killed via a shudder-inducing process called anal electrocution. (According to the environmental assessment, Schultz's bobcats would be kept in 4x6 wire cages with attached 2x4 nesting boxes. He told me he kills his animals by lethal injection.)
Several countries, including the United Kingdom, have responded to pressure from animal rights campaigners by passing complete or partial bans on fur farming. The U.S., however, has no such law — to the outrage of many activists. This spring, ski mask-wearing vandals destroyed breeding records at a bobcat farm in Ronan, Montana, though their attempts to free the cats were deterred. "Our motives were borne of a fierce love for wildlife," the activists wrote in an email. (Whether bobcats that have been raised in captivity for generations qualify as wildlife is a question the email did not address.)
Schultz hasn't yet experienced that kind of harassment, but his attempts to depart the Bakken have brought his once-anonymous business an unwelcome notoriety. (When I asked him if he would speak with me, his first question was, "Well, that depends — do you eat a hamburger once in a while?") Attacking bobcat farms, however, isn't likely to put a dent in international demand for furs. As long as there's a market, fur farming — and trapping, currently experiencing a boom of its own — will persist.
Meanwhile, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has been sifting through the snowdrift of letters and emails (the comment period closed August 29), though according to game warden Shawn Briggs, there's no timetable for issuing a decision on Schultz's application. For now, then, Larry and Carol are stuck in the Bakken. "We're in the heart of it," Schultz said. "We could stay and bitch about it. Or we could leave."
Ben Goldfarb is a correspondent at High Country News. Follow @ben_a_goldfarb]]>
New details of drones in the North emerged only recently, thanks to the California-based Electronic Frontier Foundation. Last summer, the organization obtained a cache of documents about drone flights in America in response to its public-interest lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security. These documents reveal that the department, through its Customs and Border Protection Division, has deployed at least two Predator B drones to an operating base in Grand Forks, North Dakota. The drones make frequent surveillance flights along the U.S. border with Canada, using advanced radar and video systems to survey the expansive landscape.
The documents also outline the agency's efforts to grow its fleet. The Customs and Border Division, according to a 2010 report, plans to station seven drones along the northern border by the end of 2016. Moreover by 2025, the agency wants a permanent fleet of 10 drones to monitor the border "seven days/week 24 hours/day" from bases in North Dakota, Montana, Washington and elsewhere. The goal, in other words, is non-stop surveillance.
Predator B drones are the same machines our government has used in its bombing campaigns in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Operated by deskbound pilots protected in a bunker somewhere, the drones can fly for 27 hours without refueling and reach an altitude of 50,000 feet. With a wingspan of 66 feet, they can carry nearly 4,000 pounds of equipment, from infrared technology to missile systems. Though drones operated by Customs and Border Protection are not yet armed, the "Concept of Operations" report indicates that the agency has considered fitting them with "non-lethal weapons designed to immobilize" enemies.
This growing drone fleet is not used exclusively for border surveillance. Local, state and federal entities, from the Coast Guard to the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, can borrow these machines from border officials to conduct domestic policing. According to flight logs obtained in the lawsuit, the Customs and Border Division performed more than 700 surveillance flights in support of other law enforcement agencies between 2010 and 2012 alone. Where, how and why these drone flights occurred remains a mystery; the flight logs are heavily censored.
Along our Southern border, Predator B drones have been in use since 2004, when our Customs and Border Division first began its experiment with these machines. Today, the agency has stationed at least four drones in Arizona, and it regularly loans them to organizations such as the Arizona Department of Public Safety and numerous county sheriffs' departments across the Southwest. The likelihood of civil liberties violations seems not to concern federal officials.
Drone surveillance in this country started in the West, probably because government security officials view its vast open spaces, remote mountains and dense forests as a weak link in America's armored exterior. It takes invasive technologies to control such unruly terrain, and drones must seem like the perfect tools. These airborne security cameras are able to accomplish in rural America what the standard security camera achieves on the streets of Los Angeles or Chicago.
The problem is that federal security officials have introduced these drones under a fog of secrecy and with little public oversight. They have counted on our ignorance as drones became a tool for warrantless domestic surveillance along our borders. As they plan to expand their fleets, they count now on our apathy.
That doesn't sit well with most Westerners I know.
The people I know respect privacy and individuality. They trust their neighbors and they cherish open land. They maintain a live-and-let-live ethic, or at least that's what they strive for. The surveillance machines polluting our skies threaten these basic values. They further empower national security bureaucrats, while we are forced to foot the bill for this infringement of our own protected liberties.
That's why states like Montana and Oregon have placed stringent limitations on drone surveillance within their jurisdictions. They recognize a threat when they see one.
We should not have to live in a world where spying robots hover above us like hawks and buzzards. Those who value privacy -- from civil libertarians, tribal nations and wilderness advocates, to ranchers and Ron Paul Republicans -- have a major stake in stopping this surveillance from spreading before it becomes the norm.
Jimmy Tobias is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a column service of High Country News. He is a freelance journalist and former trail worker with the Forest Service in Idaho.]]>
In 1973, during North Dakota's second oil boom, then-Gov. Art Link declared, "When we are through with that and the landscape is quiet again … let those who follow and repopulate the land be able to say our grandparents did their job well. The land is as good and, in some cases, better than before."
Forty years later, another oil boom is underway in the Williston Basin, this time fueled by new drilling techniques. Oil companies are working at breakneck speed to drill thousands of new wells in North Dakota, my home state. They're pumping out more than a million barrels per day, an eightfold increase since 1981.
I've begun a photography project to document what remains of the previous booms and record the changes the region faces today. Experts predict that oil extraction here will continue for another few decades, but no one knows for sure when the industry will pull out, or what our lives here will be like once the landscape is quiet again.]]>
Schreiber and other landfill operators in North Dakota have been catching unscrupulous or uninformed oil producers and their subcontractors trying to unload hazardous radioactive waste into the municipal dump for years. Sick of issuing fines to haulers who claim they don't know the rules, this past winter he fired off emails to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, his county commissioners, the governor's office and the state attorney general. "Somebody has to take a stand," says Schreiber. "I'm not here to make friends with the oil companies, I'm here to do my job and protect the people of McKenzie County the best I can and make sure my legacy here in 20 years…isn't destruction of the environment and a Superfund project." Schreiber's comments reflect growing public concern in the state over safe disposal of oilfield waste, and now North Dakota is responding, with a batch of new rules, scientific studies and risk assessments aimed at low-level radioactive oilfield waste.
North Dakota regulators estimate as much as 70 tons of filter socks may be discarded in the state each day.
As Bakken development has boomed over the last half-dozen years, industrial waste volumes have ballooned along with crime, truck traffic, and out-of-state workers. In 2001 North Dakota's landfills took in nearly 10,000 tons of special waste from oilfields – like chemical-laden rock and soil, and oil-soaked dirt. In 2013 they took in nearly 1.8 million tons, according to the state health department. These numbers don't include North Dakota's radioactive oilfield waste, which hasn't been tracked, though it's likely expanded at a similar rate. Even industrial waste landfills cannot legally accept most oilfield rubbish containing low levels of radioactivity, which has led to some particularly egregious dumping incidents, including the one near Schreiber's landfill. An even larger pile was left in an old gas station in the tiny town of Noonan near the Canadian border earlier this year.
Those incidents made national news, and now the state is drafting rules to require oil producers to track low level radioactive waste from the time it's created to the moment it slides into a special waste landfill. The North Dakota Petroleum Council – an oil and gas industry group – supports the changes, saying that it will level the playing field since many of its member companies already document where they send their radioactive waste.
The bulk of the radioactive waste under scrutiny comes in the form of butterfly-net-shaped mesh tubes called filter socks. Drillers use the socks to strain out solid wastes and prevent wells from clogging with sediment while wastewater is injected deep underground for disposal. By the time the filters are discarded, they've usually accumulated radium, a uranium decay byproduct that's a natural part of oil-rich shale. Last year, 954 socks made it past Schreiber into the McKenzie County landfill, and landfills statewide reported rejecting 89 loads of them.
North Dakota regulators estimate as much as 70 tons of filter socks may be discarded in the state each day. But no one really knows for sure how much low-level radioactive waste oilfields create in the form of filter socks, sludge from tanks, or crud built up in pipes, in the Bakken or elsewhere across the West. Nor does anyone know exactly how such waste might affect workers exposed to it if it's handled improperly. Oil field waste emits low enough levels of radiation that is not hazardous to be near in the short term, unless it's inhaled or ingested. But effects from long-term exposure are unknown. So "it does need to be handled properly, there's no question about it," says Scott Radig, the North Dakota Department of Health's waste management director. North Dakota's Department of Health recently began requiring drillers to keep temporary leak-proof storage containers for filter socks at the drilling site.
North Dakota's particularly stringent requirements for disposing of any radioactive waste are catching part of the blame for encouraging illegal dumping of oilfield waste. Those rules were created before anyone could foresee that hydraulic fracturing would create a massive boom in western North Dakota that pumped out more than a million barrels of oil per day. The state allows radioactive waste containing 5 picocuries of radium per gram, one of the strictest standards in the country. To put that level into perspective, it's similar to the amount of radiation that occurs naturally in North Dakota soil.
Companies that do handle their waste legally must ship filter socks and other radioactive waste to special disposal facilities in other states. Much of it goes to Idaho, which has a site allowing up to 1,500 picocuries per gram, and Colorado (which allows up to 400 picocuries per gram), Texas, or Washington. And as of last year, an entrepreneurial farmer in Montana, where 30 picocuries per gram are allowed, opened a special waste landfill, which can now take some of it too.
Now, hoping to curb illegal dumping by making waste disposal more convenient, North Dakota officials are considering raising the level of radiation permitted in waste, a move supported by the North Dakota Petroleum Council. North Dakota doesn't anticipate its levels will go as high as Idaho or Colorado's. "That waste is generated here and we believe that it should be disposed of properly here," says Tessa Sandstrom, the council's communications manager. The state's health department is working with Argonne National Lab near Chicago, and the University of North Dakota, to study the risks of low-level naturally occurring radiation, including health risks to people working around it and transporting it, and possible harm to the public and the environment after landfill closure or from spills.
Other oil producing states are also grappling with low level radioactive debris. Pennsylvania is studying radiation in its Marcellus Shale with an eye toward changing its disposal rules for radioactive oilfield byproducts. In March, West Virginia passed a law requiring separate lined containers for hot drilling waste, while expanding how much landfills can accept.
Hoping to curb illegal dumping by making waste disposal more convenient, North Dakota officials are considering raising the level of radiation permitted in waste.
Some see raising North Dakota's proposal to increase allowed levels of radiation as more of a boon to oil companies that have to deal with high disposal and trucking expenses, than a means to protect public health and safety. Members of a recently formed citizen's watchdog group, the North Dakota Energy Industry Waste Coalition, say illegal waste dumping is evidence that the state is inadequately enforcing its current rules, not a reason to allow higher levels of radiation in North Dakota.
Schreiber is fine with the state raising the radiation limit – if the waste sites are heavily regulated and inspected often. But he's also skeptical that enforcement will actually get any better. It took 14 months for the state to follow up with one company he reported for bringing filter socks into his landfill. Plus, even if the radiation level increases, filter socks would still have to go to special waste landfills, not the ones for household waste like Schreiber's. He still wonders whether bad actors will avoid paying to use new special landfills in North Dakota if enforcement doesn't improve. (The health department says that they do immediate follow-up on most cases, but that the spike in illegal dumping means it can take longer to get to each one.)
"We're not talking about Chernobyl," he says of the waste. But he still wants to see less of it coming his way. "We don't know for a guy like me who is around this stuff every single day what the long term effects will be on me or my guys. These guys who say there is more radiation in a banana or your countertops – that's great, but I don't sit on my counter with a banana in my mouth all day long."
Sarah Jane Keller is a correspondent for High Country News and is based in Bozeman, Montana. She tweets @sjanekeller.]]>
The oil fields are pumping out more than a million barrels per day – up from 124,000 in 1981. The activity has brought a stream of revenue, people and jobs to this historically economically depressed region.
This photography examines what remains on the land from previous booms and how the region is changing again today. Experts anticipate that extraction will continue for the next few decades, but no one knows for sure when the industry will pull out or how drilling will impact the landscape in the long term, when the landscape is quiet again.]]>
Persistence, strong legs and a lot of luck paid off recently for a wolf called OR7. The wolf became famous in wildlife biology circles after leaving his pack in northeastern Oregon in September 2011 in search of a mate. OR7 roamed for thousands of miles, and now, thanks to a remote camera in southwest Oregon's Cascade Mountains, we know that he finally found what he was looking for – a bright-eyed, coal-black female. OR7's GPS collar places him in the same vicinity, and "it's likely the pair spawned pups," reports The Associated Press. OR7 is remarkable not only for the distance he traveled, but also for the incredible dangers he dodged, from getting shot or run over by a vehicle to simply starving to death.
The University of North Dakota was among the first colleges in the West to offer degrees in drones, more formally called unmanned aerial systems, and now Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana, has added a drone class to its aviation program. Finding a textbook for the class, though, seemed almost impossible until recently, says aviation professor Scott Wilson, who's helping train pilots. The Federal Aviation Administration has also been slow to deal with the phenomenon, delaying drone regulations until 2015, reports the Billings Gazette. The rules so far remain basic: Don't fly drones above 400 feet, avoid conflicts with other aircraft, and stay at least five miles away from airports. Wilson says job opportunities for drone operators are numerous, ranging from crop dusting, search and rescue operations, police work and all kinds of photography. Within the next five years, Wilson predicts, "there will be 10,000 (drone) operators," with jobs paying as much as $100,000 a year. Drones, however, can be intrusive, as "wildlife paparazzi" in Zion National Park recently buzzed a group of bighorn sheep from on high, scattering lambs from their mothers and generally causing chaos, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. Zion Superintendent Jim Milestone says that drone operators may not intend to harm wildlife, but the little planes have become a form of harassment, with about four incidents occurring every week. At Zion these days, staffers especially worry about unmanned planes bothering a condor couple that appear to be caretaking an egg. If so, it's a big deal: Condors usually lay only one egg every two years. Drones are illegal within all national parks; if parks decide to crack down, which so far they seem loath to do, drone operators risk a fine of $5,000 and six months' imprisonment.
Welcome, Diesel, a baby boy born recently in a Walmart parking lot in Bismarck, North Dakota. It was the store's first birth, reports the Billings Gazette, and certainly unexpected: Mom Alesia Medeiros said Diesel arrived six weeks early, missing the presence of his dad, Chris Senff, who was working in the oilfield.
Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write email@example.com.]]>
So you can imagine my excitement when I saw the headlines saying that Google's Street View maps now had a "time travel" function. I could play the "used to be" game all over the world, from the comfort of my own desk. With the click of my mouse, I'd be able to watch that weird old store transform into snazzy restaurant — instant gentrification! So I went to Google maps, found the restaurant, went to Street View and clicked on the little clock in the upper right hand corner.
Disappointment fell on me like a shower of formaldehyded frogs. It turns out that Google didn't send its panopticam cars all over the place back in the 70s or 80s or even the early Aughts. And so, the trip through Street View time is a short one, at least for now. The earliest views I can find are from 2007, with the most recent in 2013. That's just not enough time for drastic changes to happen in the street- and road-scape, especially during a major recession. The exceptions, of course, are places that happened to get hit by a massive natural disaster between the earliest Google car visit and more recent ones, e.g. Fukushima in Japan: Where once stood a town, now there is none.
But finding such places isn't easy. One of the major weaknesses of the time travel feature is that you don't know what time range — if any — is available for a particular place until you are actually in Street View. I had to "go" to the bridge just beneath Glen Canyon Dam to find out that there is no time travel there at all, meaning I couldn't watch Lake Powell shrinking. When I clicked my cursor on Williston, N.D., a place that had an oil boom while everywhere else was busting, I found that the longest time trip I could take was from 2007 to 2009. It wasn't a big enough window through which to see the town's transformation.
As I was about to give up on this whole time travel thing, it occurred to me that I should try a place that I know has changed a lot since 2007, and that is populated enough that the Google car would have made several trips there. The greater Phoenix-metro area is, of course, infamous for growth over the years: Its developers have replaced saguaros with subdivisions at an alarming rate. Of course, the place is also well-known for having a massive housing bust and, indeed, that growth almost came to a standstill, at least in the fringes, after 2006.
But lately I've been looking into a different kind of development in Phoenix — the kind that happens in the urban core, and that follows mass transit. A light rail line in Tempe and Phoenix (with a little bit in Mesa) went into operation in 2008, in the depths of the recession. It spawned huge changes, with empty lots getting filled up with big new buildings, and in one case, a bizarre 70s-era architectural-blunder is now a pop-up park. In those cases, the time travel function not only allows you to toggle back and forth between 2007 and 2013, but you can also see in-between years and watch the transformation in increments.
Over time, this tool — a bit of a novelty now — will become increasingly valuable. It will allow us to see changes not only in our built environment, but also the natural one, at least in places through which the Google cameras regularly travel. This cyber time travel isn't yet available for the Grand Canyon, though Street View is. But I imagine it will happen. It's only a matter of time.
Jonathan Thompson is a senior editor at High Country News. He tweets @jonnypeace.]]>
Williston, N.D., now has some of the nation's highest rents, rivaling even San Francisco and Manhattan. And not because Aspen's bored amenity migrants are flocking to some hot new artisan toast purveyor in the hinterlands of the Peace Garden State. Rather, the Roughrider Country has high-paying jobs for roughnecks, causing the laws of supply and demand to twitch as if they were jacked up on oilfield methamphetamines.
"$$$Tired of Wasting Money? Want out of the man camps?" one Craigslist ad asks. A mere two grand will rent you a sprawling 250-square-foot apartment. Or try a "Luxury Cabin" – all 480 prefabbed square feet of it plopped down in an RV park – for $2,850. One ad promises the North Dakota Housing Solution, which is a sort of pop-up house: "If your job requires you to move on down the pipeline, simply fold it back up and move it." Of course, you'll still need a place to put it, and RV lot rent isn't peanuts, either: $795 per month.
A meander around Craigslist reveals other Williston-area cultural nuggets. The "casual encounters" section is as raunchy as anywhere, and there appear to be far more men looking for men than seeking a heterosexual hookup. And in the "rants and raves" section, one exchange seems to be on a repeating loop. Someone from, say, Kansas City, asks: Are there really a lot of jobs up there in the oil fields? And a local chirps: Yup, and you'll rake it in, but then you'll lose all your money to landlords, local retailers and car repairmen, and "you will be stuck here and probably as broke as you were at home. Oh, and bring a woman with you."
Oh, Arizona, where does a columnist of quirk even start, given the bounty within your borders? There are the state legislators, of course, who passed an anti-gay bill last month, prompting a massive backlash from activists and business leaders. Even the National Football League threatened to yank next year's Super Bowl out of a Phoenix suburb, making it the second NFL championship lost to Arizona bigotry; the first was in 1993, when the state refused to recognize Martin Luther King Day. One pizzeria posted a sign: "We reserve the right to refuse service to Arizona legislators." But Gov. Jan Brewer ultimately vetoed the bill. Undaunted, lawmakers immediately took up an anti-abortion bill, along with a bill to quash wolf recovery in the state.
Despite their energy, though, legislators somehow overlooked their state's notorious feral chihuahuas. When word broke that herds of the tiny, slavering, bug-eyed dogs were roaming Phoenix's Maryvale neighborhood, the media pounced on it like a bacon-scented chew toy. The story snowballed, and websites – some with stock photos of teeth-baring pups – reported that chihuahua packs, 12-strong, were "terrorizing" children – even recruiting larger dogs to join. (We can imagine the kind of gang sign involved.) A curious Phoenix New Times reporter investigated; alas, he found just one chihuahua in the 'hood, and it was confined in a yard.
Actually, Phoenix is grappling with another kind of dog problem: Turns out its law enforcement canines are just a little too nice. The Arizona Republic reports that local cops have had to transfer dogs because they're too polite to bite bad guys.
Popular parts of Zion National Park were closed recently during a "helipoo operation" in which waste from portable toilets was airlifted to a disposal facility. … The National Park Service rejected a request by pop-group Daft Punk to play a concert next to Devils Tower in Wyoming. … A trout farm in rural Utah is shipping its high-end caviar as far as Great Britain. … And even though the meth-themed television series Breaking Bad is over, the boost it brought to Albuquerque, N.M., where it was filmed, endures. A visitor can take a BaD Tour of filming locations, buy "meth" candy in little bags from the Candy Lady – who sells erotic candy, too – and even "cook" Bathing Bad bath salts at a local spa.
Tips and photos of Western oddities are appreciated and often shared in this column. Write email@example.com.]]>
One of my favorite images, evoked in histories of many Western places, portrays the original grasses in a wonderful way: The good ol' grass grew so tall, it brushed the stirrups of cross-country horse-riders. "Early American surveyors riding through the virgin tallgrass prairie found the grass stirrup high to their horses," says a typical account, from a federal Environmental Protection Agency report. Another, from The Elemental Prairie: Sixty Tallgrass Plants, describes a pioneer-era horse ride by Army officer and Western explorer Stephen Kearny: "It was virgin tallgrass prairie, and Kearny and his men rode stirrup-deep through young bluestem and flowers ..."
There are many accounts of stirrup-high native grass on the good ol' prairies, as well as in the good ol' mountain valleys, and even the good ol' Southwestern deserts. William O. Douglas, the only unabashed conservationist to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, got sentimental about stirrup-high grass in the good ol' Pacific Northwest. The image also appears in the definitive biography of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, in a description of the first white settlers in the good ol' "Hill Country" around Austin, Texas: "... when they saw the grass, they felt the journey had been worth it. 'Grass knee high!' one wrote home. 'Grass as high as my stirrups!' wrote another. The tall grass of the Hill Country stretched as far as the eye could see, covering valleys and hillsides ..." There's even a "cowboy prayer" describing the tallgrass as a heavenly experience we can enjoy once again after we die, "when we make that final ride to the country up there, where the grass grows lush and green and stirrup high ..."
Modern researchers occasionally conclude that a particular account of good ol' stirrup-high grass is a myth, but by and large, the remembrances are considered legitimate. The remembrances are also melancholy, as the native tallgrass that once covered more than 100 million acres in this country has been almost completely wiped out by sodbusting for farming and other developments, as is shown by this Nature Conservancy map of some of the remnants of untilled prairie (the dark green areas hadn't been tilled by 2003, yellow areas had been sodbusted):
I'm writing about this now, not only as a sentimental remembrance, but also to point out a new scientific discovery. A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado-Boulder has found that the good ol' tallgrass apparently owed its existence to something very subtle -- "the diverse assortment of microbes that thrived in the dark, rich soils beneath the grass," especially "a poorly understood phylum of bacteria, Verrucomicrobia."
This is cutting-edge science that could be helpful in efforts to restore tallgrass and other native plants. The researchers used DNA sequencing to identify the bacteria in soil samples from 31 remnants of native prairies, mostly in nature preserves and cemeteries, and published their findings in Science magazine's November issue. Microbial ecologist Noah Fierer, lead author of the study, says, "These soils played a huge role in American history because they were so fertile and so incredibly productive. They don't exist anymore except in really small parcels. This is our first glimpse into what might have existed across the whole range. ... It was very hard to find sites that we knew had never been tilled. As soon as you till a soil, it's totally different. Most gardeners are familiar with that."
The good ol' Verrucomicrobia bacteria were important for carbon cycling in the soil, the researchers believe, and "seem to thrive in soil with poor nutrients, which might explain why they are less common on land that has been farmed and fertilized," says a Nature magazine report about the discovery. It "suggests that one of the most dramatic aspects of that landscape transformation was the loss of microbial diversity in prairie soils. ... With (genetic) sequencing becoming cheaper and easier -- a study on this scale would not have been feasible even five years ago -- scientists are just beginning to characterize the diversity of soil microbes in prairies and elsewhere."
Scientists now hope to grow this particular bacteria in labs -- a difficult process -- and use it, along with transplants from remnants of native soil, to spur restoration efforts. "To fix a damaged ecosystem you need to start from the ground up -- with the microbes that live in the soil," says a New Scientist report on the discovery. "The first step in that direction has been taken for the tallgrass prairies of the US Midwest -- a once fertile landscape now described as a near-extinct biome. ... Ecologists who restore endangered ecosystems traditionally focus on bringing back native animals and plants, but a growing body of evidence is revealing the crucial roles that soil microbes play in ecosystem stability. They break down organic matter, recycle nutrients, and can influence plant health and productivity. However (most) microorganisms have largely been ignored in ecosystem restoration projects."
"Now that we have a best guess of what native bacterial communities looked like, maybe we can start asking whether there are specific bugs we can use to accelerate restoration," Fierer told New Scientist. "It opens a whole research area," Charles Rice, a soil microbiologist at Kansas State University, told Nature.
Beyond Pesticides, a nonprofit advocating for the reform of chemical-intensive, sodbusting farming, says this discovery "builds upon a mounting body of evidence demonstrating that conventional farming methods not only destroy habitat, they also destroy soil structure and affect plant health and crop production. ... The study opens up a range of further research possibilities for soil science, demonstrates the importance of soil microbial communities and provides guidance on sustainable soil management."
Even The New York Times editors have spotlighted this discovery with a touch of sentimental melancholy about the good ol' tallgrass: "Even if you have stood on a remnant of virgin prairie, it is hard to imagine what was lost when the tallgrass prairie was plowed," says a Times editorial. "Settlers were staggered by the scope of the prairies, and they were more amazed by the richness of the soil. The biomass of roots beneath the ground was as dense and tangled as the biomass on top. And when the prairies were plowed, everything changed -- the ecosystem, the structure of the soil, and, as it turns out, the microorganisms living in the soil. ... Finding these bacteria is like finding a piece of a lost continent. ... No one who rode across the prairie in the 19th century through grasses up to their stirrups ever stopped to admire the subsoil bacteria. Yet they were as distinctive as the bison grazing in great herds above."
This is also another indication of complexity of wild ecosystems, and how little we understand about them -- a message framed in detail in a recent High Country News magazine cover story.
HCN has also spotlighted the destructive effects of sodbusting prairie over the years, with a 2004 investigation of the ironic sodbusting by organic farmers, a 2012 update on continued sodbusting on the Northern Plains, and a 2013 story on sodbusting in northwestern Mexico. Also I blogged recently about a Montana photographer's images of wonderful prairie wildflowers.
Reference list for those who might like to tour or research remnants of native grassland:
North and South Dakota
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service effort to protect 1.7 million acres of grassland, much of it private land, in the Dakotas
U.S. Forest Service Dakota Prairie National Grasslands in North Dakota - 1.26 million acres
The Nature Conservancy's effort to protect millions acres of grassland in the Dakotas
TNC grasslands in North Dakota
TNC's Conata Basin grasslands in South Dakota - 142,000 acres
TNC's other grasslands in South Dakota
American Prairie Reserve effort to protect an American Serengeti
TNC efforts to protect grassland in Montana
TNC Matador Ranch grassbank
USFS Thunder Basin National Grassland - 547,000 acres (separate link)
TNC efforts to protect grassland in Wyoming
USFS Crooked River National Grassland - 112,000 acres (separate link)
TNC Zumwalt Prairie Preserve - 33,000 acres
USFS Curlew National Grassland - 47,000 acres (separate link)
USFS Comanche National Grasslands - 440,000 acres
USFS Pawnee National Grassland - 193,000 acres
TNC Hart Prairie Preserve - 245 acres
New Mexico
USFS grasslands in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, managed through Cibola National Forest and National Grasslands in NM - 263,000 acres
USFS Cimarron National Grassland in Kansas, managed by USFS office in Colorado - 108,000 acres
National Park Service Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas - 10,894 acres
USFS more national grasslands in Nebraska
TNC Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma
Tallgrass Prairie Center in Iowa
NPS Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie in Illinois
TNC home page for grasslands and prairie preserves around the world
Ray Ring is a senior editor of High Country News. First (cropped) photo of grasses from Flickr user Seth Beres/USFWS Mountain-Prairie region, second photo of grasses from Flickr user QtrFlash.]]>
Native Americans on an oil-rich North Dakota reservation have been cheated out of more than $1 billion by schemes to buy drilling rights for lowball prices, a flurry of recent lawsuits assert. And, the suits claim, the federal government facilitated the alleged swindle by failing in its legal obligation to ensure the tribes got a fair deal.
This is a story as old as America itself, given a new twist by fracking and the boom that technology has sparked in North Dakota oil country. Since the late 1800s, the U.S. government has appropriated much of the original tribal lands associated with the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota for railroads and white homesteaders. A devastating blow was delivered when the Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Missouri River in 1953, flooding more than 150,000 acres at the heart of the remaining reservation. Members of the Three Affiliated Tribes -- the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara -- were forced out of the fertile valley and up into the arid and barren surrounding hills, where they live now.
But that last-resort land turns out to hold a wealth of oil, because it sits on the Bakken Shale, widely believed to be one of the world's largest deposits of crude. Until recently, that oil was difficult to extract, but hydraulic fracturing, combined with the ability to drill a well sideways underground, can tap it. The result, according to several senior tribal members and lawsuits filed last November and early this year in federal and state courts, has been a land grab involving everyone from tribal leaders accused of enriching themselves at the expense of their people, to oil speculators, to a New York hedge fund, to the federal government's Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The rush to get access to oil on tribal lands is part of the oil industry's larger push to secure drilling rights across the United States. Recent estimates show that the U.S. contains vast quantities of oil and gas. As fracking has opened new fields to drilling, and the U.S. has striven to get more of its energy from within its borders, leases from Louisiana to Pennsylvania have been gobbled up. Now the pressure is increasing on one of the last sizeable holdouts -- lands owned by Native Americans. ----
A review of tribal and federal records as well as lawsuit documents reveals a dizzying array of lowball, non-competitive deals brokered by numerous companies, often entwined with the tribal council and with individual landholders on the reservation. But at heart the alleged practices are simple: Tribal leaders and outsiders set up companies to buy drilling rights cheap and flip them later for spectacular profits -- in one case earning as much as a 200-fold return in just four years.
"Hundreds of millions of dollars were lost," said Tex Hall, the current chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes, in an interview. "It's just a huge loss and we'll never get it back."
At the center of that particular alleged scheme, according to one of the suits, was Spencer Wilkinson, Jr., longtime manager of 4 Bears Casino, a time-worn warehouse of slot machines, swirling cigarette smoke and stained carpets that serves as the reservation's entertainment nexus and its financial hub. Wilkinson also sat on the board of the tribe's development corporation, where he was charged with finding new opportunities to enhance the economy of the reservation.
According to interviews with tribal members, former employees of the Three Affiliated Tribes, and a class action lawsuit filed in federal district court in Bismarck, ND against Wilkinson and others, Wilkinson used his access to casino funds -- and to the development corporation -- to gain influence and craft an oil deal that would leave him one of the richest men on the reservation.
In 2006 he became an owner of a company, Dakota-3, with Richard Woodward, a white consultant who, records show, was receiving more than $20,000 a month from tribal funds for his work at the development corporation. Together, the suit and other legal filings allege, Wilkinson and Woodward planned to raise money and buy up rights to much of the remaining land not yet slated for drilling, all the while maintaining their work with the tribes and employing Wilkinson's relationship with the council to help get the oil leases approved.
Leases for oil rights generally work like this: A company purchases the right to drill for oil underneath an acre of land by paying a one-time upfront payment, called a bonus, and a percentage of the profits earned on the well, known as a royalty. On Indian lands additional laws also apply, dictating who can negotiate for whom and how the government has to oversee the agreements.
Wilkinson declined to comment and Woodward could not be reached. Wilkinson has filed a motion to dismiss the case. The suit alleges that Wilkinson and others aided and abetted the U.S. government in failing to fulfill its fiduciary responsibility to the tribes; Wilkinson's motion argues, among other things, that the government had no such responsibility. Woodward has not yet filed a response to the suit in court.
Many details of Dakota-3's deals remain murky. There is limited transparency into tribal government affairs, no public access to documents, no annual reporting on accounts, and limited communication about what tribal council members discuss in their meetings.
But, according to separate lawsuits and records filed with the North Dakota Secretary of State, Dakota-3 partnered with an Oklahoma-based oil speculator named Robert Zinke and his company Zenergy to buy leases and form additional joint venture companies. Documents from two law suits mention the involvement of the New York based hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group but do not specify the firm's role. The hedge fund is publicly traded and, according to its web site, has more than $33 billion under management.
A spokesman for Och-Ziff declined to comment, and Zinke did not return a telephone message.
The interlinked companies, the documents show, purchased drilling rights to some 42,500 acres of lands owned by individuals and families through dozens of separate small deals. Those rights were ultimately controlled by Dakota-3, which also purchased from the tribal council drilling rights to another 44,000 acres of lands managed by the council. Altogether, Dakota-3 accumulated rights to about a fifth of the 420,000-odd acres of leasable land on the reservation, having bought much of those rights for as little as $50 per acre and royalties of around 18 percent. At about the same time, records and interviews show, other companies were purchasing drilling rights to land on and near the reservation for $300 to $1,000 per acre plus royalties as high as 22.5 percent.
One of the lawsuits alleges that the difference in the one-time bonus payments, plus the difference in royalty payments, "could mean billions of dollars" over the life of the oil field.
In late 2010, an Oklahoma-based oil production company, Williams, bought Dakota-3 for $925 million. At the time of the purchase, Dakota-3 was pumping a small amount of oil, but the bulk of its assets were the drilling rights. Two lawsuits allege that by buying Dakota-3, Williams effectively paid more than $10,000 per acre for those rights 2014 as much as 200 times what Dakota-3 had paid for the leases.
At issue is not just the question of how Dakota-3 managed to win the tribal council's approval for the deal, but whether the federal government should have stepped in to ensure that the tribes were paid higher rates.
Reservation lands are still held in trust by the U.S. government. As a trustee, the Department of the Interior has responsibility for overseeing the development of oil and gas on tribal lands, and for ensuring that any leases or sales of that land are made in "the best interest" of the Native Americans. When it comes to leases to drill for oil -- even those negotiated directly between the tribal council and the oil industry -- the Bureau of Indian Affairs is required to make sure the leases meet this standard.
The bureau did not respond to a list of written questions, but according to interviews and documents obtained by ProPublica, the bureau approved the leases even though some Interior Department staffers expressed misgivings. Other documents show that tribal members appealed to high-level Interior Department officials and others to reject the leases and step in on their behalf.
"Mr. Secretary, this company, Dakota-3, like the other companies in the oil business will turn around and sell the lease," wrote Russell Mason Sr., a tribal elder, to the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in a December, 2007 letter. "We are making a plea to you that you exercise your trust responsibilities."
"The United States has uniformly failed in its duties to the Indian landowners," states one lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C. that was brought by tribal landowners seeking restitution for the Dakota-3 leases sold to Williams.
The Dakota-3 deals are not the only controversial ones. For example, a company called Black Rock Resources purchased drilling rights to about 12,800 acres of land for $35 per acre and a 16.7 percent royalty. It later sold those rights to Marathon Oil for about $42 million, according to financial documents that describe the deal.
Messages left for multiple Black Rock Resources officials were not returned, and Marathon Oil did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the Black Rock deal, and documents obtained by ProPublica reveal the sometimes-contradictory advice the Bureau of Indian Affairs received from its own staff and other federal officials.
When Black Rock first offered to buy up reservation leases for $35 per acre beginning in 2005, some bureau staff justified the rates saying the cumbersome regulations and past problems with leasing on the reservation had driven down demand. "Unfortunately," wrote one staffer in a department letter, $35 per acre "is what the market will bear."
But in a review dated November, 2005, an expert at the Bureau of Land Management wrote that the offered price "appears to look low compared to those offered recently at both BLM and North Dakota State competitive oil and gas lease sales in the area." He cited other sales that same month for as much as $370 an acre. An Interior Department lawyer in Washington sent a letter to North Dakota BIA officials expressing similar concerns.
Even at the time, the tribe received higher offers. Jerry Nagel is a tribe member, businessman and former program analyst for the tribe who has been outspoken against leases he thought were being sold for too little. In an interview, he said that he financed a venture in 2006 that offered the tribe $140 per acre plus a royalty rate more than twice as high as the tribal council was offered for the big leases it ultimately signed. It's unclear why the tribal council didn't take that offer, but Nagel claims it's evidence that the council gave preferential treatment to certain suitors.
The tribal council's office did not immediately respond to questions about why the council passed over Nagel's offer.
Kyle Baker is a tribe member, geologist and former environment official for minerals and energy for the tribe. He said that his family struck deals to lease its acreage on and near the reservation for as much as $700 per acre around the same time as the Black Rock deal.
"Companies will come and find your weaknesses and then drive themselves in," Baker said on a recent wintery morning in his living room overlooking Lake Sakakawea. "Our laws, our setup wasn't ready for it."
Companies and the U.S. government have long known that the Ft. Berthold reservation lay in the heart of the oil-rich Williston Basin, a reserve thought by some to contain as much as 20 billion barrels of oil. But previous efforts to lease and drill on the Indian lands stalled in the 1970s, and again in the late 1990s, thwarted by a dense bureaucracy and a tangle of laws governing leasing on reservations.
Only after the advent of modern fracking -- and after Congress passed a handful of laws to ease corporate access to the Ft Berthold reservation -- did companies begin to invest seriously in drilling there.
Today it's estimated that the three tribes and individual Native American landholders are receiving some $50 to $80 million a year from the drilling leases and royalties, compared with revenues of about $5 million a year before the boom began in about 2006.
But that money has brought allegations of sweetheart arrangements that have left a few tribal members with disproportionate profits from oil development.
In 2011 a team of elders audited the tribal council's activities. They found widespread financial inconsistencies that they said indicated systemic misconduct. "We saw millions of dollars going out and hardly anything coming back" to the Three Affiliated Tribes, said Tony Foote a forensic auditor who chaired the team. "We're not just talking about cash. It's rooms, food, travel, donations, and there's only a handful of people that can get all this stuff."
Hall, the tribes' current chairman, had previously held that post from 1998 until 2006. He didn't deny that there had been corruption, but he said that since he came back into office in 2010 he has focused on reform and on making sure that the oil revenues benefit the broader tribal community. He said he has formed tribal entities to directly control a pipeline and refinery project, set up a $100 million trust fund for the tribes, and begun to sign lease agreements that are more favorable to the Native Americans on the reservation. He also demoted Wilkinson, who is now an administrative officer at the casino, not its CEO.
"I was called back because people were concerned about sweetheart deals, so we have totally changed the dynamic," he said.
Photo of oil derrick on Fort Berthold Indian Reservation courtesy Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica
This story was reprinted from ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.


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Eastwind Chiropractic Center
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Elizabeth Pavka
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Massage Therapist, LMBT, CMMT, CMC
"My usual client has some type of medical problem. I see a lot of sports injuries. Runners, ball players (softball, basketball, volleyball), tennis, etc. Ages vary from 15 to 88, but invariably the client has pulled, twisted, or strained their muscles doing some strenuous activity. Because I am certified in both Medical & Cupping Massage, I can help relieve pain and get the client back into action ASAP. I also use hot stones to help soften tight muscles.
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"I believe that love is the ultimate root of all healing. I focus primarily on encouraging people to cultivate self-love, through connecting mind, body, and spirit. The meridians containing acupuncture points, provide the platform through which we do this work of integration. My needling technique is very gentle. Whether dealing with pain, chronic auto-immune patterns,fertility issues, common cold and flu, stress management, or emotional well-being, I am confident that acupuncture and herbs can be immensely successful. I am honored to be practicing this ancient medicine and exploring its depths for inspiration, peace, and healing.
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Acupuncturist, LAc, MSOM
"The Community Clinic offers reduced cost treatments in a group setting - ideal for treating pain, allergies, stress and addictions. Private treatments are recommended for chronic, autoimmune or more complex health histories with several Western diagnoses. I treat women, men and children. I am trained in Kiiko-style Japanese acupuncture, Japanese moxabustion therapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Dr. Tan's Balance Method (used in the Community Clinic setting). I also have a Chinese herbal pharmacy (pills, tinctures and granular formulas) and sell a broad line of natural supplements.
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Lauren T Scott
Chiropractor, DC
"Our ideal clients are families looking for holistic supportive care. Women searching for holistic fertility options, supportive care during pregnancy and holistic treatments for their infants and children. We believe in starting a proactive, healthy lifestyle from conception. Symptoms that people experience leading to Verve are infertility, pregnancy discomfort/baby malposition, colic and ear infections in children, food allergies/GI discomfort, and more traditional issues of back pain, headaches and car accidents. We also address hormonal balancing and cold/flu symptoms effectively. Our team supports your family preventing and treating YOU from a holistic, natural, drug free perspective.
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Kimble v. Warden, Illinois State Prison
Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, Third Division
December 15, 1996
This matter comes before the court on an appeal from the denial of respondent's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner, convicted of the murder of his wife and sentenced to death, claims that he satisfies the narrow "actual innocence" gateway for habeas relief. More specifically, petitioner claims that newly discovered evidence unerringly points the finger of guilt at two other culprits–Dr. Charles Nichols and Frederick Sykes, a "one-armed man."
For the reasons related below, we grant the writ. We find that Kimble has adduced "new, material, noncumulative" evidence that would "probably change the result on retrial," People v. Washington, 171 Ill.2d 475, 489 (1996). We reject the prosecution's arguments that the evidence (1) could and should, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, have been discovered prior to defendant's trial; (2) fails to adequately impeach the verdict, insofar as the petitioner's evidence (according to the prosecution) presents only the possibility of an improbable, self-defeating scheme to release onto the market a new drug that would invariably generate an onslaught of crippling products-liability lawsuits.
In an unpublished order also issued today, we reject respondent's petition as to his separate, subsequent convictions for escape, theft, auto theft, reckless driving, brandishing a firearm at a federal officer, false personation, and criminal trespass, for which he was sentenced to a total of 10 additional years in custody.
(Source: noncuratlex.com)


text:
Hudson Opera House, Hudson, NY. Digital photo edited.
Cast Iron windows. During its long history, the Hudson Opera House has been the town's City Hall, housed its police station as well as been a performing arts space. It is reputed to be the oldest performance space of its kind in New York State, and it is still used to day for arts and cultural activities.
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Our Services
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Robert "Budd" Rogers
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Welcome to our web site, where time-honored funeral traditions of yesterday integrate with the evolving needs of today. Our compassionate, caring, family helps you through the funeral process. We provide personalized commemorations and offer new ways to pay homage to the memory of your loved one.
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text:
The Vikings are so thin at safety that on Friday they brought in three guys for a work out. Among these was a familiar face from the last couple seasons. Tyrell Johnson. Yes the same Tyrell Johnson we couldn't wait to run out of town. He was back in Winter Park Friday getting hugs from Leslie Frazier. The Vikings also looked at former Dolphin Troy Nolan and former Buccaneer Larry Asante.
Is the safety situation so dire that it would make sense to bring back Tyrell Johnson? Right now they have four healthy safeties but only three with experience. And Andrew Sendejo isn't really that healthy. So really, if you're talking about guys you can count on to stay on the field, they've only got Harrison Smith and Jamarca Sanford. Robert Blanton hasn't been up yet and obviously they want to bring him along slowly. And Mistral Raymond will miss a month with a bone bruise.
So yeah, I guess they're desperate at that position. Tyrell Johnson has the advantage of familiarity with the system though Alan Williams has added tweaks he hasn't seen. Let's hope no one else gets hurt back there. Tyrell Johnson? No thanks.
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text:
234-272 Maltese Circle has a Walk Score of 55 out of 100. This location is Somewhat Walkable so some errands can be accomplished on foot.
This location is in Casselberry. The closest park is Casselberry Senior Center.
Nearby schools include English Estates Elementary School, South Seminole Middle School and Casselberry Elementary School.
The closest grocery stores are Family Produce Market, Sams Club and Save-A-Lot.
Nearby coffee shops include Dunkin' Donuts, Order Up Cafe and Cafe Perks. There are 23 restaurants within a 15 minute walk including Holly & Dolly's, 8 8 Panda and Holly & Dolly's.


text:
Camp Host
Camp Host
Oct 4 2011, 12:48 PM
Post #1
Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: 7-September 09
Member No.: 36886
Okay I know there are some on here that are, or have been camp host. I would like information on this if anyone has information on how to get into this I would appeciate it.
Oct 5 2011, 12:20 AM
Post #2
Advanced Member
Group: Members
Posts: 52
Joined: 14-April 10
From: Southeast Texas
Member No.: 41909
Camp Hosts are typically in Parks ( State, COE etc) You might want to check out Workamper News. It is a network of and for workampers across the country. It has an online resume service, job search service, and the ability to network with workampers the web address is:
Also try http://dreamers.workamper.com very similar to workamper.com, but an little more polished web design and a little more focused on planning your workamping career, kind of preparing you to be "living the dream".
Lastly, if you can stand to stay in KOA's they are the largest employer of workampers. They periodically sponsor job fairs, and Work Kamper University which is to train workampers to work in KOA's in the various jobs around the KOA parks i.e. grounds maintenance, service desk, general maintenance etc. It also serves as a good resume builder, because trust me you are not going to want be locked into all KOA, all the time. Private CG owner/managers like the resume and letters of reference from previous CGs in picking you over someone else. For a fee, as I recall, of around $35 KOA will allow you to post your resume and availabilty on KOA website for their camp mangers who are looking for workampers. Typical assignments are 30 to 60 days. and KOA provides up to 5 nights free camping to help cover the cost between assignments. If your are interested in KOA their website is:
There are lots of other similar websites but, I hope this helps to get you started, best of luck.
Oct 5 2011, 12:05 PM
Post #3
Advanced Member
Group: Members
Posts: 2099
Joined: 12-September 07
From: Pacific Northwest
Member No.: 16651
If you want to get a hosting job at a state park, google and find the web site for each state, then look for the "volunteer" link.
Washington State requires fingerprints, it's a "pedophile" check. Other states don't.
Also, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Minnesota, and North Dakota (all that I know of right now_) allow 30 day assignments. California wants 3-6 months. Each state has different requirements and different minimums. Colorado and Georgia have a two month minimum.
If you want to host at a Federal park, go to:
As for county and city parks, well, basically you gotta "know someone."
JJ from Pacific Northwest
Check out my blog on TOADLESS RVing!
Feel free to leave me some suggestions.
Oct 5 2011, 04:53 PM
Post #4
Group: Members
Posts: 9
Joined: 7-September 09
Member No.: 36886
Okay thanks, sounds like a good place to start.
Oct 8 2011, 09:16 AM
Post #5
Advanced Member
Group: Members
Posts: 1032
Joined: 24-August 06
From: Texas
Member No.: 8584
I usually stick with the federal parks. As long as the job gets done, there doesn't seem to be as much 'meddling' in the way we do it.
I too like volunteer.gov. Pay attention to the utility amenities that will be available for a host. Also, know that federal parks can be off the beaten path so cell and internet coverage may not be available. You can always call the volunteer coordinator to ask about all of those things.


text:
No rating
GreatSchools Rating
Teacher quality
Principal leadership
Parent involvement
I'm very pleased with the education and environment provided by this school. I feel the quality of teaching is as good if not better than that of the avg. public school in Columbia. Foremost, the small class size, parental involvement and Christian emphasis has essentially eliminated the undesirable social complications that are plaguing many public schools in this country. It's comforting to know your child is in a safe, nurturing setting. This is the only school my child has known and she'll graduate after 8th grade.
Good Shepherd is wonderful!! With small class sizes my kids get the extra attention they need when something needs a little more explaination. Teachers and staff are very helpful. It is a very loving Christian environment.
We have been very pleased with our child's progress at Good Shepherd. She attended public school for two years prior to transferring to Good Shepherd. The class size, loving teachers and caring attitude of everyone involved made the transition smooth for her. We are so glad that Good Shepherd exists in Columbia!
I absolutely love Good Shepherd, as does my kindergartener. He looks forward to school every day. I feel his skills surpass those of children attending public school in his same age group--he is doing a great job reading and is doing first grade math. We the parents frequently get emails from the school principal, who greets every child in the morning before school as they enter the building. It is evident that they not only love my child, but they love our Lord and are helping raise my child as a responsible Christian member of our society. I cannot recommend this school enough.
This school is the best school that I have ever gone to.
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The Community Rating is the school's average rating from its community members (e.g., parents, students, and school staff). The highest possible rating is five stars; the lowest is one star.
2201 W. Rollins Road
Columbia, MO 65203
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Protech Cloud Business Solutions is powered by Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, a world-class customer relationship management platform backed by the depth and breadth of Microsoft's technology vision, and Microsoft's more than $9 billion annual financial research and development investments towards advancing its Microsoft Dynamics® business applications. With this foundation, Protech's comprehensive association management solution consolidates all your data, tools and resources in a centralized database system to streamline operations, unify management and promote exceptional relationships. The advanced system helps you meet the diverse needs of your members and gives your leadership data-driven insight to make educated, informed decisions to advance your organization.
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Why Microsoft Dynamics® CRM? (PDF)
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Finding ways to increase the operating efficiency of your organization is critical as you work to achieve your business goals. Investing in new technology and analyzing your current processes allows you to unlock the potential of your business and stay ahead of the game in your industry. Cloud computing is one way that organizations are reducing costs, improving collaboration between departments and increasing the security of their valuable data.
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text:
…trying to study but I find my furniture, especially the desk, fucking annoying. I feel like flipping the desk or throwing it out of the window. The fuck is wrong with you, furniture?! (Or with me?)
3 notes
- miss-cath said: Znam to…
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- ghostsandchandeliers said: No it is definitely the furniture! Flip it >:Y
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