Fort Berthold Indian Reservation

Spills not always reported

MANDAREE The director of emergency services and Homeland Security for the Three Affiliated Tribes is waiting for the results of testing whether a recent spill at an oil well site near Mandaree went into Lake Sakakawea.

Cliff Whitman said the spill occurred July 27 at a well site in the Mandaree area on the Fort Berthold Reservation. He said the spill of about six barrels of crude which ran into a creek, happened when a seal went out on a pump and failed. "It was contained by the company so they were there cleaning it up," he said.

Whitman said he, along with Blaine Flynn, acting chief of tribal police, and two other officers went by boat to do a visual check of the Mandaree intake, lake and creeks but didn't see any indication of oil.

He said later an individual went to that same area and got a sample of the water which showed oil in it.

Whitman said the sample was sent to the North Dakota State Laboratory in Bismarck for testing. As of Friday, he had not received the results yet.

The Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota is in the heart of the Bakken, a lucrative formation for oil in the Williston Basin. Oil development in the area is expected to continue to climb in the next years.

As of Aug. 1, 151 wells were producing on the reservation, according to the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Fort Berthold Agency Realty Department. Twenty-two wells were being drilled and 49 wells were waiting on completion or pipeline.

Whitman said sometimes there are one or two spills a week but spills are not always reported immediately.

"We're enforcing it needs to be reported immediately," Whitman said. He said the tribes are enforcing that spills need to be cleaned up as soon as possible and not days later.

Besides Whitman, he said others with the tribes also are investigating spills including the compliance officers with the tribal Energy Department. Carson Hood Jr. is spill prevention team coordinator for the Energy Department.

Also in the Mandaree area in recent days, about 12,000 to 15,000 barrels of saltwater spilled at a well site, Whitman said. He said the spill, reported Tuesday, was caused by a ruptured line on a saltwater tank. The spill caused extensive damage to grassland and a tribal member's land. Investigators said the spill has been isolated and contained. Whitman said it was getting cleaned up.

Another spill in the Mandaree area happened this past week when a seal failed at a well site and about 4 barrels leaked on the ground, Whitman said.

El Cilantro: Little Village Youth Speak Out | Community News Project

A young Little Village activist blogs about her experience at an environmental justice conference last month on an Indian reservation in North Dakota at El Cilantro , the blog of Young Activists Organizing as Today’s Leaders.

“As a Chicana I realized that our culture’s youth are less and less connected to their roots,” writes Brenda.  “Everything I learned that weekend inspired me to look into my family background and to feel more proud of my culture.  This weekend words like land, culture and nature had more meaning than ever before.”

Brenda was part of group of YAOTL members who attended the Protecting Mother Earth Conference sponsored by the Indigenous Environmental Network and hosted by the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nations at Four Bears Park in the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Along with workshops and cultural events, including a pow-wow and a water ceremony, participants learned about the Three Nations’ struggles with the oil industry.

Other posts on El Cilantro include a report on a field trip to the City Farm near Cabrini-Green, the Lincoln Park Green City Market , and the Waters School’s community garden; an analyis of the treatment of women in fashion magazines and the patriarchal ideology it reveals; a report on the Power Shift conference in Washington, D.C., in April; and a poem criticizing “mainstream hip hop” (which “is not hip hop!”):

“Does he try to fool you by telling you he has all these honeys chasing after his money?…

“Hip hope was not made so you can brag about your fame!”

YAOTL is a project of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization which seeks out creative ways to educate and organize young people on environmental justice issues in the community.  An example:  working with LVEJO’s open space campaign to get a park built in Little Village, YAOTL is organizing youth to push for a skateboard park within the park.

Toward this end, the group is holding a Skate Jam on August 27 at Albany Park and 31st Street.  They’ve gotten a block party permit and will be setting up ramps for a skateboard competition, along with a stage for local performers and a skate galley displaying skateboard art by young artists.

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Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, a land use study to 1971

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