BAD HEART BULL SELECTED FOR ECONOMIC
FELLOWSHIP
MINNEAPOLIS– The Business Alliance
for Living Local Economies, an Oakland, Calif.-based organization,
announced Jay Bad Heart Bull as a fellow for its 2014 Cohort.
Bad Heart Bull (Oglala Lakota) is the
president and CEO of the Native American Community Development
Institute, based in Minneapolis.
In a press release, BALLE praised each
recipient. "Individually, each 2014 BALLE Local Economy Fellow
is a proven leader and innovative local economy connector – someone
who represents, convenes, and influences whole communities of local
businesses from Boston to New Orleans to Minneapolis. Combined, they
are a diverse group of leaders who represent the cutting edge of
social entrepreneurship incubation, community capital cultivation,
and social justice.”
“These challenging times require a
different type of leader who can create the conditions for a new
economy to emerge. Developing this type of leader is the purpose of
the BALLE Local Economy Fellowship,” said Michelle Long, executive
director of BALLE. “With the transformational leadership
development, skills and tools, and connections these leaders will
receive as part of the fellowship, BALLE Local Economy Fellows will
be poised to democratize opportunity, ownership and the economy, and
bring real prosperity to more people; fundamentally fixing our global
economy from the ground up.’"
NACDI is an American Indian community
development intermediary organization. It is an alliance of major
Native non-profits and several Native businesses in the metropolitan
area, committed to community-building through sector economic
development and large-scale development. Its primary goal is to build
community capacity and assets within high growth economic sectors as
a way to provide resources and infrastructure for the Native
community.
ENBRIDGE DISCLOSES DELAYS IN
CONSTRUCTION
DULUTH, Minn. – Enbridge Energy Inc.
on Sept. 30 said its proposed Sandpiper oil pipeline between western
North Dakota and Superior, Wis., won’t be completed until 2017,
about a year behind the company’s original estimate.
Enbridge announced the delay in a
filing with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, noting
that it is a material change in the company’s plans that
stockholders need to know about.
The company had hoped to start
construction in 2015 and have oil moving by early 2016. But those
delays in the regulatory process – namely over how many possible
pipeline routes should be studied – have led the company to revamp
its official expectations.
The Minnesota Public Utilities
Commission is taking longer than expected to approve possible routes
for the pipeline that need to be thoroughly studied for environmental
and social impacts. The company hoped to limit those possible routes
to two options. On Sept. 11, the PUC opened up the possibility that
other routes might have to be included for study.
Several groups have organized to
propose additional routes, or oppose the line altogether, saying
Minnesota shouldn’t have to bear the risk for oil that will mostly
go to other states. They cite the possibility of pipeline spills into
northern Minnesota lakes, rivers, and wetlands, and some groups have
proposed new routes that would take the line south, through more
farmland and urban areas.
The oil would move from Superior down
other lines to Chicago and other eastern cities. Sandpiper would be
among the state’s most expensive private construction projects –
more than double the cost of the new Vikings football stadium in
Minneapolis.
Enbridge had expected public hearings
to be held on both the need for the pipeline and the route,
simultaneously, over the winter with a final Minnesota Public
Utilities Commission decision coming in May 2015. Construction would
have started after PUC approval. Now, it appears the pipeline’s
route and its perceived public need will be reviewed under a more
complex process that separates the public need hearings from route
considerations. The need hearings will be held on the original
schedule, with hearings in January and an administrative law judge
decision in April, Lorraine Little, an Enbridge spokeswoman, said
Tuesday.
DEDICATION OF CHIEF BEMIDJI STATUE
POSTPONED UNTIL JUNE
BEMIDJI, Minn. – The new Chief
Bemidji statue installation scheduled for this fall was postponed
until June, officials from the Chief Bemidji Statue Committee said
Sept. 29.
Officials said in a press release that
the installation and dedication of the bronze statue of
Shaynowishkung in Library Park along the Lake Bemidji waterfront is
being pushed back because of difficulties in the casting process.
With cold weather approaching, the committee decided to wait and hold
a community event next year.
The dedication was originally planned
for this past September and then to early October before this latest
postponement.
Construction of the platform for Chief
Bemidji in Library Park has been completed. The committee said it now
hopes to finish the informational signage, which will then be cast in
bronze and mounted on the four pillars at the platform site. The
plaques will highlight information on Shaynowishkung and the time
period in which he lived.
TRIBAL LEADERS AND ACTIVISTS SAY STATE
MOVING TOO SLOW ON TOXIN STUDIES
DULUTH, Minn. – Fond du Lac Band
leaders and environmentalist charge that Minnesota officials aren’t
doing enough to protect the public from toxins in the St. Louis
River.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
was expected to respond to the criticism through two of the state’s
top scientists at a forum Sept. 18 in Duluth. They planned to explain
how the state is dealing with toxic mercury in the river’s walleye,
bass and northern pike. "We haven’t run away from anything,"
said Shannon Lotthammer, who heads the agency’s environmental
analysis division. "We are continuing to pursue the scientific
questions around this . It needs to be solved."
The state decided to go it alone in
its mercury studies after pulling out of a federally funded research
project to get rid of mercury in fish from the St. Louis River.
Reports say that state health
officials said that despite advisories against eating too much of the
river’s fish, mercury has been found at unsafe levels in the blood of
1 in 10 infants on the north shore of Lake Superior. About 1 in 100
infants have levels of mercury in their blood high enough to cause
neurological harm.
Len Anderson, a retired biology
teacher and activist who lives along the St. Louis River, said he
believes the state’s decision to independently research mercury
levels was made to protect mining companies and other industries that
pollute the watershed with sulfate, which helps turn mercury into the
form that accumulates in fish.
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
researchers are currently studying a variety of potential factors
that may lead to the conversion and buildup of mercury in fish,
officials said.
RED LAKE MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO MURDER
RED LAKE, Minn. – A Red Lake man
pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in U.S. District Court in
Fergus Falls on Sept. 11. Trevor Lee Jones, 20, is charged with
unlawfully killing Jerick Michael Neadeau, 17, in July.
Jones is accused of stabbing Neadeau
in the chest with a buck knife, causing his death when the two fought
during a July 4 party at a residence located within the Red Lake
Indian Reservation, according to court documents.
Jones is an enrolled member of the Red
Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, as was Neadeau.
Jones was charged with second-degree
murder on Aug. 22. A preliminary hearing and detention hearing were
scheduled for July 22, but Jones waived his right to the hearing and
agreed to probable cause and detention. A sentencing date has yet to
be released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
FOND DU LAC READY TO LEAD THE WAY ON
SOLAR ENERGY
CLOQUET, Minn. – The Fond du Lac
Reservation will soon be the site of a new solar farm project that
will contribute a significant source of energy to the reservation and
provide environmental benefits.
The reservation is set to partner with
Minnesota Power on the project, which will contribute $2 million, to
build a 1-megawatt photovoltaic array on Fond du Lac tribal land. The
photovoltaic cells convert photons into electricity and an added
benefit is they operate silently and without any moving parts or
environmental emissions.
The reservation got its first taste of
the benefits of solar energy when it installed a series of solar
panels on the roof of its LEED-certified Resource Management Building
a few years ago.
Now, Chuck Walt, the band’s executive
director, said the reservation is in negotiations with Minnesota
Power to work out the details of this new project, which he said will
be able to generate enough electricity to fulfill 10 percent of the
needs of the Black Bear Casino Resort. “It takes a lot of power to
run that kind of operation 24/7,” he said. “This new project
should be very helpful as far as that goes.”
Though the reservation has not yet
secured a site for the solar farm, Walt said they are looking in the
proximity of the Casino Resort. He said an array of the size being
considered would require approximately 10 acres of land.
With an estimated price tag of $2.5
million, the administrator said the reservation plans to partner on
the project using some of its own resources, supplying about half a
million dollars of the total cost. And while the project is still in
the contracting and engineering phase, Walt said the hope is that
construction could get underway as early as next year.
Minnesota Power spokesman Amy Rutledge
said the company has partnered with the Fond du Lac Reservation on
many initiatives over the years, including conservation projects,
consultation on Minnesota Power’s St. Louis River Hydro Project,
environmental water quality studies, such as mercury studies at
Thomson Reservoir, advanced biomass exploration and a host of others.
