Beneath the rocky bluffs of the Fort Berthold Reservation lies the source of what has become the most important rallying point for social, racial, and environmental justice of our time: the Bakken oil play that would supply the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Ancient Lakota prophecies speak of a black snake that would rise from the deep, crossing the land,] and bringing great sorrow and destruction, easy to apply this to the DAPL pipeline. This is the story of how in 2010, the snake rose from it’s slumber deep underground, and destroyed the land and lives it touched.
Fort Berthold’s Oil
In a sadly common story of many Native American tribes, the unique and diverse First Nations of Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) were lumped together and placed on land not of use to the white colonizers. When the reservation was created, they first lived in a valley and practiced agriculture, but then in the 50s the Army Corps built the Garrison Dam, creating Lake Sakakawea from their now-flooded farmland, driving the people to the barren rocky hills and destroying what was left of their self-sufficiency.
Hills sitting, incidentally, upon one of the richest, deepest oil reserves left in North America, An oil reserve completely inaccessible until the development of fracking. In 2010, oil companies descended in droves beginning a feeding frenzy of drilling and extracting. Fort Berthold now accounts over a third of the entire Bakken Oil Play.
The black snake arose.
A Legal No-Man’s Land
Reservations are a sovereign nation. They have their own police, their own government, their own social systems. But when non-Natives come on the Rez, complicated jurisdictional issues come with them.
If a white man, for example, rapes and murders a woman and the reservation police catch him, they cannot legally arrest him. An enforcement officer from the state must make the arrest. If an officer cannot or will not come, the man goes free. If an oil company is illegally dumping toxic fracking chemicals, the well-funded, well-equipped, well-educated Federal EPA cannot do anything. It is the Reservation’s EPA responsibility, regardless of their level of funding, training, or (lack of) proper equipment.
In oil-rich states like Alaska and Texas, regulations and and EPA enforcement infrastructure guide the construction and maintenance of the oil industry. They have the resources of the Federal Government and state budgets to draw upon to ensure at least some degree of public safety.
The Fort Berthold Reservation EPA, for example consists of 13 people. Of these 13 people, 3 hold university degrees in environmental sciences. These 13 individuals of varying degrees of training are supposed to monitor and enforce over 3500 oil wells and 3000 miles of pipeline. This is a losing proposal.
The black snake is unchained.
Colonization, Round 2
The abundant, high-paying work attracts thousands of white workers (a high school graduate can earn upwards of $100,000/yr) live in sprawling “man camps” of trailers, RVs, and over-priced second-rate housing on the Rez. So many they now outnumber natives nearly 2:1 and are allowed to vote in local politics, which clearly skews the interests served in local politics.
The gaps in legal oversight create a haven for some of the worst of humanity to thrive. With no real threat from local police, and black rivers of money, criminals, drug cartels, and con men have found an exceptionally lucrative market. Since the oil boom, the reservation has seen an explosion of crime they were completely unprepared for: sex trafficking, drug cartels bringing heroin, cocaine, and meth, murders, and rape. Sexual assault has risen over 75% in the last 3 years.
The bad behavior, however, is not limited individuals. Oil Companies also recognize the advantage they have in this situation with laughably limited oversight and weak regulations.
“Just sign this contract and all your troubles will be over….,” said the former MHA Chairman Tex Hall, infamous for his exceptionally friendly relations with Big Oil. He was responsible for the early days of the oil boom and has been implicated in 2 cases of murder-for-hire, and the mismanagement of millions in tribal revenue. He also curiously fired virtually anyone with a university education.
The lease contracts he facilitated for many of the tribe’s people contained disadvantageous clauses in fine print, granting special rights and discounted royalty payments for the companies. With little to no legal background, most people just trusted their leadership, not completely understanding what they were signing. Much like the initial colonial experiences of many native tribes.
The black snake grows.
Cultural Disintegration
The rapidly changing population brought by the oil has had a tremendous impact on the social fabric of the MHA nations. Beyond the shock of confronting the dirty cultural underbelly oil money has brought, the newfound prosperity is also taking its toll.
It’s estimated that 70% of lottery winners end up going bankrupt and Fort Berthold is witnessing this statistic play out with the oil boom across their entire culture. Suddenly families could buy all the toys their kids ever wanted, consumerist fantasies fed by television and advertising are now attainable realities. After decades of poverty watching the people on TV with their X-Boxes and ipads, who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t want a taste of the life the rest of the country seems to be tasting while you struggled to survive? These people had no other resources, few options, no other way out, and oil became a Faustian bargain.
Families now spend less and less time with each other, culturally important ceremonies are held less and less often. Drug addictions have reached epidemic proportions and suicide rates are among the highest in the country--a sad truth for many reservations. Housing is at a crisis point from the deluge of workers and many families live out of tents or at their workplaces.
The fabric that binds their people together with a cohesive identity is unraveling and oil is at the root of it.
The black snake feeds.
Environmental Damage
The human cost of the oil boom rides on top of some of the worst environmental accidents in all of North Dakota. Fort Berhthold was home to the largest fracking brine spill in history, releasing over 1 million gallons into a tributary of the Missouri River. Fracking Brine is extremely salty, on par with the dead sea, and contains over 700 other chemical agents include benzene and other toxic carcinogens. Once that salt is in the land, the land is fallow, irrecoverably dead. 95% of life in that tributary has died.
Due to the lack of regulations, natural gas is not harvested and processed--it requires costly processing facilities that would potentially annoy oil companies. Consequently, oil wells release 275,000 tons of methane per year, accounting for 2% of global methane pollution, a 30X stronger greenhouse gas than C02. Flares unceasingly spew massive flaming geysers giving the landscape an eerie Mordor-like atmosphere yet air quality remains unmonitored due to funding issues.
The Reservation’s EPA does not have the resources to cope with disasters on this scale. The entire operation is too huge for them to cover and they do not have the expertise or resources to manage it. It’s a man bailing out a sinking cargo ship with a bucket. The ship will go under.
The black snake destroys.
Economics of a Pipeline
Since oil prices crashed in 2014, plummeting from over $100/barrel to under $40, investors are desperate to increase their profit margins. One tried-and-true way to do that? Cut your costs. The oil from the Bakken is currently transported by rail, which costs an estimated $15/barrel. Not to mention it’s rather slow and has limited capacity. A pipeline, however, can cut that costs in half, a savings of over $7/barrel x 470,000 barrels per day and that’s $3.29 million in savings PER DAY. Stretched out across 365 days a year and the profit increase soars to $1.2 billion per year.
And thus the Dakota Access Pipeline came to be.
The black snake moves.
Uniting the Tribes
The damage and destruction the Fort Berthold Reservation has endured is not in vain. It is a call. It is an inspiration to act. The damage that fossil fuel industries inflict on the land and people has long been a dark secret, hidden away from the view of society in places far away from here. The pain the MHA nations suffer is what so many indigenous and impoverished people around the world have suffered at the hands of powerful and wealthy industrialist exploiters.
Now their true face is shown for all to see. Their violence, aggressiveness, greed, and racism are revealed shown in the light of public awareness. By uniting, by standing together for what is right, for what is sacred. This can be a turning point for our global culture, creating new networks and partnerships, creating a new awareness with new possibilities for a world that works for all.
The black snake dies.