Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Oil Brings Prosperity to North Dakota Reservation

While many tribes have oil on their lands, no reservation is booming more than the million-acre Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota, and this boom has meant a lot of money and jobs for a community that has struggled with poverty for more than 100 years.

An AP article published today takes a look at the transformation that has taken place on Fort Berthold, which sits on billions of barrels of oil. It tells how lease payments of more than $179 million have been paid to the tribe and its members, with millions more in royalties and tax revenue coming in too. There are plenty of job opportunities on the oil rigs (dozens of wells have already been drilled and another 500 or so will be operation over the next five years. Even its Four Bears Casino is now booming; casino revenues increased from $4.5 million in 2008 to $7.2 million in 2009.

9 comments:

  1. The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation are located in North Dakota, not Montana.

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  2. check your map. Fort Berthold reservation is in North Dakota

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  3. I hope you know that Fort Berthold is in North Dakota and not Montana?

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  4. Fort Berthold is not in Montana. Someone needs to check their states and find out which rez is in which state.

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  5. That's so great to hear good news about a once poor tribe now prospering!!!

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  6. The lead into this article from the email has the wrong State identified.

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  7. Correction: The e-mail alert about this blog entry said Montana. It should have said North Dakota. The blog is correct, the e-mail with the link to the blog was incorrect.

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  8. Always an inspiration to hear about Tribes being able to make use of the resources in a positive manner. This is good news. I hope that there are supportive Tribal members in position to keep this rolling and use this positive re-enforcement towards our culture and prosper in the future. This is a great opportunity for education for their Tribeand the children of there Tribe. Just AWESOME.

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  9. Reminder: all tribes have natural resources on their lands, its how it is utilized for the future of their nation is what is important. I am familiar with this situation and know for a fact that not all tribal members are benefitting from this resource as the article suggests. In fact, the same ol' story remains, whoever is involved with the local politics and/or whoever has the biggest family, the biggest mouth, Indian or non-Indian, proves where resources end up. It is true many are benefitting, however, unfortunately,its not the common Indian person who continues to struggle to make ends meet on a daily basis.

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