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.

Klamath Dam Removal Agreements Signed

It took five years to reach them, but two agreements that lay out the details for the removal of four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River in southern Oregon and northern California were signed yesterday, according to an AP article published by the Redding Record Searchlight (Redding.com).

One of the agreements lays out a roadmap for removing the dams, with the first one coming down in 2020, while the other outlines how to share water between fish and farms and restore the ecological balance of the basin, the AP story said.

Tribes in the area, as well as conservation groups and salmon fishers, fought for decades for the removal of the dams because they block salmon from hundreds of miles of spawning grounds.