Meade County oks man-camp

In contrast to a Meade County permit meeting in South Dakota, one at Holt County in Nebraska was packed. (Photo courtesy Shannon Graves)

STURGIS –The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Ft. Belknap Indian Community held off the Keystone XL Pipeline in federal court on Feb. 25, as agents for the private Canadian tar-sands crude oil proposition garnered permission from Meade County Commissioners, meeting here, to start man-camp construction in South Dakota this March.
However, the representatives of project proponent TC Energy Corp. (formerly TransCanada Corp.) didn’t fare as well before Holt County Commissioners in Nebraska, who denied a construction permit there three days later.
TC Energy Corp. has been trying for 10 years to secure permits to build the pipeline more than 1,000 miles — from the oil shale fields of Alberta Province, across Montana and South Dakota, to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would link to existing infrastructure.
The product in the pipeline, which would be diluted bitumen, or dilbit, must reach Texas refineries in order to be processed for shipment abroad via Gulf of Mexico ports.
The Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) and the Fort Belknap Indian Community (Assiniboine and Gros Ventre tribes), in coordination with their counsel, the Native American Rights Fund, submitted two new filings to Montana U.S. District Court on Feb. 25 in their 2018 lawsuit challenging a federal permit for the pipeline.
In these filings, the tribes highlight a TC Energy Corp. admission that the Keystone XL Pipeline would cross Rosebud mineral estates held in trust by the United States.
The prosecution submitted that the mineral estates qualify as Indian lands and the tribe has jurisdiction over them. “Trespassing into Rosebud’s mineral estates, held in trust, without Rosebud’s consent is a violation of the 1851 and 1868 Ft. Laramie treaties,” it claimed.
The activities described in the project’s Environmental Impact Statement, namely rock ripping, blasting, trenching, topsoil removal, and backfilling, would adversely affect Rosebud’s mineral estate, it claimed, adding, “Federal agencies have a duty to prevent mineral trespass and protect Indian lands and tribal mineral estates.”
Also in the filings, the tribes sustained that, contrary to defendants’ arguments, neither the President’s foreign affairs power nor his role as Commander in Chief provide him authority to permit the pipeline, as he has announced doing.
The authority to permit the pipeline falls within Congress’ exclusive and plenary power to regulate foreign commerce, they argued.
“As much as they would like to, TransCanada cannot ignore the laws that protect Native American people and lands,” said Native American Rights Fund Staff Attorney Natalie Landreth.
Meanwhile, on the same day as the court filings, the Meade County Commission voted to give TC Energy Corp. an extension on its expired construction permits for Pump Station 17 and for a 1,200-employee man-camp near Opal, population 31.
TC Energy Corp. Attorney Bill Taylor told commissioners the company paid $194,000 for the permits, which were granted on Oct. 22, 2018.
He said that company contractors conducted only preliminary work — mowing vegetation to discourage raptors from using its right-of-way –, because the Montana U.S. District Court imposed a building ban while considering the merits of the case challenging the federal permit.
When an appeals court lifted the ban in July 2019, TC Energy Corp.’s Missouri-based consulting firm KLG Engineering, named after founder Kelly Green, asked for an extension, and Deputy Director of Planning Bill Rich tentatively agreed, Taylor said.
Rich told commissioners he received an Oct. 8, 2019 email request for an extension, which he answered with an email to a KLG Engineering permit specialist saying he would not grant it.
He noted that standard practice is to allow an extension for a maximum of six months on a valid building permit. A permit becomes invalid if construction work does not commence or is abandoned for six months after the time it commences.
Building permits expire within one year of issuance, if no significant construction occurs within that time frame, he added. After that, a permit holder must apply for another permit and, if approved, pay the associated fee.
However, the KLG Engineering specialist “said she didn’t get the email, and I actually believe her,” Rich said. Commissioner Talbot Wieczorek and Taylor noted that a “variance” clause within the building ordinance could be employed to address “unique circumstances.”
After going into a closed executive session with State’s Attorney lawyers to discuss legal ramifications of a decision, commissioners returned to vote publicly and unanimously in favor of an extension of six months from the Oct 22, 2019 expiration date of the permit.
The decision provides TC Energy contractors until April 22 to finish the construction or come back and ask for a permit extension that will cost an amount pro-rated on the percentage of the work that remains to be finished.
Taylor said plans are to restart work in March. “We could be back here two weeks from now and grade on the Opal Camp,” conditions permitting, he said.
Target Hospitality, aka Target Lodging, is the man-camp operator. It changed its name from Target logistics in 2018 after being purchased by the Maryland-based transnational Algeco Scotsman in 2013.
Its track record stems from housing more than 4,000 workers in the camps of North Dakota’s Bakken oil fracking fields and another 1,000 in the Permian Basin camps of Texas and New Mexico.
Taylor said, “Assuming the Montana court doesn’t enjoin this again,” contractors plan to put up modular units and include room for the recreational vehicles that house some workers in “an entirely self-contained facility.” He added, “I call them trailer houses.”
Commissioner Doreen Creed said she is familiar with the company and the man-camps are “very livable.” However, she noted, road inspection should precede construction. When previous construction stalled out, roadwork was left in “disastrous” shape, she recalled.
Public input at the commission meeting was foiled by heavy snows, high winds, no-travel advisories and road closures.
In contrast, the courtroom was packed with participants at the Holt County permit hearing in O’Neill, Nebraska, 50 miles southwest of the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation.
Commissioners denied permits until the company can prove it has secured easements and until issues with drainage are resolved.
The Oglala Sioux Tribal Finance Committee’s Feb. 27 meeting to hear a report from the tribal attorney on a $50,000 check to the tribe from TransCanada Corp. was cancelled due to a prolonged full Tribal Council schedule that interfered. The next date for that report was set for March 5.
The Native Sun News Today headline on a story about a previous postponement of the report was inaccurate in saying that Pass Creek District Council voted to accept KXL Pipeline money. The investigation has not revealed the check’s whereabouts. TransCanada Corp. has not answered the newspaper’s questions about the check’s return.
In that story, this author also incorrectly identified Everett Little Whiteman as a tribal council representative. The Little Whiteman on the Council is Beau, who is a representative for the Medicine Root District.
All the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty tribes are on record in opposition to the pipeline construction.