Tribal oil refinery plan raises pollution concerns

By LAUREN DONOVAN,
Bismarck Tribune

July 17, 2004

WHITE SHIELD -- A small group on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation worries about pollution from a possible oil refinery on the reservation and what will happen if they speak out against it.

The Three Affiliated Tribes wants to build a small, 10,000-barrel-a-day refinery near Makoti to create jobs and opportunity.

The project geologist said any information about the refinery -- even adverse -- is better than none.

Horace Pipe said people should know that refinery technology is "a lot further down the road" than when most refineries were built in the '70s. He said it's like comparing the environmental controls on a car coming out of Detroit back then, to the controls on cars coming off production lines now.

The Three Affiliated Tribes plans an MHA Nation Clean Fuels refinery at an estimated $80 million to $100 million. An environmental assessment is being written now and a draft is due in early August. Pipe said public meetings will be held once the draft assessment is released.

The tribe hopes to start construction next year, creating 65 permanent jobs and 400 construction jobs, and make a dent in the 52 percent unemployment in the Indian labor force reported in 2000.

Because the refinery would be on the reservation, federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, will issue the permits.

Some on the reservation have concerns about the effect of a refinery on the air, land and water. The Environmental Awareness Committee of Fort Berthold held meetings across the reservation this week so a refinery expert could talk about those impacts.

Thursday's meeting was in White Shield, at the edge of the reservation west of Garrison. In a hospitable practice common on the reservation, a generous warm supper was served before the meeting.

The committee had hoped to hold one of the informational meetings in Parshall. A tribal official who demanded a list of the committee members' names derailed it, said member Jodie White.

Some who attended were afraid to be quoted, for fear of repercussions. They likened their possible fate to that of Ted Siers, a bison project employee who was laid off after he went public this spring with a statement about the tribe's handling of bison.

Pipe said that's unwarranted and that he's been getting phone calls from reservation members who want more information.

White said the tribe has never talked about any effects of the refinery, other than financial.

"They keep saying it will be state-of-the-art, but they never tell us what that means," she said.

The refinery expert, Denny Larson, director of Global Community Monitor at San Francisco, said the tribes' talk of using air to cool the process rather than water is the first such application he's ever heard. He said the tribe has never named a manufacturer, or even identified another air-cooled refinery anywhere in the world.

Pipe said the air-cooled process is used in Egypt, but more to the point, he said the tribe's refinery would have to meet the EPA's new clean fuels requirements, as well as federal pollution standards.

Larson said refineries create more pollution than any other industrial process, most of it into the air. There are 600 toxic chemicals associated with the refinery process, including the release of some heavy metals. He said pollution from smokestacks is an obvious source, but it's also emitted from storage tanks, leaks and other less visible sources.

One young woman asked whether the reservation was "targeted" by investors because the people there are a minority race.

Larson said refinery locations "are not targeted for townhouse neighborhoods." He said the good news is that the permitting is lengthy and complicated and people will have several opportunities to be involved and heard.

The EPA sent tribal officials a 15-page letter this spring, detailing dozens of questions it has about the refinery, from groundwater baselines to how solid wastes will be managed.

Larson said he thinks getting EPA approval will be a formidable process.

"For the people who are not in favor of the refinery, this (EPA's letter) is a very encouraging document," Larson said. "This is certainly not going to be a slam dunk."

Pipe said tribal officials met with EPA's Region 8 officials from Denver last month.

"This is very real and doable," he said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@westriv.com.)