Independent news from the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance
November 25, 2024
News Media Collaborative

Wall Street Journal: Did Fort Berthold tribal leaders squander historic opportunity?

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
by
jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave
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JT Shining Oneside shared stories about her Ojibwe and Anishinaabe inheritance during the Native American Heritage Month Celebration on Nov. 15. She spoke about the coming-of-age and traditional birth ceremonies. (Photo credit/ Adrianna Adame)

BY JACK NICAS

FORT BERTHOLD INDIAN RESERVATION, N.D.—The shale-oil boom in North Dakota gave the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Indians here the chance to become some of the wealthiest tribes in U.S. history.

But the oil has also divided the reservation, drawing lawsuits, an FBI investigation and accusations from tribal members that their leaders squandered the historic opportunity.

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Jeff Lautenberger

Truck traffic that has grown with North Dakota’s oil boom kicks up a cloud of dust last summer on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

The fight highlights how much the shale-oil revolution in the U.S. has become a gamechanger for many rural areas where the economy was once moribund. The boom has offered the possibility of profound riches but also of acrimony and finger-pointing.

U.S. natural-gas production will accelerate over the next three decades, new research indicates, providing the strongest evidence yet that the energy boom remaking America will last for a generation. Jerry Dicolo joins Markets Hub. Photo: Getty Images.

In the hundreds of deals at the center of dispute, Spencer Wilkinson Jr., the manager of the reservation’s casino, teamed up with hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management LLC OZM -0.55%and oilfield-services titan SchlumbergerLtd. SLB -0.27% to lease the drilling rights to 85,800 acres in 2007 and 2008. They paid roughly $14 million, plus a share of future drilling revenue, according to court documents and to federal records.

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Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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