The Three Affiliated Tribes created a for-profit water corporation to sell millions of gallons of water to the hydraulic fracking industry. The tribe partnered with Bartlett and West, a Kansas-based engineering business which takes pride in its pioneering past in developing rural water systems. Tribal allotted land owners — Gabriel, Charles and Howard Fettig — on the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota recently filed a federal lawsuit against TAT Chairman Mark Fox, Bartlett and West and four others for trespassing and running water lines across their land. The Fettigs say the tribe and Bartlett and West — which manages all the water sales — never paid them a cent.
This film was a 2020 Telly Award. The film won a silver award in the news/general news feature category.