HUNTER LAKE 19/100 Jonas Johanson Feld Bedrifts

HUNTER LAKE 19/100 Jonas Johanson Feld Bedrifts

 

Jonas Johanson Feld Bedrifts looked out at his land and saw a life committed to one thing and one thing only, fields of whatever he could get the government to buy at the highest price.  He stood legs spread apart, a pyramid over looking the fields in front of him.

“We own as far as you can see and beyond.” His father’s now raspy voice raised over the field and echoed on the wall behind.

“More than what you could ever do.”

“Don’t talk to your Father like that.”

“I can damn well do as I please and say what I want.” Jonas didn’t turn around. He didn’t look back.

The wheels on the mechanical wheel chair squeaked with every turn to the front door. Doors jammed open as his father pushed his way in and slammed once he got in.

Jonas looked towards Hobart Lake, the lake was an obstruction to his ambition. “Need to get rid of it.” He dialed the cell phone, “let’s start tomorrow.” He took a deep breath in, the stench of cattle manure, a sour smell, harvestore silos still filled with silage mixed in a bitter acrid smell of feces and rotten greens. He had smelled it so often, it left no residual difficult smell for him. He walked away. “Smell of money,” he often said when his or wife complained about their clothes. “It’s set you apart.”

It did, his kids stunk and to make up for it became strong and tall and bullied every kid they could. His only question when they came home was “who did you beat up today.” One of his boys was a real academic and could never answer the question, the last time that happened, he lifted him up by the collar and slammed him against the wall of the house. “Next time you better have a different answer.” He said.

He looked out at the land, and felt no remorse for his parenting. He was single parenting now and glad of it. He got rid of June, thank god, that loser, and was parenting on his own with his dad. He didn’t mind, he got a lot of out of his kids, who were terrified of him. He fingered his belt, leather and wide, browned with age. He could show the kids who was boss in a way that he used to show June. Nothing ever showed. The kids hated their mom for leaving them, because that’s what he told them. “She abandoned you, and you deserve it.”  At first he followed her to town, and stalked her, but then he realized he could have anyone he wanted. When he saw her limping he realized she was worthless to him, and something turned off, he didn’t need her anymore and could do whatever he wanted. He moved forward with his plan.

His plan was to travel on the weekends to the bars and only bars in Fargo where he could mingle with the college kids and find some girls with daddy issues and play that card with them. When he drove back he was always smiling, happy to be done with the tedium of having the same woman in his house every day, looking at him accusingly. He didn’t need that and wouldn’t have to deal with it ever.

As a matter of fact, he removed all the pictures of his ex wife and never replaced them, tossed them all in the garbage. “Don’t ever want to see that face again.”

If his boys cried he said “I’m going to give you something to cry about.” And would hit them with the back of his hand. “Back hand” he said, “good for tennis and for life.” He moved forward with the plan and sometimes looked at his home and said “It’s a good life without a wife.” His kids made dinner every day, to his perfection, “energy food.” “You figure it out.” The youngest was the best of the three at cooking, could put a full dinner on the table in less than 30 minutes.

HUNTER LAKE 18/100 The Grebes Dance

HUNTER LAKE 18/100 Grebe Dance

The next day Henry Setterholm lifted military grade binoculars to his ruddy face.

"Alma, look at this!" His deep voice rolled the words out like a river rumbling before a flood.

"That Engineering Company got the contract. Ole did this, that's why he wanted on the Water Board. For one more acre."

"Yup." Henry stood tall, feet planted on the earth his ancestors populated over a century ago. Overnight the Moore Engineering semis swarmed the shoreline of Hunter Lake.

"Like bore beetles, they're gonna' put that plastic pipe in the earth and suck the lake dry," said Alma.

"Damn!"

Alma's hair, bright red, glowed in the morning light as she stretched her arms out to the youngest of the five.

"Uppy, uppy." She planted him on her shoulders.

The earth shook. Henry remained unrattled.

"Those semis comin' over here?" said Alma. Junior wriggled back and forth on her shoulders.

"No…… just started to dig."

"When did they get here?"

"Junior and I, we were out at the lake last night, they didn't see us, but we saw 'em comin', the parasites."

"Last night?" Alma looked at her husband's boots, mud caked still wet, slept-in clothes, hands dirty with new dried blood.

"Need some coffee." The imprint of the binoculars on his eyelids gave a peculiar look to his face, she had seen that look the night before, same look as when he hunted.

"Come on." Alma leaned into him, Henry Junior on her shoulders.

"Son." The father's gaze enveloped his son with crystal blue eyes.

"Daddy, daddy, red glebe." The boy put his arms out, and stretched his neck, tried to dive like the prehistoric bird he sat so still to watch the night before.

"Whoa!" said Alma as she adjusted her walk to balance his moves. "They drain the lake…"

"The habitat goes, even our designated wetlands." The surrounding yard filled with dew covered prairie grasses glistened in the morning sun.

"They're pouring our farmland down the drain." She patted Junior's head as he nestled his face in his mom's wild hair.

"We'll have to sift for pieces of it in the Sheyenne River."

Alma's face glistened. "We tried."

"Sometimes, money don't always win." Henry smiled.

"What d'ya mean, now Henry, what'ya do?"

"You remember that drainage ditch Ole tried to put on our land?"

"The one they say emptied back into his front yard?"

"Yup."

"The one they say weird stuff from miles away ended out."

"Not a myth."

"You didn't…." Alma looked up at him.

"Some things are kind of hard to explain, they just happen."

They walked slowly across the prairie grassland to the two story farm house Henry lived in since he was born. Behind them, the shouts of semi drivers as they leaped out of their cabs, and ran for dry land. He looked back and smiled. The earth's trembling stopped. The last of the semis sunk. The white three-foot diameter rigid pipes followed.

The Crested Grebes faced off in the reeds, heads down beaks pointed. They raced towards each other across the open water and stopped. Small waves of water pushed out in front of them and crashed. They lifted their necks high, swam off in pairs, leaving a lazy S pattern in the water behind. The shoreline looked like it had for a hundred years.

HUNTER LAKE 17/100 Where did Henry go?

HUNTER LAKE 17/100 Where did Henry go?

It was right before dawn. The cold chill on the prairie waiting to lift. She loved that time of the day. As she looked out the bedroom window, she saw what she always saw and waited for and anticipated, a slight brightening of the horizon, the moment between night and day, where if you blinked it would disappear and you would miss the miracle of daylight.

She reached over to his side of the bed, the covers were thrown off, the bed was cold. He was able to slip into bed and out without her noticing, not like before his stint with military. A time when they chatted over the day, talked about the children, planned for the next day, thanked each other for the life they shared together. Yes, things had changed. Henry was back, or was he?

As she put her feet on the hardwood floors and lightly stepped down the stairs to the kitchen, the damp chill of the night reminded her, how much she missed her old life.

Alma fumed. “Henry, where are you?” She didn’t raise her voice, usually didn’t, but the last few years, even though they communicated over social media, now that he was here it felt as though they were years lost.

The kitchen waited, the automatic coffee pot had brewed her morning welcome into the day, and she walked down, still looking. An empty coffee cup sat silently at the edge of the sink, in the mudroom Henry’s boots were absent from the black tray where everyone left their shoes when they entered the house. It was the only way to stop the endless cleaning from the prairie dust and dirt and mud and everyone understood the need to keep the house clean, it was never a burden. It was a family habit that allowed everyone to enjoy time in different ways than continuous cleaning up after everyone else. Instead, the family joined in cooking and board games, in conversation about the plans for the farm. There was no resentment about cleaning up dirt, that after all belonged on the prairie as part of the nutrients that kept the food on their table.

Alma opened the door and closed it behind her, hoping her voice wouldn’t wake the children. “Henry” This time she called out, in a pitch that allowed her voice to carry across the prairie and hopefully not echo into the second floor bedrooms. She looked up and saw the windows slightly opened, one by one the bedrooms lit up. She shrugged her shoulders and walked back.

“Here.”

Alma jumped. Henry was around the shaded side of the house, a bunch of kale in his arms. “You’re so quiet, I couldn’t hear you.”

“Something I learned in the military, I guess, sorry.”

“You look tired, not sleep?” said Alma.

“Listen Alma that fence thing, I still can’t believe it.”

“You know, it used to be that neighbors looked out for neighbors, something happened while you were gone. The governor decided to bring money in, and well, the whole state was emptying out, the oil companies promised jobs and money for the state coffers was filled.”

“The Midas touch.”

“Right about that, the land is unusable.”

“For anything.”

“Sold their soul to the devil.”

“The devil made them do it.”

“Ha.”

“The kids are up.”

“Been two days.”

“Since I got back right?”

“Something’s changed.”

“NO, everything has changed and something new is happening.”

The familiar sage smell, the dry grass whistle, the gold reflection of the sun on the yellow field, and a brighter white of repainted weather worn wood on the two story house greeted him. This was the world of his dreams, the world he lived in, and it was good.

A white chintz curtain waved in the kitchen window as heads bobbed up and down and shouts of joy poured out. The kitchen screen door slammed open as his loved ones stumbled over each other in a race to get to his side.

The squawk of a Grebe overhead as it searched for its only safe landing mingled with the children's squeals. It circled for a moment as Henry's children raced towards their father. Then, at the edge of Henry's property, a flash of a pristine blue reflection signaled the prehistoric bird's home, Hunter Lake. The Grebe's characteristic dive would end out at a nest in the reeds when it surfaced. As he dove he spotted his chicks nestled in the feathers of the mother Grebe.

Henry sighed. Everything was as it should be. He remembered his Dad admonishing him to protect the wildlife. "They're like you son, they survive. You survive." His Dad had pointed at the Grebe, a bird that required a unique habitat, one this particular North Dakota lake afforded. "You see, the Grebe don't run like ducks, they just fall over. Without the lake, they can't take care of the young'uns."

“The farm looks the same, better, because of you.” Henry put his arms around Alma.

“We still have protected wildlife areas, the prairie gardens and the family truck farm.”

“You did that Alma, provided food for the neighbors and the town. Alma and the kids did it. Ie saw it on Skype for the last years.”

"Come here, you." Four girls and a toddler, his wife Alma; he opened his arms as the children approached, the youngest climbed up Alma to get near.

"Junior." Alma scooped him up.

"Daddyyyyy." He squealed with delight when perched on Henry's shoulders.

Henry crunched his eyebrows in a double take. His wife Alma stood taller than he remembered. She seemed to grow an inch as their kids climbed over him like leaves on a tree. He gazed into her sky blue eyes as she wrapped her arms around Ivy, Rose, Sunny, Paradise, and looked up at Henry Junior who wriggled tallest over all of them with his arms outstretched in imitation.

"Love." The word slipped out of Alma's lips and it rose around them and swirled up to the sky and joined the clouds in the bluest sky that Barnes County had seen in the last two years.

Like a giant Yedi he moved back into the house, entire family in tow. He was ready to reenter his life.

"Henry, don't get mad, there's something happening here." Alma looked away.

"I'd hope so, it's been two years." Henry held Junior in his left arm as he marched to the house. "This guy's a spittin' image of the family."

"It's about Ole." Alma shook her head.

They made it back to the house as Henry shook his head. "He doesn't get it does he?"

oops a little political about the fracking.....

Methane is Dangerous for Your Health

  BLM Methane Rule Hearing March 3, 2016 

I had the opportunity to attend the public hearing for the Bureau of Land Managements Methane Rule. Some outcomes from the Rule include the harnessing of potential energy lost from methane that has either escaped from the pipes on the site of the drilling and storage facilities or is currently being burned off in the form of flares. The other directive is to create guidelines for companies that are drilling on public lands for all future activity in order to decrease lost royalties and the effect methane has on global warming. Global warming effects and immediate health risks are recent national news as a result of the uncontained methane gas leak in California.

            As a Pediatrician I am concerned about how our environment affects the health and safety of North Dakota’s children and families. Representatives of the oil industry presented their position at the BLM Hearing on Thursday, March 3, 2016 in Dickinson, North Dakota. Part of the oil industry’s concern was the need to have more evidence about health complications from methane. This argument formed part of their argument to refute the need for the BLM’s guidelines. As I mentioned in my presentation, when methane is sold commercially it contains mercaptan, which is a foul-smelling chemical that makes detection of leaks obvious. It has a sulfur smell, like rotten eggs. The smell was put into Natural Gas in the aftermath of a school explosion in New London, Texas in 1937. 300 students and faculty members lost their lives after the school exploded and was leveled when the trapped natural gas was ignited. The School was being fueled by gas directly from the nearby oil wells. After that disaster, mercaptan was introduced by the gas companies for safety and health reasons, in order to make the presence of leaks obvious. Perhaps the people representing the oil companies on March 3, 2016 in Dickinson were unaware of their own companies concerns about safety.

 There may be other inorganic or organic compounds of concern, but I addressed methane individually as one component of a gas stream.

These are the facts, facts the oil industry works with every day, before the methane is processed to be sold commercially, before it contains mercaptan:

1. Methane is slightly soluble so it can enter in the ground water and when it seeps into basements or leaks and is exposed to air it becomes a vapor.

2. It is also odorless when it leaks into the soil or out of pumps before it is processed.

3. The numbers that are referred to consist of Lower Explosive Limit (or LEL) of 5% when a flash of fire can occur in the presence of an ignition source and the Upper Explosive Limit (UEL) is 15 %, above that it is too rich to burn.

4. As an odorless, colorless, tasteless gas, its characteristic as a flammable gas, with potential for explosions may go undetected by a child or adults even before physical symptoms occur.

5. From a respiratory point of view, very high levels of methane can displace (move) the amount of oxygen in the air and cause asphyxiation or suffocation, resulting in symptoms like headaches, dizziness, weakness, nausea, vomiting, increased breathing rate, loss of coordination, loss of consciousness, and possible death.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) works with communities to register and understand these dangers and has been effective in identifying and eliminating this type of hazard. However, the federal hearing for the ATSDR suggested that an LEL of 1% is a concern.

The National Institute for Occupation Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends a maximum safe methane concentration for workers during an 8-hour period of 1,000 parts per million (or 0.1 percent).

The oil companies understand methane is dangerous, but the people who represented them wanted more evidence, more proof. I recommended that the oil companies and BLM include the ATSDR as a partner to determine the most effective way to continuously measure methane levels in the environment, including soils, water and air before it is sold or transported.   I   suggested that such an experienced partner be added into the final Methane Rule, in every effort to protect the children and families and oil company employees of this community.

CONTACT NUMBERS FOR:

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,

4770 Buford Hwy NE,

Atlanta, GA 30341 USA 

800-CDC-INFO (800-232-4636), TTY: 888-232-6348