Larry Waith has a small wind turbine, which he set up on his own land in Wishek. The unobtrusive 2600-watt unit sits atop an unremarkable 12 meter pole, whirring softly as it generates free electricity for Waith’s home.

The City of Wishek wants him to take it down.

Why have they done this? Because Brent Thielges, a city councilman who lives nearby, is annoyed by his neighbour’s personal initiative and environmental responsibility, and compares it to torture.

Yeah, I can totally see how saving money and not burning fossil fuels to power your television rates up there with brutalizing someone’s humanity.

Thielges complained to his fellow councilmen, who acquiesced to his campaign of red tape against Waith. Mr. Waith was willing to pay a small fine for forgetting to ask for a building permit, but will not stand for the council to impose more fines for the turbine to remain standing.

After a month of back-and forth, the matter is to go before a judge. Does the City of Wishek really believe they can subject landowners to bills of attainder based largely on the whims of just one of its members?

It’s been a day of positive environmental news.  China has pledged to restrain its growth in emissions, while the United States and Japan are  planning to hold the line.  But this is the start, rather than the end, of the solution to economic dependence on unsustainable processes.  Groups in North Dakota are holding a kickoff for public outreach campaign in Fargo Wednesday night –  Details at the 1sky blog.

The proposed refinery near New Town will not be used to process local oil, but instead Tar Sands oil from Alberta. Meanwhile, groups on the reservation want the decision to build a refinery put up to the people.

The refining process for this oil leaves pools of toxic sludge in open-air “tailing ponds”.  With no real plan to clean them up, the Athabasca River and a number of aboriginal communities along it are now one levee break away from peril.  Aboriginal groups in Alberta are exhausting every legal means to exert their original land claims to slow down oil sands development.

Why should anyone in North Dakota support a plan that uses Alberta’s filthy oil, when there’s plenty pumped out around here to feed the modest capacity of this new plant?

After 10 years leading the government of Manitoba, Premier Gary Doer has been appointed ambassador to the United States.

Perhaps a real solution to the intractable border water managment problems that North Dakota and Manitoba squabble over is finally on the horizon.

Lloyd Omdahl has some sage commentary on our ongoing feud with Manitoba over water issues.

It’s time for North Dakota and Manitoba to give up re-enacting the Hatfields and McCoys and resolve their disputes over the Devils Lake outlet and the 30-mile dam along the Manitoba border. These differences have lasted so long they are becoming intergenerational.

We’ve drawn this out long enough. Time to make a deal.

T. Boone Pickens is throwing in the towel on his Texas wind farm, but up here things are looking brighter for adding new electrical capacity.  Montana-Dakota Utilities has joined a plan for major new transmission lines between the upper Midwest and big cities.

Earl Pomeroy has come out against the cap-and-trade program for carbon dioxide emissions, citing that North Dakota’s cooperatives burn coal for their power.

It’s plainly the wrong call to stand against key measures to reduce pollution. North Dakota’s Rural Electric Cooperatives, like everyone else, have to be responsible to the environment we all share. Given their close ties to our community, I think with prodding, they could appreciate that sentiment and accept the need for change.  They need to start putting more money into wind power, before the foreign companies that have been moving in so far buy out all of our skies.

Let’s not forget that there are hundreds of corporate coal plants beyond the borders of our state that have demonstrated no ethics but those which the law requires of them. We need new rules.

The nationwide coverage of the DC Metro crash is problematic. Covering such a thing live on the major nightly newscasts only perpetuates the notion that something is of national significance simply because it happens in DC. It’s not.
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As Dickinson’s main recycling firm shuttered earlier this year, city officials are now trying to look into getting a new recycling program. That is, they’re going to ask local citizens what they want to pay, and see what happens after that.

I’m guessing that if the city even bothers to follow through, they will be paying more than if they had bothered to keep the original local recycler up and running.

In the Rural Municipality of Rhineland, there is a road that runs just on its side of the border with Pembina County. It’s a very well-built road — when flooding comes in from the south (as it tends to in the Red River Valley), the water stays on that side of the road. Naturally, this isn’t appreciated by Pembina County.

But while John Hoeven has been whining to the State Department, Gary Doer offered a solution: That North Dakota build the filter it should have for the Devil’s Lake outlet, and Manitoba will build the culverts it should have in its road.

It’s only fair, and would put to rest two of the biggest issues in cross-border relations.