General News

The Board of Higher Education has approved what will be the initial contract for new Presidents in the University System.

But the Board removed a provision that new Presidents would be eligible to receive up to a 25 percent bonus for meeting certain goals. That provision caused a lot of discussion at the Thursday special board meeting.

The group that spearheaded the campaign for the new state Constitutional ethics amendment is now asking legislators to follow the intent of the article’s section one –and require full disclosure of the sources of campaign spending over the $200 mark.

North Dakotans for Public Integrity appeared before the Legislature’s Interim Judiciary Committee.

"Voters have a right to know who's spending money to try to influence their votes," said group member Ellen Chaffee in an interview. "It's all about transparency."

As the Board of Higher Education prepares to hire new presidents at UND, Bismarck State College and Dickinson State University, a board committee is wrestling with new language for a president’s initial contract.

The Board’s Governance Committee looked at a new contract draft, after some were concerned that the initial proposal had a lot of “sticks,” but not a lot of “carrots.”

Groups that oppose the proposed oil refinery to be built in Belfield say the North Dakota Public Service Commission should take a closer look at the proposed size of the refinery, to determine whether or not it meets the state’s siting law criteria.

Meridian Energy is proposing to build a refinery to handle 49,500 barrels of oil per day. That would put it under the requirement that a facility of 50,000 barrels per day or above needs to go through the full siting process. The groups are concerned that the refinery would be built too close to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

As wind power companies look to upgrade their facilities, and as turbine blades start wearing out, there is a question: Where to dispose of the old blades?

North Dakota Public Service Commission chairman Brian Kroshus said there are roughly 1750 turbine blades in use right now in the state.

"If you add up the weight of the fiberglass material, in terms of the blades, it's just over 26 million tons of fiberglass waste," Kroshus said.

The director of the North Dakota Racing Commission said 2019 was a good year for the industry.

"The summer was actually fabulous," Jack Schulz told the Legislature's Audit and Fiscal Review Committee. "We were one of the few tracks in the US that didn't have any major incidents."

Schulz said there we no horse deaths, no injuries, and no negative drug tests.

"We had a clean summer," Schulz said.

Race meets were held in Fargo, at the North Dakota Horse Park, and at Belcourt, at Chippewa Downs.

The US Army Corps of Engineers says runoff continues to be high throughout most of the Missouri River Basin.

"2019 continues to be a very wet year throughout the basin," said Corps Missouri River Management Division director John Remus. "This has led to excessive runoff into the reservoirs and to the unregulated streams below."

Those unregulated streams include the James River in North and South Dakota.

The owners of a wind farm near Valley City want to re-power the existing farm, by installing larger turbines and bigger blades.

But the North Dakota Public Service Commission isn’t yet ready to give it the go-ahead.

The Ashtabula Wind Energy Center was built by NextEra Energy. Part of the farm was sold to Otter Tail Power. NextEra wants to raise the capacity from its part of the center from the current 148.5 megawatts to 160.4 megawatts.