North Dakota

Water treatment plant in North Dakota suffered ransomware attack | StateScoop

Published

5 days ago

April 1, 2026

Water treatment plant in North Dakota suffered ransomware attack | StateScoop

A water treatment plant in northern North Dakota last month fell victim to a ransomware attack, forcing the facility’s operators to temporarily revert to reading gauges manually.

A spokesperson for the City of Minot, North Dakota, on Wednesday confirmed recent statements by officials claiming that the region’s water supply was “safe at all times” during the incident. According to a letter provided by the city to the FBI, seen by this publication, staff detected the ransomware on March 14, requiring “manual procedures” for about 16 hours, before a replacement server could be installed.

Jennifer Kleen, Minot’s communications and engagement manager, said ransomware was detected on the Minot Water Treatment Plant’s SCADA system, “which is kind of like a dashboard system. It brings all of those gauge readings to one spot.” Kleen said staff usually do manual gauge readings anyway, but that more frequent manual readings had been required while the facility’s supervisory control and data acquisition system was offline.

Minot’s water treatment facility serves the city, North Dakota’s fourth-most populous with roughly 50,000 people, and several other communities in a region called the Northwest Area Water Supply, for a total of about 80,000 water drinkers. (The Northwest Area Water Supply, or NAWS, has its own troubled history, facing lawsuits from the time construction of water pipelines began in 2002, until 2019 when an appeals court upheld a previous court’s ruling in favor of North Dakota. The disputes were brought by Manitoba, the Canadian province, which opposed details of interbasin water transfers that were to be performed in North Dakota, and the State of Missouri, which was concerned about depletions to its river system.)

According to the city’s letter, a note from those who’d installed the ransomware was found on the now-uninstalled SCADA server, but it did not contain a dollar figure, and the city did not pay any amount. When asked which ransomware outfit was responsible for the attack, Kleen said she didn’t know.

Kleen said that the city’s technical recovery is nearly complete: the plant is now using an old server to support its gauge readings while staff prepare a new server. The city’s letter notes that the incident has provided “opportunities for training exercises, improved communication, and preventative system design.” In a local TV news interview, Minot City Manager Tom Joyce said he wished he’d rallied a “crisis action team” — including the police chief, senior city executives and the city’s public information officer — sooner after discovering what had happened, “to ensure we’re all on the same page right away.”

Water utilities have been favorite targets of cyber campaigns led by China and Iran. A 2024 report from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General identified dozens of water systems around the United States with vulnerabilities bearing varying levels of risk. An assessment of more than 1,000 drinking water systems, serving 193 million people, found 97 systems with critical- or high-risk vulnerabilities, and 211 systems with “medium” or “low” risk vulnerabilities, such as “having externally visible open portals.”

There have been efforts over the last several years, by the federal government and states, to urge utilities to strike sturdier cybersecurity postures. A bill that was making its way through Congress last month would help small and rural water utilities update their systems and comply with the latest cybersecurity standards. And New York last month introduced its own “first-in-nation” cybersecurity standards, along with funding to implement them, for water treatment facilities.

But in addition to New York being one of the only states to focus so heavily on the utilities cybersecurity, such upgrades can take months or years to complete — time they may not have, particularly after the United States and Israel initiated strikes on Iran. A group of information-sharing groups that included the Water Information Sharing and Analysis Center last month warned of a “highly volatile” threat environment that includes the possibility of “increased cyberattacks from Iranian state-sponsored actors, hacktivists, and cybercriminal groups aligned with Iran.”

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North Dakota

Minnkota Says Cost of Data Center Power Project Rises Won’t Affect Customers

Published

11 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Press Room

Minnkota Says Cost of Data Center Power Project Rises Won’t Affect Customers

(Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)

(North Dakota Monitor) – The cost of the power line and substation needed by a data center north of Fargo has risen from $75 million to $110 million, but developers say the data center company will still cover the entire cost of the project.

Applied Digital needs the project to power its data center being built between Fargo and Harwood. The data center requires 280 megawatts of power at peak demand.

Applied Digital will pay for the project but it will be owned by Grand Forks based, Minnkota Power Cooperative.

The North Dakota Public Service Commission held a hearing in Fargo on what is known as the Agassiz Transmission Line and Substation.

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North Dakota

Greenpeace seeks new trial in $345M Dakota Access Pipeline lawsuit

Published

23 hours ago

April 5, 2026

Press Room

Greenpeace seeks new trial in 5M Dakota Access Pipeline lawsuit

Mary Steurer
| North Dakota Monitor

Greenpeace is asking for a new trial after a judge entered a $345 million judgment in a lawsuit brought by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
A jury found the environmental group at fault for inciting illegal acts against Energy Transfer during protests in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.
Greenpeace claims there were errors in the jury instructions and verdict form, and that Energy Transfer presented unfair and irrelevant evidence, among other things.

Greenpeace has asked for a second trial after a judge entered a $345 million judgment against the organization in a landmark case brought by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The case “threatens to result in one of the largest miscarriages of justice in North Dakota’s history,” attorneys for the environmental group wrote in a brief filed last week.

After a three-week trial roughly a year ago, a Morton County jury directed Greenpeace to pay Energy Transfer about $667 million, finding the environmental group at fault for inciting illegal acts against the company during anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017 and for publishing false statements that harmed Energy Transfer’s reputation.

Greenpeace denies Energy Transfer’s claims and maintains that it brought the lawsuit to hurt the environmental movement.

Southwest Judicial District Judge James Gion in October slashed the jury’s award to $345 million, though he didn’t finalize the award until late February.

Greenpeace is now taking steps to fight the judgment, which includes its motion for a new trial.

The environmental group’s reasons for the request include claims that the jury instructions and verdict form contained errors, and that Energy Transfer was allowed to present unfair and irrelevant evidence to jurors. The group also alleges the jury pool was biased.

Greenpeace says the jury’s award assumes that Greenpeace was entirely responsible for any injury Energy Transfer sustained related to the protests. Jurors were not given the opportunity to consider whether Greenpeace was only at fault for a portion of the damages, the organization wrote in its brief.

Attorneys for Greenpeace also referenced the mailers and other media circulated to Mandan and Bismarck residents before the trial that contained anti-Dakota Access Pipeline protest and pro-energy industry content.

The environmental group seeks a new trial in Cass County, arguing in part that the jury pool in the Fargo area would be more fair because its residents did not directly experience the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and because the local economy is less dependent on the energy industry.

If Greenpeace’s request for a new trial is denied, it plans to appeal the case to the North Dakota Supreme Court, the organization has said.

Greenpeace previously asked for the trial to be moved from Morton County to Cass County in early 2025, which Gion and the North Dakota Supreme Court denied.

The lawsuit is against three separate Greenpeace organizations — Greenpeace USA, Greenpeace International and Greenpeace Fund.

Energy Transfer as of Wednesday morning had not submitted a response to Greenpeace’s motion for a new trial. Previously, the company has defended the jury’s verdict and disputed Greenpeace’s claims that the court proceedings were not fair.

Energy Transfer has indicated it may appeal Gion’s decision to reduce the award to $345 million.

Greenpeace will not have to pay any of the $345 million judgment for at least a couple of months, Gion ruled Tuesday.

Court documents indicate that the organization could have to pay a bond of up to $25 million while appeals proceed, though the environmental group has asked the judge to waive or reduce this amount. Gion has not decided on this motion.

He noted that obtaining such a large bond will be challenging.

“The magnitude of this matter defies simple decisions,” Gion wrote.

Energy Transfer in court filings urged the judge to require Greenpeace to post the full $25 million.

Any bond money Greenpeace provides would be held by a third party while the appeals proceed, according to Greenpeace USA.

Greenpeace International has filed a separate lawsuit in the Netherlands that accuses Energy Transfer of weaponizing the U.S. legal system against the environmental group. Energy Transfer asked Gion to order that the overseas suit be paused while the North Dakota case is still active, which Gion denied. The company appealed his ruling to the North Dakota Supreme Court, which has yet to make a decision on the matter.

North Dakota Monitor is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

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