North Dakota
National monument proposed for North Dakota Badlands • SC Daily Gazette
A group of North Dakota tribal citizens and conservation advocates are calling on President Joe Biden to make roughly 140,000 acres of undeveloped federal land in western North Dakota a national monument.
The proposed Maah Daah Hey National Monument would preserve land recognized as sacred by members of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and other Native cultures, advocates said during a Friday press conference at the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum.
“Maah Daah Hey” means “grandfather, long-lasting” in the Mandan language.
With its close proximity to President Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the area is popularly remembered for its ties to the former president and cowboy culture.
The country should honor Native historical and cultural ties to the land as well, said Michael Barthelemy, director of Native Studies at Nueta, Hidatsa, Sahnish College in New Town.
“What we’re proposing, as part of this national monument, is a reorientation around that narrative,” Barthelemy said. “When you look at the national parks and you look at the state parks, oftentimes there’s a singular perspective — as Indigenous people, we kind of play background characters.”
The monument would include 11 different plots of land along the Maah Daah Hey Trail between the north and south units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Badlands Conservation Alliance Executive Director Shannon Straight likened the proposal to “stringing together the pearls of the Badlands.”
The tribal councils of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation, the Spirit Lake Nation and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have passed resolutions supporting the creation of the monument.
“It is important that the Indigenous history of the North Dakota Badlands is formally recognized,” state Rep. Lisa Finley-DeVille, D-Mandaree, said during the presentation. “If created, the Maah Daah Hey National Monument would also allow Indigenous people to reconnect to our ancestral lands.”
The land is managed by the United States Forest Service. Turning the 11 plots into a national monument would protect them from future development, according to the group’s proposal.
The land is surrounded by oil and gas development, maps included in the proposal show.
In addition to being an area of significant cultural heritage for Native tribes, it’s also home to sensitive ecosystems, unique geological features and fossil sites, the proposal indicates.
Dakota Resource Council Executive Director Scott Skokos said Friday the group has visited Washington, D.C., twice so far to speak with President Biden’s administration — including the U.S. Forest Service, Department of the Interior, United States Department of Agriculture — about the proposed monument.
“The reception has been pretty good,” Skokos said.
He said the group hopes to see action from Biden on the monument before he leaves office in January, but is also open to working with President-elect Donald Trump’s administration on the project.
“We believe this is a good idea, regardless of who’s president,” Skokos said.
Advocates said the designation would not impact recreational access to the land, and that cattle grazing would still be permitted.
In a statement to the North Dakota Monitor, U.S. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., called the proposal “premature at best.” He said he was not convinced the proposal had sufficient local support from North Dakota residents and worried the project would “lock away land as conservation.”
“Any proposal should have extensive review as well as strong support from local communities and the stakeholders who actually use the land,” he said.
When asked for comment, the North Dakota governor’s office provided this statement from Gov. Doug Burgum, who Trump has chosen as the next Department of Interior secretary: “North Dakota is proof that we can protect our precious parks, cultural heritage and natural resources AND responsibly and sustainably develop our vast energy resources.”
To learn more about the proposal, visit protectmdh.com. The website also includes a petition.
Presidents can designate federal land as national monuments under the Antiquities Act of 1906. The first land to receive this status was Devils Tower in Wyoming, which Roosevelt proclaimed a national monument that same year.
Should Maah Daah Hey become a national monument, it’d be the first of its kind in North Dakota.
Like the SC Daily Gazette, North Dakota Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. North Dakota Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Amy Dalrymple for questions: [email protected]. Follow North Dakota Monitor on Facebook and X.
FARGO, N.D. (KELO) — The Sioux Falls Stampede staved off elimination with a 2-1 overtime win over the Fargo Force in game four of the USHL Western Conference Finals Saturday night.
Thomas Zocco scored the game-winner 12 minutes into the extra period. Arseni Marchenko put Fargo on the board first in the first period. Noah Mannausau tied the game for the Herd in the second period.
Sioux Falls outshot Fargo 53-49, including 9-5 in overtime. Linards Feldbergs made 48 saves.
Three of the four games of the series have gone to overtime. The winner-take-all game five is Tuesday at the Premier Center.
New ballot measure guide to be mailed to North Dakota voters ahead of election
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BISMARCK (North Dakota Monitor) — A federal district court judge indicated he will nullify a nearly $28 million judgment against the federal government related to costs North Dakota incurred during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests so the parties can reach a settlement.
North Dakota is still set to receive a payment Attorney General Drew Wrigley described as satisfactory, but attorneys would not disclose the amount during a Friday hearing.
Attorneys for the United States and North Dakota said the settlement would allow the parties to avoid litigating the case in appeals court,putting the nearly seven-year-old lawsuit to rest.
“We’re hoping we really don’t need to fight any further,” Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Guynn said during the hearing.
The lawsuit, filed in 2019, concerns demonstrations against the construction of the crude oil pipeline, also known as DAPL, that took place in rural south-central North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.
North Dakota claims the federal government caused the protests to grow in size and intensity by unlawfully allowing demonstrators to camp on federal land. The state says it had to pay millions of dollars on policing and cleaning up the encampments as a result. The United States denies the state’s allegations.
North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor in April 2025 sided with the state and ordered the executive branch to pay North Dakota the $28 million sum, a decision the U.S. Department of Justice later appealed to the 8th Circuit.
If the settlement moves forward, North Dakota would receive a “substantial monetary payment” from the United States, attorneys said Friday. As a condition of the agreement, the Department of Justice wants Traynor’s judgment and three other orders in which he ruled against the United States to be voided. That includes the court’s 120-page ruling from April 2025.
Both parties said Friday that having the rulings nullified wouldn’t have a significant negative impact on the public, since the documents could still be cited even if they no longer hold the weight of court orders.
At the same time, Guynn said the Department of Justice wants the orders vacated because it doesn’t want the legal conclusions Traynor made to influence the outcome of future lawsuits.
“The downstream consequences of keeping these on the books is troublesome for the United States,” he said during the hearing. If Traynor does not agree to axe the rulings, the United States would likely no longer be willing to settle and move forward with its appeal instead, Guynn added.
Traynor’s orders make findings about the federal government’s responsibility under the Federal Tort Claims Act — the law North Dakota filed the suit under — which the state noted previously in court filings “could have utility holding the federal government to account” in the future.
Still, attorneys for the state said they believe this trade-off is outweighed by the time and money the public would save by not going through the appeals process. North Dakota would also avoid the risk of having Traynor’s judgment overturned by higher courts.
Wrigley said the settlement will be made public once it’s finalized.
The United States’ appeal of Traynor’s decision has been on hold since last summer, when the state and federal government informed the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals they had started settlement negotiations and wished to pause the case.
The 8th Circuit will have to first send the case back to Traynor before he could grant the parties’ requests.
The case went to trial in Bismarck in early 2024. During the four-week trial, the court heard from witnesses including former governors Doug Burgum and Jack Dalrymple, Native activists, federal officials and law enforcement.
The Dakota Access Pipeline carries crude oil from northwest North Dakota to Illinois. It crosses the Missouri River just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which prompted the tribe to begin protesting the pipeline on the grounds that it poses a threat to its water supply and sovereignty.
North Dakota’s lawsuit originally requested $38 million in damages from the federal government. Traynor ordered the executive branch to pay $28 million since the U.S. Department of Justice previously gave the state $10 million as compensation for costs it spent related to the protests.
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