BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – In 2016, retired teacher Sandra Sherlock lost someone very important to her. That’s why she wrote “With a Song in His Heart: A Service Dog’s Tale.” She said Eddie was outgoing, quirky, kind and playful.

Eddie wasn’t even two years old when Sandra took him home, but she said his trainer was so confident they’d make a good pair that they sent him with her. He’d been trained to provide mobility assistance, and Sandra’s multiple sclerosis and foot drop made it difficult for her to walk.

“He was there with me for every minute of my time with him,” Sandra said.

Sandra said they were a good match. She loved socializing and worked as a music teacher. Eddie loved going out and being petted by anyone who was willing to do so. Sandra said in a way, Eddie was a service dog for others, too.

Students would visit the golden retriever and labrador mix to decompress in the mornings. Eddie became such a staple at the school that he got his own class photo each year. Sandra said she’d use Eddie’s love for singing to motivate her students.

Sandra said her book started out as a writing exercise. She wrote the first five chapters in 2011, but it wasn’t until August of 2023 that she picked up her draft again. Sandra would send her completed chapters to a class of sixth-grade students for proofreading, and they’d send her their notes and edits.

Sandra said Eddie died from cancer in 2016, but even though it felt like losing a family member, she didn’t write the book out of grief; she wrote the book because so many people loved Eddie.

“I needed to make sure Eddie’s stories stayed with us. Eddie had friends all over the state. He had friends everywhere, and he meant so much to so many people. It was bigger than just me,” Sandra said.

Sandra said the self-published book has been well-received. She travels throughout the state for book signings and readings.

If you’re interested in reading Sandra’s book, you can purchase a copy through her website or at one of her book readings. Sandra said the books will be available at The Owl Bookstore in Bismarck as well. Her next reading will be in Minot on June 29.

Copyright 2024 KFYR. All rights reserved.

Did you know North Dakota has a natural lake so deep you could almost fit a hockey rink in it vertically?  I had no idea, to be honest.

Most of North Dakota’s natural bodies of water are shallow prairie lakes.

Of course, there are exceptions.  Devils Lake in Ramsey County for example is a pretty deep lake.  Especially during these high water times.  The deepest spot on that lake is nearly 60 feet deep according to Wikipedia.  I know I’ve seen some 50-plus foot readings before on East Devils Lake while fishing and hunting.

Even deeper than Devils Lake is Stump Lake in nearby Nelson County.  I’ve seen 70 feet plus water on my depth finder before while fishing on this salty lake.  Officially Stump Lake is 73 feet according to Wikipedia.

How about deep man-made lakes or reservoirs?

If we’re talking water created by man, Lake Sakakawea gets down there.  According to T & H Sakakawea maxes out at 180 feet deep  Lake Oahe is crazy deep as well as it has depths of over 200 feet, although most of those spots are in South Dakota.  Again, those are reservoirs.

I was more curious about the deepest NATURAL lake in North Dakota.

I have an answer for you.  According to an article in the Jamestown Sun, the deepest natural lake in North Dakota is none other than Lake George located southeast of Tappen, North Dakota.

How deep is Lake George?  Try 150 feet deep.

This is crazy deep for a prairie pothole lake, where most of them max out at around 20 feet deep.  Lake George is known as “Salt Lake” by locals.  The lake has very high concentrations of sodium and sulfate, which makes it unique.

One farmer friend of mine told me a story that somebody released a shark in the lake a long time ago and it survived.  You know local legends.  If it were true, what was the shark eating?  Supposedly the lake is too salty for any freshwater fish to survive.

The lake does offer some recreation opportunities.  It has a state park on the west side of the lake and a National Wildlife Refuge on the east side of the lake.  Supposedly some people even swim in the lake.

Worth a look next time you’re in the Dawson, Streeter, and Tappen areas.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is one of Donald Trump’s most visible and vocal backers, sprinting around the country to drum up support for the former president’s comeback bid while auditioning to be his running mate.

Far from the glare of the campaign trail, however, Burgum is wrestling with a mammoth carbon dioxide pipeline project in his home state. The $5.5 billion venture has split North Dakota and left him straddling an awkward political divide as Trump and President Joe Biden offer voters starkly different visions about how to deal with climate change.

A Republican little known outside North Dakota, Burgum is a serious contender to be Trump’s vice-presidential choice. The two-term governor has stood out in the narrowing field of choices due to his executive experience and business savvy. And Burgum has close ties to deep-pocketed energy industry CEOs whose money Trump wants to help bankroll his third run for the White House.

Burgum is championing the pipeline project, which would gather planet-warming CO2 from ethanol plants across the Midwest and deposit the gas a mile underground. The pipeline aligns with Biden’s push to tackle global climate change, a position that could put him at odds with Trump.

In backing the pipeline, Burgum is navigating the tricky issue of land ownership in deep-red North Dakota and the politics of climate change inside the GOP.

While Burgum has outlined plans to make North Dakota carbon neutral by 2030, he’s steered clear of describing the pipeline or other carbon capture initiatives as environmentally friendly. Instead, he touts them as a lucrative business opportunity for North Dakota that might ultimately assist the fossil fuel industry.

“This has nothing to do with climate change,” Burgum said in early March on a North Dakota radio program. “This has to do with markets.”

The pipeline

The CO2 pipeline, known as the Midwest Carbon Express, is financed by hundreds of investors and will be built by Summit Carbon Solutions of Ames, Iowa. The 2,500-mile pipeline route snakes through Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota before ending in west central North Dakota, where up to 18 million metric tons of CO2 would be entombed each year in underground rock formations.

The North Dakota Industrial Commission, which Burgum chairs, is expected to decide in the coming months whether to approve Summit’s application for a permit to store all the CO2 it collects. Regulators in nearby states are also weighing approval of the pipeline.

As part of Biden’s investment in combating climate change, companies may receive $85 from the federal government for every metric ton of CO2 collected from industrial facilities and permanently sequestered. They can also get $60 for each ton stored and later used to produce more oil, a process that involves injecting carbon dioxide into oilfields to keep them productive.

Summit stands to receive as much as $1.5 billion annually from the tax credits. The company said it has no plans to use CO2 in oil drilling, which is known as enhanced oil recovery, or EOR. But a carbon dioxide storage permit application drafted by Summit appears to leave open the potential for the CO2 to be used for that purpose.

“Our business model is for 100% sequestration,” the company said in an emailed response to questions. “No customers have ever approached us to move their CO2 for EOR.”

For several environmental and public interest groups, providing tax credits for more climate-polluting oil is a handout to oil drillers that upends the goal of weaning corporations and consumers off fossil fuels.

“It’s just not the right answer,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. “You’re incentivizing the extension of the use of fossil fuels for many more years or decades to come.”

Burgum’s office declined a request to interview the governor for this story. He has hailed his state’s underground CO2 storage capacity as a “geologic jackpot.” North Dakota, according to Burgum, has the capacity to store 250 billion tons of carbon dioxide underground.

That message has been amplified by North Dakota’s mineral resources department, which has estimated CO2 can help extract billions more barrels of oil from the rich Bakken shale formation. The Bakken is a 200,000-square-mile deposit that spans North Dakota, Montana and southern Canada.

Pipeline blowback

In North Dakota, the blowback to the Summit project has been intense, with Burgum caught in the crossfire.

There are fears a pipeline rupture would unleash a lethal cloud of CO2. In 2020, a pipeline carrying compressed carbon dioxide ruptured in Satartia, Mississippi. At least 45 people required hospital treatment and 200 more had to be evacuated from the area, according to the federal agency that oversees pipeline safety.

Summit said the CO2 line in Mississippi may have contained high amounts of hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas. Its system will transport nearly pure carbon dioxide, the company said, and any hydrogen sulfide or other elements in the stream “will not be considered impactful.”

Landowners also worry their property values will plummet if the pipeline passes under their property. And they’re outraged over what they allege are hardball tactics employed by Summit to secure easements for the project.

Burgum has largely avoided the dicey subject of eminent domain. If landowners don’t want the pipeline on their property, he’s said, the route can be shifted, and someone else can get the “big check.”

Julia Stramer, whose family owns cropland in Emmons County and opposes the pipeline, said the amount of money Summit offered her for a 99-year easement was insulting.

“I have informed Gov. Burgum that we have not received an offer of ‘the big check,’” she told North Dakota’s Public Service Commission earlier this month.

Stramer scoffed at the safety measures Summit says it is taking, telling the commission the pipeline is to be buried only 4 feet deep.

“We bury people deeper than that,” Stramer said.

Kurt Swenson and his family own or have an interest in 1,750 acres at or near the proposed CO2 storage site. At a public hearing earlier this month on Summit’s storage permit application, Swenson said he had a warning for anyone who attempts to take his land without his consent.

“It seems like everybody wants what isn’t theirs,” Swenson said. “You’re going to end up taking it from my cold, dead hands. And you’re going to see how that works out for you.”

Summit said it has signed easement deals with landowners along 82% of the pipeline’s route in North Dakota and obtained 92% of the lease agreements needed at the storage site. The company added that the project also is supported by state lawmakers and emergency managers.

Concerns over Summit’s project in North Dakota’s second most populous county, Burleigh, led the county commission to approve an ordinance restricting the pipeline from running too close to residential areas, churches and schools.

“I have not gotten one single contact from anybody that’s not affiliated with Summit asking me to support this pipeline,” said Brian Bitner, the Burleigh County Commission chairman. “Every contact has asked me to oppose it.”

Gaylen Dewing, who has worked as a farmer and rancher near Bismarck for more than 50 years, criticized Burgum for what he sees as the governor’s tilt to the left. Burgum’s embrace of carbon neutrality has put the governor in cahoots with the “Green New Deal people,” he said.

“Although he professes to be a conservative, he is anything but when it comes to environmental issues,” Dewing said.

Not a climate warrior

When he’s out stumping for Trump, Burgum doesn’t sound at all like a climate warrior.

Speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party Convention last month, Burgum accused the Biden administration of trying to shut down the oil and gas industries and declared that Trump would reverse the federal rules and mandates that he said are stifling energy companies.

Trump has long criticized federal and state efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and has been backed by the oil and gas industry in his three presidential bids. The former president, who in the past called global warming a “hoax,” claims on his campaign website that Biden has surrendered to the “crazed climate crusaders.”

Oil and gas interests have already donated nearly $8 million to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, according to the political money website Open Secrets.

Burgum, with his close ties to his state’s dominant industry, is the type of running mate who could help boost such donations.

If Burgum is not selected to be the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee and does not take a job in a second Trump administration, he can always return to North Dakota to finish out his last term, with key decisions looming for the pipeline.

Copyright 2024 KFYR. All rights reserved.