Black Gold in North Dakota (Cooper Smith Book 2)
Page 18
If this interview goes well, I just might be able to get that investigative team position, thought Cooper. But before he could do any more dreaming, the red light indicating they were live turned on.
“Welcome to this special edition of Minnesota Public Radio News Presents, coming live from the UBS Forum studio in downtown Saint Paul. My name is Cooper Smith, and I have the privilege to be sitting here today with Senator Mark Hanson, one of North Dakota’s longest-serving state senators from District One in Williston.” Cooper looked up at Mark. “It’s a pleasure having you in the studio today.”
“It’s certainly a pleasure to be here,” said Mark. “Thanks for having me on your show.”
“We have a lot to discuss, so let’s dive right in. Now, for our listeners who haven’t heard, last month the Senator’s granddaughter, Gabby Hanson, was kidnapped from the Williston recreation center. After several weeks in captivity, she was able to escape and is with us here today.”
The studio audience started clapping, and Cooper looked out at them and smiled. The stage manager had instructed them to be quiet before the show began, but Cooper didn’t mind the applause. When the noise died down, he looked back at Mark.
“Can you talk about what was going through your mind while Gabby was gone, and discuss a little bit about what you want to share with our listeners today?”
“Well, we all have you and Soojin to thank for getting Gabby back. Words can’t express our family’s gratitude for your help. Now, in order to understand how my wife Sydney and I handled Gabby’s disappearance, it is important to start way back at the beginning. Do you mind if I give a little background?”
“Not at all.”
“Thanks.” Mark shifted in his chair and looked out at the audience. “I was born in Williston, and I’ve lived there my whole life. I grew up on the farm, and I remember when I was a small child we used to have these slick oilmen come to our home and talk to us about buying the rights to our land. They said there was going to be a huge oil boom, and we would all get rich if we sold right now. My father never would sell, but plenty of our neighbors did. Some of them made some money, but most of them lost out big. When the first bust happened shortly after in the fifties, many of those farmers tried to buy back the land but were forced to pay four or five times the original price. They went bankrupt. Our happy community was literally ripped apart as we watched families we grew up with suddenly leave. You know what I kept from that time?”
Mark was such a good storyteller Cooper almost forgot he was interviewing him live on the air. “What’d you keep?”
“I kept a Life magazine from the year 1951. In that magazine is a picture of a farmer sitting on his tractor with a look of consternation as an oilman extends a pen for him to sign his land away. I still have that picture as a reminder all these years later. And, sure enough, thirty years later in the early 1980s, a second wave of oil mania hit western North Dakota. At that point, I was farming the same land my father used to farm. And, just like before, slick oilmen would come and try to offer me the world to buy my land, or at least the mineral rights to it. I didn’t budge, but once again a lot of our neighbors did. When the industry went belly-up a few years later, the oil workers all left and the remaining folks in the community had to pick up the pieces.”
“Is that what inspired you to go into politics?” asked Cooper.
Mark nodded. “You got it. I couldn’t sit around anymore and watch our community fall apart. I mean, we invested in public works and accommodations for the out-of-state oil companies and workers just to watch them vanish the second the oil dried up. I was elected in 1984 to the state senate, and I have been serving there ever since trying to make a better future for our grandchildren, and hopefully for their grandchildren after them.”
“So, you must have felt torn when a new oil technique, known as fracking, led to the third and current Bakken boom, which started back in the mid 2000s.”
“You’re right,” said Mark. “I couldn’t believe how fast and furious this third boom came on. It dwarfed the other two in its size and impact on the state.
“And then came the vote in 2009 to give major tax breaks to oil companies entering the North Dakota market.”
Mark looked down and shook his head. “Having the honor to serve in our state’s senate for three decades, I’ve literally pushed the green button for yes, or the red one for no, thousands of times. You can’t imagine how badly I wanted to push the red button on that vote, but I knew it would cost me if I did, so I pushed green. One of my colleagues, a prominent, long-standing senator, pushed the red button. He was crucified in radio and television advertisements during his 2010 reelection campaign. They labeled him as being a man that hated the Bakken, they even called him a tree hugger! Can you imagine this? I assure you he was nothing of the sort. He lost that election and the next one in 2012.”
Cooper leaned forward in his chair. “Okay, so you voted for the tax break and you kept your seat. What has happened since?”
Mark paused. “Well, it used to be that if you grew up in rural North Dakota, there was a good chance you would be working out on the farm. Maybe taking it over one day from your parents. Now, some of the local kids are joining the oil industry. Sure, some of them get in and earn a quick buck, and then use it to buy cows or pay cash for more modern equipment to make life a little easier on the farm. Others decide to make a career of it, and they work their way up the ladder from being the worm to the driller to who knows what. But, one of the biggest changes has been the influx of workers from other states and even other countries. These workers may stay for months and even years on end, but the vast majority of them are transient workers. They leave their families and live out of trucks and man camps. They do spend some money locally, but most of it goes back home to wherever they came from. Along with these workers have come the issues of increased crime, drugs, violence, rising housing costs, infrastructure problems, and lack of medical care. The list goes on.”
Cooper looked down and read from his notes. “The price of oil dropped to forty-five dollars a barrel today. New reports coming out of Williston are saying some of the man camps in western North Dakota are already clearing out and that oil companies are starting to leave.” Cooper looked back up at Mark. “Is this third boom sustainable?”
Mark shook his head. “It’ll be a different bust from the last ones, but I assure you it’s about to get pretty rough for certain leaders and oil companies in North Dakota.”
Cooper gave Mark a puzzled look. “What do you mean by that?”
Mark took a deep breath and exhaled. “In 1998, my son and daughter-in-law were killed by a drunk driver who swerved into their lane and hit them head-on. They were Gabby’s parents, and the senseless loss of life affected all of us greatly. Soon after, Sydney and I started a nonprofit organization that fought to keep drunk drivers off the roads in North Dakota. It was like a local version of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, if you’ve heard of that foundation.”
“I have.”
“As with any nonprofit, we worked hard to get donations. We used the money for public service announcements aimed at promoting designated driver programs, and for giving people ways to anonymously report on drunk-drivers—since many times it was friends or family members involved. Shortly after the oil company tax break vote in 2009, I noticed our nonprofit started receiving a large uptick in donations. Most of the donations were anonymous, but a few came from some senior members of the political leadership in North Dakota. Namely, Rick Simmons and Nate Thompson, who are the current governor and lieutenant governor of North Dakota. We happily took their money and all the other donations and put it to good use.” Mark looked up to the ceiling in disgust. “I should have known there were strings attached.”
“What kind of strings?” Cooper looked up at the control room and saw Bill keenly looking down. Lisa had her hands on her hips, but her face showed that her interest had also been roused.
“The two of them were elected t
o their current positions in 2010,” said Mark. “In the summer of 2011, they asked me to join them for a private meeting in the governor’s office. At that meeting, they told me all of the money pouring into our nonprofit was oil-bribe money. The oil companies were paying them to look the other way on certain projects, or to bend rules to help select companies out. They wanted to use my influence in Williston, the epicenter of the Bakken, as a way to pad their pockets and help their oil companies out.”
Cooper sat up in surprise. “What’d you do?”
Mark hung his head. “I looked the other way. They had blackmailed me right into it, and I was stuck. They swore they would leak to the press how our nonprofit was taking oil-bribe money.” When Mark looked back up at Cooper, he had rage in his eyes. “They corrupted me, and got rich doing it.”
Cooper couldn’t believe the senator was admitting this on live radio. “What sorts of things would they do for the oil companies?”
“They would redraw protected state and federal land lines so areas would be unaccounted for. The oil companies would suddenly swoop in and open up a new drill right next to a supposedly protected river, or public land. They even managed to pull the rug out from under the Department of the Interior and were able to get oil drills set up right on the border of the Teddy Roosevelt National Park. And with fracking, they didn’t just drill straight down. No, those companies drilled down and then sideways, right under one of our National Parks.”
Cooper suppressed a gasp. He looked up at a smiling Bill and a frowning Lisa in the control room before turning back to Mark. “And you’re saying that Governor Simmons and Lieutenant Governor Thompson facilitated all of this?”
Mark nodded. “Yes.”
“Senator,” said Cooper, “if what you’re saying is true, then you could also be implicated and arrested right along with Simmons and Thompson.”
“That’s right,” agreed Mark. “But you see, something happened.” He looked out at the audience. “My precious Gabby was taken from us. Kidnapped, by out-of-state oil workers. Something finally snapped in me, and I knew what I had to do.”
“Which was?”
“Most of the oil companies who were paying the bribes were from out of state, and even from other countries. I knew that no law enforcement agency in North Dakota would touch this, so I reached out to the FBI, and they put me in touch with an agent who specializes in white-collar crimes. I helped them build a case, and with my full cooperation, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s office have assured me that no charges will be pressed against me or anyone tied to our nonprofit organization. And the reason I am able to tell you this is they just informed me this morning that Governor Simmons, Lieutenant Thompson, and the corrupt employees of the oil companies have all been arrested.”
Up in the control room, Bill Anderson flashed Cooper two thumbs-up while Lisa turned to leave.
“You’re telling us the governor and lieutenant governor of North Dakota have just been arrested?” Cooper repeated.
“Yes, and rightfully so,” said Mark. “North Dakota deserves better, and we must hold our leaders accountable. I said it to Thompson, and I’ll tell it to you all now. The oil, to me, is just black gold. Let me repeat, it’s dirty black gold. These people sold their souls to the devil for money and power. They used their positions to get rich off of oil bribes, and then used the money to help them get reelected. Am I perfect? No. I could have and should have done more to stop it. For that, I take full responsibility. I’ve made amends to my wife and to the Lord. As for Simmons, Thompson, and the others, well, I’m reminded of an old proverb my father used to tell me when I was a kid. He used to say, ‘Son, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but to lose his soul?’” Mark paused. “That always stuck with me, and I think it sums up this situation pretty well.”
“What will you do now?”
Mark looked like a huge burden had just been lifted off his back. “I’m resigning as the senator of North Dakota’s First District, and I plan to do everything in my power to help get my beautiful granddaughter elected to my seat.” Mark smiled at Gabby.
Cooper checked the control room. Bill was waving his hand in a “wrap-it-up-while-you’re-still-ahead” signal. Only sixty seconds remained of the time allotted for the interview.
Did I just punch my ticket to the investigative team? God, I hope so.
Cooper turned his attention back to Mark. “That was quite the story, Senator Hanson, and we want to thank you for coming all the way down here for this special interview.” They shook hands, and then Cooper looked out on the audience. “And, thanks to our listeners for joining in on this special edition of MPR News Presents. Make sure to tell all your friends that you heard about it first on MPR, the rough-and-tumble story of Black Gold in North Dakota.”
Acknowledgements
This book would not have been possible without the support and encouragement from my beloved family and cherished friends in all my creative endeavors. Also, words cannot express my gratitude to editor Lacey Louwagie for her professional advice and assistance in polishing this manuscript. Although the final editorial decisions are all my own, Lacey provided valuable guidance. A special thanks to the kindred spirits of Minnesota for making our home the greatest state in all the land. Lastly, the most important acknowledgement goes to the Lord for His many blessings.
About the Writer
Field’s debut book, Brown Sugar in Minnesota, is a crime thriller that introduces Minnesota Public Radio reporter Cooper Smith as he faces a drug network in the North Star State. Smith then encounters the rough and tumble oil country in Field’s sequel, Black Gold in North Dakota.
Field has also written over 50 songs and features 10 of them on his album Great Lakes Legends, a collection of songs inspired by American tall tales.
A Minnesota native, Field enjoys traveling the world and exploring America’s national parks. Field is also a cold-brew coffee craftsman, brewing and bottling his signature Paul Bunyan Coffee blend.
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Also by Writer
COOPER SMITH BOOKS
Brown Sugar in Minnesota (1)
Black Gold in North Dakota (2)
MUSIC ALBUMS
Great Lakes Legends