Lisa
Finley-DeVille

It is important to remember that the Three Affiliated Tribes are not historical. They persevere and persist, despite still feeling the impact of colonization. Lisa recalls that in her own childhood, she was taught that everyone is a part of Mother Nature. “Other people might think that as long as they have money, they’ll be okay. But not us,” she said. “I remember picking berries with my grandmother. She told me ‘there’s oil here, but they don’t know how to get to it. If they come and get it, I don’t know what’s going to happen to all of these berries.’” Her grandmother referred to the Bakkan oil field, discovered in the 1950s. Since most of the oil was trapped in shale, oil production could not take off significantly until a method was developed to free the oil from the rock. When Lisa grew up and had children of her own, she began to understand her grandmother’s worry. Lisa is incredibly proud of her five children, two of whom have graduated college with science degrees, one with a liberal arts degree, and two more who are still working on their degrees. She continues to carry on her tribe’s traditions, involving her children in traditional ceremonies. Lisa is from the chicken clan. She speaks with pride of the fact that her tribe is unique in that women wear warbonnets. “When it comes to honoring, you use the father’s clan. My husband is part of the knife clan,” she explained. “At one point there were around 13 clans, but today there are only 7.” Unfortunately, over the past two decades, oil extraction has also become prevalent in the area. In the early 2000s, a modified fracking technique was developed that made accessing oil and gas in shale rock formations economically feasible (Forbes). When extraction ramped up in 2006, Lisa began to see the impacts her grandmother worried about. In the Bakken oil field, much of the extraction is done via this modified fracking, a process that splits crustal rocks to release oil and natural gas. The gas often escapes, creating toxic fumes and large flares. Lisa saw the lack of environmental protections and began to think about getting involved. “I want future generations to understand that I fought for them and tried to protect them,” Lisa explained. “What is going to happen when the oil is gone? There will be no more money, just contamination.” Lisa explained that her community has politics, just like every other community does. And, just like in other communities, particularly ones which have been historically disenfranchised, money talks. Around 2006-2008, oil companies began taking an interest in the vast oil reserves under Fort Berthold. “The oil companies would hire a ‘runner’, who was an indigenous person that they paid to communicate with the tribe. The runner would offer royalties to the elders, who were in charge of signing leases to the oil companies. The elders would get something like $100 per acre, while the oil companies would take in thousands. Nowhere in the agreements was environmental protection mentioned.” Lisa explained that about 70% of the land on the reservation is controlled by this small group. At the beginning, they kept the tribe in the dark about their decisions regarding the oil companies. By 2010, Lisa’s community was feeling the impact of the mostly unregulated oil and natural gas extraction. A woman in her town called Lisa to take a look at the snow behind her house, which had turned a strange yellow. Another community member had their horses die when the water on their property became contaminated with the chemical toluene. The flares from the oil fields could be easily seen at night and both Lisa and her husband developed a respiratory illness almost exclusively seen in gas field workers. Lisa began reaching out, asking natural resource committees and the science department at a local college if they knew what was going on. She went to the tribal leaders as well, but “no one had any answers,” she said. “At first, people were excited about the money coming in. But attitudes started changing when they saw the impact on their communities.” Then, in 2011 or 2012, it was announced that the post office was going to be closed. They would have to drive 30 miles to the next closest post office to pick up their mail. Lisa began a petition with several other community members, in an effort to save the post office. “I started talking to people and hearing about other issues: the post office, dust from the gravel roads, poor water quality, oil and gas spills, etc. I began thinking about how it felt like we were living in a third world country.” Lisa began investigating and found communities in Pennsylvania that had similar issues (Shalefield Stories). She realized that it wasn’t just Fort Berthold that was being polluted. Lisa suspected that wastewater from fracking was getting into the community’s soil and water supply; however, she was wary of reports done by the industry, state, or Tribal offices, all of whom had a stake in oil extraction going forward. She learned that the communities in PA had been able to definitively show that contamination was coming from the oil extraction process by inviting researchers into the area. Lisa agreed to facilitate a similar study with one of the scientists who had worked in PA, but this time close to her own home. The scientist was Dr. Avner Vengosh at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Between 2014 – 2016, his lab was able to determine that the oil and gas wastewater from the Bakken oil field had unique radium and strontium signatures, allowing it to be detected in the environment. They also found that sites with wastewater contamination showed high levels of metal pollution that persisted even after four years since a spill (Thriving Earth Exchange). This finding was particularly alarming, given that just after the study began, 1 million gallons of wastewater spilled into local waterways just a quarter mile from Lisa’s town (Inside Energy).