Badlands Conservation Alliance Statement on the Proposed Bridge Over the Little Missouri State Scenic River
The Badlands Conservation Alliance (BCA) board of directors met Saturday, March 4, in Medora, and confirmed its deep concern about Billings County’s proposed bridge over the Little Missouri River north of Medora.
BCA is a 25-year-old conservation organization with offices in Bismarck, ND, which bills itself as “A voice for wild North Dakota places.”
The BCA board was aware of the Billings County Commission’s 2-1 vote on February 7 to proceed with its long-proposed bridge by way of the doctrine of eminent domain—using its power to take private property and convert it to public use—commonly known as “condemnation,” or a “taking.”
The Commission has begun legal proceedings to take land from the family of the late North Dakota Congressman Don Short for the bridge and the road leading to it. It will have to pay a fair price for the land. The Short family has long stated its opposition to the location of the bridge on their ranch.
“We oppose the use of eminent domain for this or any other project in the Badlands,” said BCA board president Christine Hogan, a retired Bismarck attorney. “Eminent domain is not the spirit of the North Dakota Badlands. Such tactics inevitably create bitterness in the ranch community. If Billings County wants a bridge, they should work to obtain the consent of the ranch owners whose private property would be impacted by the project.”
The BCA board also reaffirmed its more general concern about a Little Missouri bridge.
“Nothing should be constructed that would have a degrading impact on Theodore Roosevelt National Park, especially the Elkhorn Ranch Unit,” said Clay Jenkinson, a BCA board member and a Roosevelt historian. “Previous studies have shown that a bridge within five or six miles on either side of the Elkhorn would create noise and dust pollution and impair the serenity of the Elkhorn.”
Theodore Roosevelt National Park is divided into three units: the South Unit near Medora and mostly north of Interstate 94; the North Unit just south of Watford City west of US 85; and the 218-acre Elkhorn Ranch Unit equidistant between the north and south units.
“The Elkhorn Ranch is one of the most important of all Theodore Roosevelt sites,” Jenkinson said, “and it should be protected forever as a shrine to American conservation as TR understood it. Anything that impairs the beauty and solemnity of the site is an affront to Roosevelt’s legacy. He came to the Badlands to hunt, to heal, to forge his adult identity, and to drink in the American frontier before it closed.”
The BCA has long registered its doubt about a bridge over the Little Missouri.
“Whatever some Billings County commissioners say to justify the bridge—for emergency fire and ambulance access—is a public relations smokescreen to build the bridge for the convenience of the oil industry. Any demographic study of the ranch population between the two units of the national park indicates that the bridge would be of very limited utility, except for oil trucks,” said Christine Hogan, BCA’s president.
“If there must be a bridge, we very much hope that it will be sited far away from the Elkhorn Ranch, and that no eminent domain ‘takings’ will be imposed on ranch families that oppose the bridge,” said Ms. Hogan.
Said Clay Jenkinson, “95% of the landscape of North Dakota is open for mineral development, including the Little Missouri National Grasslands. There is more to Great Plains life than economic development. We should agree to limit the impact on the Little Missouri Badlands as much as is possible without actually prohibiting oil development.”