Settlements with three natural gas processors to reduce air pollution in Colorado, North Dakota, Wyoming, the Southern Ute Reservation. The Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced three separate Clean Air Act settlements with natural gas processors WES DJ Gathering LLC aka Kerr McGee Gathering, LLC; MPLX LP; and The Williams Companies, Inc., which will require the companies to pay a combined $9.25 million in civil penalties and make improvements at 25 gas processing plants and 91 compressor stations across 12 states and 2 Tribal communities. The States of Alabama, Colorado, Louisiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming, and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe are also settling claims in these cases.
In Montana, Fort Peck tribal leaders voted 7 to 0, with two abstentions, to pass the education committee’s motion to ban actor and Lakota “spiritual leader” Nathan Chasing Horse from the Fort Peck Reservation. The motion, which alleges human trafficking, drug dealing spiritual abuse and intimidation of tribal members, will stop Chasing Horse from coming onto the reservation and holding a Sundance and ceremonies. The majority vote was met with disapproval and outbursts from a group of about 10 followers of Chasing Horse, aka Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse and Nathan Chasing His Horses. Chasing Horse is perhaps best known for his role as “Smiles A Lot” in the movie “Dances With Wolves” but is also known as a medicine man who performs ceremonies in the USA and Canada. He was planning on holding a Sun Dance in Chelsea this month but has moved it to Wyoming, instead.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.