North Dakota Living

During U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin’s visit to North Dakota in November, the agency announced its approval of North Dakota’s coal combustion residuals (CCR) permit program. The approval allows the state, instead of the federal government, to regulate the disposal of CCR in surface impoundments and landfills, making North Dakota the fourth state to have this oversight authority.

Zeldin says the move signals EPA’s commitment to permitting reform, which has become a policy priority for electric cooperatives.

Abby Finke, North Dakota’s Youth Leadership Council delegate, smashed her goal of collecting 50 pairs of shoes to benefit the Matthew 25 Project in Minot, which provides clothing and household donations to local community members. In August and September, Finke collected nearly 160 pairs of shoes.

Finke represented Verendrye Electric Cooperative (VEC) on the Electric Cooperative Youth Tour to Washington, D.C., this summer and was chosen to represent North Dakota on the Youth Leadership Council (YLC).

Level up your holiday cooking with these recipes from Sheri Shockman, a professional chef who lives in rural LaMoure, but caters a multitude of private parties and events across the state. Shockman’s cooking style has evolved to “gourmet comfort food” since moving to North Dakota 13 years ago from New York City. Read more about Sheri here.

The largest single-site electric generation project built in North Dakota in over 40 years is making electricity. Construction was completed this fall on Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Pioneer Generation Station Phase IV (PGSIV) located northwest of Williston.

The 580-megawatt (MW) natural gas-fueled facility combines combustion turbines and reciprocating engine units, providing reliable, flexible power and helping to ensure long-term grid stability.

The $805 million project was completed on time and under budget, the cooperative said.

From milking cows on the farm to baking at restaurants, grocery stores, a donut shop and even Minot State University, Carol Crabbe’s Norwegian work ethic hasn’t been tempered with age. Later this month, her kitchen turns into a lefse factory, before her holiday candy-making season kicks in. Read more about Carol here.

Carol shares her famous lefse recipe, which she used to make every day from Nov. 1 through December for many years and sell at grocery stores in Bottineau and Minot.

The Western ND Honor Flight transports America’s veterans on all-expenses-paid trips to Washington, D.C., to visit the memorials built to honor those who have served and sacrificed for the country.
 

HOW TO APPLY AND DONATE
Visit westernndhf.org to apply for your veteran or yourself, to donate today, volunteer or find Western ND Honor Flight events near you.

2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam conflict, which concluded with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.

U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began in the 1950s and greatly escalated in 1965. In total, more than 8.7 million Americans served in the military during the Vietnam era, 2.7 million of whom were deployed to Vietnam.

Vietnam War veteran David “Dave” Logosz of Dickinson (read his story here) was one of 227 veterans from North Dakota who traveled to Washington, D.C., in September on the all-expenses-paid Western ND Honor Flight.

“It was quite an honor to go on the Honor Flight, and I would recommend it to every veteran to go, if possible,” he says. “It was very uplifting.”

An interim legislative committee tasked with studying the impact of large loads on the electric grid convened for the first time Aug. 27 in Ellendale.

Legislators on the interim Energy Development and Transmission Committee toured the Applied Digital campus in Ellendale and heard presentations from several electric and data center industry professionals and local and state officials.

While the study looks at the impact of all large energy users on the electric system, data centers have emerged as a primary concern.

To celebrate the International Year of Cooperatives, North Dakota Living hops across the pond to northern England for its recipe inspiration this month. Here, poor cotton millworkers pooled their scarce resources to access basic goods at a lower price and created the first modern cooperative business, the Rochdale Equitable Pioneers Society, in 1844.