Native Business Magazine - January/February 2019

NativeBusiness NATIVEBUSINESSMAG.COM | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 | $8.95

HOW TO LAUNCH A NATIVE ENERGY STARTUP

ECONOMIC VISION: 40 YEARS OF TRIBAL PLANNING TO PURCHASE INDIAN KERR DAM ENERGY, LLC: EMPOWERING TRIBES TO POWER THEMSELVES NANA

Corporation Brings Solar Energy to Rural Alaska

AARON SCHUTT

DOYON, LIMITED & THE NEXT 100 YEARS THE BEST PART ABOUT OSPA? THE SIOUX OWN IT SELLING CARBON CREDITS & PRESERVING LANDS TURNING FOOD WASTE TO ENERGY TRIBAL ENERGY ATLAS: MEASURING POTENTIAL

on the cover

IN THIS ISSUE JAN/FEB 2019 • Volume01 Number 3

Aaron Schutt Discusses Doyon, Limited’s Growth See Page 8.

BY ANDREW RICCI

TRAPPING THE SUN: SOLAR POWER MAKES ECONOMIC SENSE According to the CTUIR’s most recent economic analysis, the Tribes’ return on investment is about four-anda-half years. “It’s really easy to justify when the economics are that favorable,” the project manger said.

See page 32.

BY NATIVE BUSINESS STAFF

Natural Resources

Features

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Indian Energy, LLC’s Mission: Empower Tribes to Power Themselves

Federal Report Reveals Risks and Opportunities for Tribal Economies in the Face of Climate Change

One of the firm’s guiding principles is to help Tribes “establish energy on our land and then push it over the fence,” says Indian Energy founder and CEO Allen G. Cadreau.

BY CLIFTON COTTRELL

BY DEBRA UTACIA KROL

How Climate Change Is Impacting Native Economies

Wind

“We are a natural resource-based “I thought, here’s a resource Tribe and we manage our lands where we don’t have to drill, we in the traditional way, so this is a don’t have to dig for it or tear our program that has worked well for land up, we don’t have to pollute us.”- Joseph James the air.” - Lyle Jack

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Tribes Make Millions In Carbon Credits While Conserving Their Forests

How A Six-Tribe Coalition Is Defining a New and Bigger Business Model

BY SUZETTE BREWER

BY JOSH ROBERTSON

Cover Photo Courtesy: Doyon, Limited JAN UARY/ F E B RUARY 2 0 1 9

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TRIBAL ACQUISITION OF A HYDROELECTRIC PLANT Under the terms of the deal, MPC retained control for the first 30 years, or until 2015, at which time the Tribes would acquire the license solely for the next 20 years, with the power company relinquishing ownership. That transfer of ownership occurred on Sept. 5, 2015 at a price of $18.3 million. The acquisition was the first of a major hydropower plant by a Tribe.

See page 40.

BY MARK FOGARTY

Geothermal / Bioenergy

Hydropower

So why are Tribes not tapping this unique geological resource at higher rates?

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From Fear to Favor: Geothermal Energy’s Future on the Reservation Geothermal does have its benefits.

Geothermal fields emit very few carbon emissions, with estimates at around one-sixth the emissions of a gas plant.

BY CLIFTON COTTRELL

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The facility annually diverts approximately 12 million gallons of feedstock from going into landfills and converts it into 2.0 MW of clean energy.

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BY DEBRA UTACIA KROL

Oil & Gas

New England Tribes Prepare to Enter Hydropower Market

Infrastructure

BY MARK FOGARTY

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A Tribe in Northern Wisconsin Turns Food Waste to Energy The Tribe began to study the world around them and ways in which they could propel the community forward while also ensuring natural resources for generations to come.

BY MARY BELLE ZOOK

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NANA Reaches for the Closest Star

BY RENAE DITMER

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A Way to Measure Tribal Energy Potential

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How To Launch a Native Energy Startup

BY MARK FOGARTY

Your Success is Our Business With 37 companies, Cherokee Nation Businesses blends its heritage of ingenuity with modern business experience to deliver service and solutions that produce results for its customers.

777 W. Cherokee St. l Catoosa, OK 74015 918.384.7474 l cherokeenationbusinesses.com

Š 2018 Cherokee Nation Businesses. All Rights Reserved.

Businesses

FOUNDERS/PUBLISHERS

Gary (Cherokee) and Carmen (Makah/Chippewa-Cree/Yakama) Davis

EDITORIAL

Executive Editor Carmen Davis - carmen@nativebusinessmag.com Senior Editor Kristin Butler - kristin@nativebusinessmag.com

CREATIVE

Art Director Kym Tyler (Diné) Creative Consultant Vestalight Sevenly

WRITERS

Contributing Writers Andrew Ricci • Suzette Brewer (Cherokee) • Lynn Armitage (Oneida Nation) Renae Ditmer (Chippewa) • Mark Fogarty • Clifton Cottrell (Cherokee) Debra Utacia Krol (Xolon Salinan Tribe) • Josh Robertson Mary Annette Pember (Chippewa) • Mary Belle Zook (Citizen Potawatomi Nation)

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Event Director Yvonne Schaaf (Salt River Pima/Mojave/Quechan) - yvonne@nativebusinessmag.com Advertising Director Janee' Doxtator-Andrews (Oneida) - advertising@nativebusinessmag.com

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12819 SE 38th Street, #111, Bellevue, WA 98006 (425) 615-6400 | info@nativebusinessmag.com | www.nativebusinessmag.com ©2019 Native Business Magazine is published by Native Business, LLC, all rights reserved. Native Business is a monthly advertising magazine. All contents are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without written consent from the Publisher. The advertiser is solely responsible for ad content and holds Publisher harmless for its advertising content and any errors or omissions.

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LETTER FROM THE PUBLISHERS

Happy New Year to you all!

PHOTOS BY WHITNEY PATTERSON PHOTOGRAPHY

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e have much to be thankful for, and much to look forward to, as we enter this new year. In these last few months, we have taken Native Business Magazine from “0-60” and are blessed to have such an amazing and talented team of professionals who make this publication come together each and every issue. We are of course appreciative of you, our amazing readers. We hope that each and every issue provides you with informative insights and increased awareness regarding the amazing things our Native people are accomplishing in business. So, without further delay, let’s get to what you will find in our first “energy” issue of Native Business Magazine.

Indian Country is home to resource-rich lands. The way Tribes and Native corporations manage those resources to harness and leverage energy determines our economic sovereignty and future.

Once-impoverished Tribes have grown and sustained financial strength through asserting control over their resources, or negotiating lucrative leases with energy companies. Some Tribes and Native businesses have expanded beyond the borders of Indian Country, investing in energy opportunities nationwide. And numerous Tribes are successfully implementing energy efficiency measures and developing renewable energy projects to power their reservations.

Our January/February issue focuses on energy across sectors: oil and gas, wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and bioenergy. In these pages, we demonstrate that Indian Country is a leader in energy innovation.

Our cover subject was an easy decision: Aaron M. Schutt, Doyon, Limited President and CEO, who sheds light on Doyon’s substantial economic and community impact (the Alaska Native regional corporation serves more than 19,000 shareholders). He offers an overview of the scope of Doyon’s diverse portfolio of businesses—its drilling operations in Alaska’s North Slope oil fields, pipeline construction, and more—and emphasizes the corporation's rigorous environmental standards. Schutt also talks workforce development, drawing attention to Doyon Drilling’s roustabout program that provides free training to Doyon shareholders who are interested in careers in the oil and gas industry.

Indian Energy, LLC, is a prime example of the sophistication and innovation in the energy sector being brought forward by Native entrepreneurs. Founded by Allen G. Cadreau, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Indian Energy, LLC, provides tech support to help Tribes own and operate their own energy infrastructure. The entrepreneurial venture has won major contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and is currently developing a microgrid solution for the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in Southern California.

In our energy issue, we look to the remote village of Buckland, Alaska, where NANA Corporation is collaborating with and empowering its local shareholders to replace sky-high utility costs with solar and wind energy.

Also in this issue, we break down how Tribes can participate in the carbon credits market.

From a biogas plant in Northern Wisconsin to a six-Tribe coalition determined to co-create a viable wind energy operation in the Midwest, the energy issue of Native Business Magazine showcases Tribal ingenuity and resourcefulness.

Leadership and long-term planning cannot be underestimated when

growing Tribal energy economies. Native Business additionally shares the steadfast commitment of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) to assume ownership of Kerr Dam, a hydropower facility in Montana. In 2015, their 40-year vision finally came to fruition.

Overall, our energy issue underscores how energy project development and investment can help Indian Country achieve self-sufficiency, build capacity, create jobs and drive economic development opportunities.

Every Tribe and Alaskan Native community has different energy resources and accordingly a different role to play in securing energy sovereignty across Indian Country. It is not a one size fits all approach.

Advancing our energy future will require sharp focus and unwavering intentionality in structuring deals to ensure that our communities are the primary beneficiary of our energy assets. We have arrived at a time where Tribes in Indian Country, with the financial capacity to do so, could invest in energy projects in other Tribal communities to diversify their economic portfolios and help to grow a larger and more sustainable national Tribal energy economy.

We hope that this issue of Native Business Magazine helps to highlight the vast amount of energy opportunity that exists across Indian Country, subsequently presenting a shining opportunity for investment and partnerships.

Energy Sovereignty will require Tribes asserting their power through responsible ownership across every applicable sector in the energy industry for the ultimate benefit of future generations of our Native people.

The time has arrived, and

together we can get there.

Onward,

GARY DAVIS Publisher

CARMEN DAVIS

Publisher & Executive Editor

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“Our environmental standards on the north slope are the best in North America and probably close to the best in the world in terms of trying to prevent environmental impact, whether that’s surface use, or spills, or the standards we operate under,” Schutt said.

AARON

By Andrew Ricci

On Doyon, Limited’s Growth and Planning for the Next Hundred Years

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PHOTO COURTESY DOYON, LIMITED

COVER STORY

“We’re growing outside of Alaska, and we’re looking to make major investments,” Schutt said.

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with Alaska offices, where he represented Tribal and Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) corporation clients in transactional and business matters.

Then, in 2006, then-president & CEO Orie Williams convinced him to come work for Doyon, where he quickly rose through the ranks. From 2008 to 2011, he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and in 2011, Schutt became president & CEO himself, taking the helm of a corporation that runs more than a dozen companies across several different industries.

Doyon, Limited was established in 1972 after President Nixon signed ANCSA into law, and as part of the act, Alaska Native Corporations were authorized to select and receive title to 44 million acres of public

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Above: Aaron Schutt, President & CEO of Doyon, Limited, shares a laugh with Trimble Gilbert, 2nd Chief of the Doyon region.

Below: Eliza Jones and Dewey Hoffman prepare for the keynote address at the 2018 Doyon, Limited annual meeting of shareholders.

land in Alaska, as well as receiving $962 million as a cash settlement. Doyon, Limited’s land entitlement was roughly 12.5 million acres in Alaska’s interior – an area roughly the size of New Hampshire and Vermont put together. Its vast land holdings make it the largest private landowner in the state of Alaska and one of the largest in the United States.

“In the early 1980s, many Native corporations struggled dramatically,” Schutt said.

“They handed these for-profit businesses 12.5 million acres and some money to start a business to people who very much lived a subsistence lifestyle in village communities across Alaska. They had a strong sense of values, a very strong work ethic, and some other advantages, but very little business acumen.”

As a result, Doyon, like other Native corporations, soon found itself on the verge of bankruptcy.

That all changed in the 1980s, after Senator Ted Stevens – Alaska’s longtime senator who served from 1968 until 2009 – persuaded Congress to change the internal revenue code to allow Native corporations to sell their net operating losses. As a result, Doyon recapitalized the company with those net operating loss sales.

“That’s what revitalized our company,

PHOTOS COURTESY DOYON, LIMITED

aron Schutt, a Koyukon Athabascan and an enrolled member of the Native Village of Tanana, never really saw working for an Alaska Native Corporation in the plans, which is to say that he definitely didn’t envision himself holding the top office of Doyon, Limited – one of the top ten Native corporations in the state.

Schutt studied civil engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder before transferring to Washington State University, where he gained his Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering. He then continued on to obtain a Master of Science degree in civil engineering from Stanford University.

“At the end of my master’s program, Stanford professors want you to get a Ph.D., and I was considering that,” Schutt told Native Business Magazine. “My twin brother was having a great time in law school so I flipped a coin and ended up going to Stanford Law School.”

After graduation, Schutt began a career in law, clerking for Alaska Supreme Court Justice Alexander Bryner and working in private practice at two national law firms

Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act,” Schutt said. “They needed to settle Native land claims to develop that field and the pipeline that goes all the way from the north to the south in Alaska, and it crosses an immense stretch of Doyon’s region in Alaska’s interior.”

Schutt describes Doyon Drilling as the corporation’s most successful business, and today the company operates eight of “the most unique oil and gas land drilling rigs specially designed to drill oil wells in extreme conditions,” according to Doyon Drilling’s website.

Doyon Drilling also claims a great record on innovation with regard to its rigs.

“Doyon Drilling has a fantastic story about how it became the leader in the arctic drilling market in North America and Alaska specifically,” Schutt said. “They’ve always anticipated what would be the next best mousetrap in the market with land rigs.”

“We had the first rigs that were on these large trailers that could be moved up on the north slope rather than taken apart and reassembled,” Schutt said. “We had the first self-propelled single module rigs and lots of other technical innovations.”

The latest of these, Schutt says, is North America’s largest land rig in the Edmonton area, which the company expects to be able to drill anywhere from 35,000 horizontal feet to 40,000 horizontal feet in some circumstances.

“There’s a lot more capability in that rig than in others and we’re seeing that change in the market on the north slope where surface infrastructure is harder to permit, because you don’t want to have the

PHOTO COURTESY

and we’ve had an unblemished string of profitable years and consistent growth since that time,” Schutt says. “One of the lessons we learned was to be conservative and more disciplined about the businesses we got into. That was way before my time but it is an important story for things generally, and for Doyon specifically.”

Another turning point for the company came during Schutt’s tenure as Senior Vice President of Operations and Chief Operating Officer. Doyon’s management team concluded that their diversified businesses needed to be more focused in a few core areas. As a result, the corporation shed its non-core assets, allowing it to focus on oil field contracting, government contracting, and natural resource development.

“We’re really focused on growing those segments and doing what we do well – not chasing every deal that comes in the door,” Schutt said. “That’s allowed us to spend more time on the analysis of what our market’s going to look like five years from now, not just tomorrow, and where we can be effective in that market. That’s been key to our success in the last 10 years of Doyon – really understanding our market, growing it, and keeping that competitive advantage.”

The energy industry has long been one of these core areas. In 1982, Doyon formed Doyon Drilling, Inc. as a joint venture between Doyon, Limited and Nugget Alaska, Inc. This was during the lucrative early days of the exploration of Prudhoe Bay, which houses the largest oil field in North America. In 1993, Doyon Drilling became a wholly owned subsidiary of Doyon, Limited.

“Prudhoe Bay was the reason for the

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that about half of the corporation’s employees are also Doyon shareholders, including half of the company’s executives, roughly a third of its senior management, and more than half of its supervisors. In total, the corporation employs 175 shareholders out of 350 employees.

“These jobs would be anything from in the office executive jobs, HR and accounting jobs, jobs out in the field, and basically anything on a rig,” Schutt said. “We have Doyon shareholders from the tool pusher down to 100 percent of the roustabouts.”

According to Schutt, when he started at Doyon in 2006, they were a medium sized, Alaska-only business with operations mostly in the oil field. Over the last 12 years, though, they’ve grown to become a large Alaska business and a medium-sized regional business in the northwest with operations all over the country.

“We’re growing outside of Alaska, and we’re looking to make major investments,” Schutt said. “One of our themes in the last two years at Doyon has been transformation. We’re protecting and growing our core, but we know we need to do some investment outside of Alaska because the market is so small up here.”

While the corporation sees some growth potential in their core oil fields business in Alaska, they are also particularly interested in expanding into the utilities space as a counter to the volatility of the oil field.

Schutt says that the assets that the corporation finds attractive are other utility assets that have an ability to invest significant capital with a stable return on equity and stable job potential. The company is currently in the final stages of buying a small crude oil pipeline in interior Alaska and is on the hunt for other utility assets in Alaska and elsewhere that match that profile.

As the company looks to the future,

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there are other key challenges that Schutt says it is grappling with and preparing for.

One of these is the challenge of getting data and technology to the remote areas where oil rigs operate.

“The use of technology in the oil field, like many other industries, has rapidly accelerated in the last 10 years,” Schutt said.

“The use of data in the oil field is just tremendous and growing, and everyone in the industry – even if you’re a camp provider – has to understand that and embrace it and figure out how to get data out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of an arctic winter, for example, to make sure that our clients and other contractors can do their jobs safely and efficiently.”

He says that another major challenge that Doyon’s companies is working to overcome is the changing preferences with younger generations when it comes to careers.

Historically, the typical schedule for all of Doyon’s north slope oil fields is a period where employees will work 12 hours a day for 14 or 21 days in a row, followed by an equal amount of time off where they can go home.

“From the 1970s to the 2000s, a lot of people in Alaska had those schedules and that was their career and they made a lot of money and they were very happy with that,” Schutt said. “We’re not seeing that same enthusiasm from our youngest employees, and a lot of people don’t like that environment where they’re gone from home.”

“We seem to overcome it, but for example, we don’t see nearly the number of applications for open jobs that we did 20 years ago for those same jobs,” he said.

One of the other major challenges Doyon has to face as it looks toward the future is the tension between other Tribal groups and Native groups in Alaska that oppose

PHOTOS COURTESY DOYON, LIMITED

environmental impact of surface development,” Schutt said. “You can use existing roads, pads and pipelines, and reach out further, which is a time saver for all of us.”

In addition to just pure revenues generated from their businesses, Doyon also has a significant impact on employment for the wider community, but particularly for Doyon’s shareholders. One example Schutt cites as a great example of this is Doyon Drilling’s roustabout program, which offers free training to Doyon shareholders who apply and are selected.

The roustabout program is a great way for shareholders with an interest in oil and gas careers but have no prior experience working on an oil rig to enter the industry by performing a variety of job tasks on the rig, including proper loading and unloading, general maintenance and cleaning, and providing vital support for the drill floor crew.

“Every rig, the roustabouts are 100 percent Doyon shareholders, and that’s an industry like many other industries where people work their way up from entry level to senior positions that pay very well based on the job training and formal training through their employer rather than Voc-ed or college,” Schutt said. “We’ve had that program in place for 30 years or more and that’s been very successful in creating these careers for people.”

“Many end up leaving us for better jobs in the oil fields, but some are still at very senior positions in our company,” Schutt continued. “But we’ve created these economic employment opportunities through that program and our emphasis is on employing and promoting our shareholders within Doyon Drilling.”

While Doyon Drilling’s roustabout program certainly has a long-term record of success, similar programs exist in Doyon’s other companies, and in total Schutt says

to shareholders about protecting fish and game resources, subsistence opportunities, and generally being good environmental stewards,” he said. “We talk to our shareholders about how clean our energy industry is here in Alaska compared to other places in the world that we’re are also in,

PHOTO COURTESY DOYON, LIMITED

energy development like the drilling and natural resource exploration work that is central to Doyon’s business. Schutt sees this as a balancing act that requires a heavy focus on maintaining proactive external communication.

“We’re very cognizant of how we talk

especially, the oil business.”

“Our environmental standards on the north slope are the best in North America and probably close to the best in the world in terms of trying to prevent environmental impact, whether that’s surface use, or spills, or the standards we operate under,” he said.

Schutt touts Doyon’s advanced systems designed to protect health, safety and the environment. And he says that he understands that hydrocarbons are not renewable resources and that global warming is real and affecting everyone. That’s why he says Doyon takes a long-term view and is trying to diversify some of their interests into other areas.

“We really do spend a lot of time and effort trying to protect everything we have here in Alaska,” he said.

At the end of the day, Schutt sees his long-term approach as fundamental to Doyon’s strategic planning.

“Our mandate is to be here for a very long time, so that’s a lot of pressure to do that well,” he said. “We can’t just focus on the next quarter’s earnings; we have to make sure we’re here for the next hundred years.”

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The reports list a number of industries vulnerable to climate change, including agriculture, fisheries, tourism, forestry, energy and recreation.

Yakama Tribal members fish in the Klickitat river for Fall Chinook salmon.

PHOTO COURTESY USFWS - PACIFIC REGION, HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YD2H4JOC, NO CHANGES MADE.

HOW CLIMATE CHANGE IS IMPACTING NATIVE ECONOMIES Federal Report Reveals Risks and Opportunities for Tribal Economies in the Face of Climate Change

By Clifton Cottrell

T

he Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4), a comprehensive report compiled by a dozen different federal agencies, dissects the ongoing effects and threats from human-caused climate change.

NCA4 warned that without major ef-

forts to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the American economy would suffer impediments to growth and considerable losses. By the end of the century, the report calculated that economic losses could reach hundreds of billions of dollars, not to mention species extinc-

tion, land degradation, and irreparable harms to human health.

More importantly, climate change is expected to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities in communities across the nation.

The Alaska Native villages of Shishmaref and Kivalina have already begun the diffi-

FEATURE

cult relocation process after battling rising seas and erosion over the past few decades.

For the hundreds of Tribal communities that dot our coastlines, rely on traditional food sources, and are dealing with drought conditions in the arid southwest, the findings in NCA4 accelerate the need for in depth disaster preparedness and community planning.

Without substantial changes to the way economies operate around the world, we can expect more frequent extreme weather events and further harm to vital ecosystems.

Coupled with the recent release of the Second State of the Carbon Cycle Report (SOCCR2), the two papers represent the nation’s most up-to-date analysis of a growing crisis that now touches every corner of the globe.

Tribal concerns were well represented, with each report including an entire chapter on climate risk and adaptation from the indigenous perspective. In each instance, the contributing authors found political, geographic, socio-cultural, legal, and economic barriers to climate adaptation, but emphasized a culture of Native resilience fostered over thousands of years that could aid the indigenous peoples of America through the uncertain climate shifts of the future.

The first key message from the Tribal chapter of NCA4 is that climate change puts Tribal economies at risk. Existing institutional barriers, like incomplete land and water rights, amplify these risks and delay disaster preparedness and planning.

The reports list a number of industries vulnerable to climate change, including agriculture, fisheries, tourism, forestry, energy and recreation. Threats are already coming in the form of wildfires, drought, sea level rise, rising temperatures and ocean acidification.

Tribes are seeing climate stressors manifest in negative ways on Tribal businesses. Droughts pose a significant threat to Tribal agricultural enterprises, commercial fishing, and recreation offerings.

Warming temperatures, drought and wildfires are combining to drastically alter the makeup of Tribal forests, potentially

limiting cultural ceremonies, medicinal plant gathering and commercial timber harvesting.

and biodiversity through adaptation plans.

As the authors in SOCCR2 pointed out, indigenous land use strategies are built around integration with existing systems rather than the Western philosophy of altering existing ecosystems and places to fit production methods. This culture of adaptation could prove to be a model for non-Native communities seeking techniques for environmental transformation.

In many ways, Tribes are already acting as leaders in the fight to develop effective adaptation and mitigation strategies in the face of climate change. The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe requires new construction to conform with green, energy efficient building standards. The Lummi Tribe are pursuing an aggressive plan to add solar and geothermal generators on their lands and incorporate alternative transportation.

The Cherokee Nation just received a million dollar grant to purchase a collection of electric buses and installed a solar grid in the parking lot of the main government offices. The Navajo Nation is taking advantage of the abundant sun in Arizona by constructing large-scale solar plants. Despite contributing a small fraction of total global carbon emissions, Indian Country is putting its collective ingenuity and adaptive capacity to use by providing a roadmap for communities to follow toward better climate resilience.

Historically, indigenous persons migrated to new places when the landscape became inhospitable. Because of trust lands and the modern reservation system, relocation is often not a viable option. Some Alaska Native villages are already having to take this gigantic step- uprooting communities and requiring a new social fabric to be knitted in an unfamiliar place.

Putting Tribes in the driver’s seat of their own lands is the only way to ensure the development of sustainable, robust economies that contribute to the mitigation of harmful climate change effects. World development has reached a crossroads, and it is now Indian Country’s responsibility to show other nations how to craft the resilient, green economies of the future.

The Traditional ecological knowledge derived from thousands of years of observing how environmental stressors affect ecosystem balance is helping Tribes prepare for changes in weather and biodiversity through adaptation plans.

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Both reports recognize that political constraints, particularly limits on Tribal self-determination, only work to intensify Native vulnerability to climate change.

This issue is even worse for non-federally recognized Tribes and indigenous groups who lack basic treaty protections, access to federal services, and trust lands. However, NCA4 notes that the federal trust relationship to Tribes can also hold back Tribal efforts to diversify their economies and plan for climate change. Deferred responsibilities to maintain and upgrade reservation infrastructure magnify climate threats. The onerous approval process for energy projects on Tribal lands is actively restricting Tribal economies and blocking an important source of renewable energy that could help America divest from the fossil fuels that are causing climate change in the first place.

The climate reports are not all doom and gloom for Indian Country. In fact, Tribes are in a unique position to deal with the new challenges brought about from climate change. Traditional ecological knowledge derived from thousands of years of observing how environmental stressors affect ecosystem balance is helping Tribes prepare for changes in weather

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EMPOWERING TRIBAL ENERGY SOVEREIGNTY PHOTOS COURTESY INDIAN ENERGY, LLC

By Debra Utacia Krol

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INDIAN ENERGY, LLC’S MISSION:

EMPOWER TRIBES TO POWER THEMSELVES

PHOTO COURTESY CADREAU FAMILY

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Opposite Page: Navajo Nation Leadership, Surviving Code Talkers, Marine Corp Leadership and Indian Energy during an Navajo Code Talker Ceremony at Camp Pendleton arranged by Indian Energy Center: Indian Energy’s Allen J. Cadreau and Allen G. Cadreau answer questions during a Microgrid Workshop Top Right: Cadreau Family Photo (L-R): Allen G., Nancy, Nicole, Jessica, Allen J.

llen G. Cadreau and his company, Indian Energy, LLC, has a lifelong mission: empower Tribal communities with the technical support to own and operate their own energy infrastructure to serve their own citizens and sell power to military installations and off-reservation communities.

Military installations and Tribal reservations face a similar challenge: providing power service to members while meeting their core missions with ever-shrinking operating budgets. Indian Energy aims to solve these challenges with advanced energy solutions—including integrating microgrids into power delivery systems— with a focus on delivering cyber-secure energy solutions to the military and ultimately to Indian Country. The firm is 100 percent Native owned and is a certified small disadvantaged business.

Indian Energy’s owners, including founder and CEO Cadreau; his son Allen J. Cadreau, the director of engineering; cousin Henry J. Boulley Jr., who serves as chief operations officer and chief information officer; and other family members are all citizens of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. The Tribe also acquired a minority stake in the company.

The firm’s principals bring a wealth of expertise to Indian Energy’s portfolio of capabilities. Cadreau senior has more than 45 years in the electrical industry, includ-

ing advanced microgrid design and utility scale power plant development expertise.

He coordinated all technical efforts related to the acquisition of permits, project financing and construction for renewable energy projects located in the Southwest delivering more than $2.4 billion in electric service. He also holds an active California C-10 electrical contractor’s license.

Boulley puts more than 25 years in information technology to work for Indian Energy. Boulley manages the day-to-day operations of the company and is responsible for overseeing all business operations. He previously managed the design, selection, purchase and installation of two world-class million-dollar telecommunication systems in Tribal communities. He’s also helped open several Tribal facilities and integrated new facilities into existing infrastructure and has master-planning expertise that’s invaluable in planning energy grids.

Cadreau’s son Allen J. Cadreau has only been in the energy business a mere five years but has expertise in construction management overseeing large electrical substation upgrades. He is responsible for all project modeling including creating 3-D virtual fly-by tours of energy projects as part of the planning and permitting process. The younger Cadreau coordinates pre-development efforts involving project-siting, electrical one-line diagrams and project cost estimations for project

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Major General O’Donohue thanks Indian Energy CEO Allen G. Cadreau for his efforts in assisting the Marine Corp with honoring the Navajo Code Talkers during an Energy Tour of Camp Pendleton

power purchase agreements. Daughters Nicole C. Cadreau and Jessica L. Cadreau manage interconnection and power flow analysis and Indian Energy’s distributive energy division, respectively.

Cadreau says he got into the energy business after a Southwestern Tribe asked him for technical support in creating a Tribal utility authority to generate and sell electricity. At the time, Cadreau was a vice-president of engineering for a Southern California development company, consulting for two municipalities interested in owning their own power generation assets.

But, when Cadreau presented the idea to his superior to open a Tribal energy division, the reaction wasn’t what he expected. “The president of the firm was not enthusiastic about it,” Cadreau says.

After some reflection, he says, “I realized there was a need for our people to better understand the ownership opportunities of Tribal owned utilities.” This experience propelled Cadreau into creating his own company—and Indian Energy was born.

During a trip back to his Michigan reservation for a language course, he stayed with an uncle, Henry Boulley Sr. As Cadreau was explaining his vision, the uncle said, “You have to meet my son. He is very talented, and I think Indian Energy can use him.” That led to Henry Junior, Indian Energy’s future COO, joining the company.

The next step was for Indian Energy, based in Anaheim Hills, California, to obtain the 8(a) SBA certification. “We created a partnership with our sister Tribe, the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota about a year ago,” says Cadreau. “This enables us to pursue U.S. Government set-asides and sole-source energy contracts with any governmental agency.”

In 2014, Indian Energy was the only Native American-owned firm to be awarded a small business prime contract by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for solar energy development on Army bases worldwide.

In May 2018, the Company was selected by the Navy as “sole negotiator” for Camp Pendleton’s Enhanced Use Lease energy

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TRIBAL UTILITY AUTHORITY CREATION Indian Energy, LLC, a Native-owned firm that specializes in energy grid creation, securing power grids and transmission systems through cyber security strategies and energy management, provides technical support services and advice to Tribes with creating their own utility authorities. One of the firm’s guiding principles is to help Tribes “establish energy on our land and then push it over the fence,” says Indian Energy founder and CEO Allen G. Cadreau. The firm’s management has more than 50 years’ experience in all aspects of power generation, grid creation and maintenance, and energy conservation services.

For example, Cadreau says that countless Tribal nations have only received a fraction of the overall value of generation facilities. “We now have the technical expertise within Indian Country to own and operate them,” says Cadreau. Indian Energy would rather see the nations in the energy business for themselves, as opposed to simply leasing land to power operators. “We want Tribes to own their own utilities, so they can electrify their communities and keep the dollars on the reservation,” he says.

The firm advises Tribes on the project of

granting rights of way, securing permits, energy transmission and other aspects of working through the process of utility creation and management. To date, Indian Energy has assisted several Tribes, including the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, the Navajo Housing Authority, the Crow Creek and Rosebud Sioux nations, Fort Bidwell Indian Community and the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association.

Indian Energy has sponsored workshops at various conferences where they, "...provide in-depth detail for Tribal utility authority creation and/or the integration of microgrids within Tribal reservations,” says Henry J. Boulley Jr., the firm’s chief operating officer and chief information officer. “We have assisted Tribes in understanding their energy consumption, the applicable generation resources and various financing strategies available for Tribes.” Indian Energy has also provided owner’s engineering services for Tribes wishing to have a second opinion of prospective energy proposals. “Tribal energy sovereignty is a very important thing; how sovereign can you truly be if someone else can turn off your lights?” says Boulley.

PHOTOS COURTESY INDIAN ENERGY, LLC

FEATURE

resiliency initiative. Indian Energy will develop a microgrid solution with power production and storage facilities on the base and is also in discussions with regional interests like the Southern California Tribal Chairman’s Association to purchase and/or own the power produced by the system. The final solution will allow Camp Pendleton to continue mission critical operations in the event of local grid power outage. “If the energy solution is good enough for the United States Department of Defense, it is good enough for our people,” Cadreau says. The firm is also ensuring that power grids will be secure from hacking with an innovative hardened cyber security solution.

The defense contracts are part of Indian Energy’s overall plan to empower Indian Country via power generation and ownership. “After we get the defense contracts, we want Indian Country to own those assets,” says Cadreau. “We’ve talked with more than 20 Tribes, including the Southern Ute, Comanche Nation, Fort Sill Apache Tribe and the Kiowa Tribe,” he says. Cadreau says that the Indigenous peoples of several south Pacific islands, who also must deal with the challenge of outside-owned utilities, have expressed strong interest in microgrids.

Indian Energy is also engaged in energy consumption monitoring and energy data analytics. Many of the firm’s customers desire minute-by-minute monitoring of their facilities energy consumption, and it’s the backbone of the firm’s microgrid designs. “Without understanding your instantaneous energy consumption, you are blind to an energy solution,” Cadreau says. And, their energy monitoring service helps customers save money by being aware of how they are using electricity.

“Just being aware of how, when and how fast you consume energy can save you up to 20 percent of your annual electric bill,” Cadreau says.

Microgrids, which are designed to power communities instead of entire states or regions, are an exciting part of the future of energy, and Indian Energy is helping drive the movement. From sustainable power generation to cutting-edge storage solutions such as flywheel kinetic energy storage devices and advanced use monitoring, Cadreau sees these smaller systems as Indian Country’s solution to giving remote Tribal communities energy independence – or, in the case of some communities, building energy capacity

that was previously unavailable. “This is the future,” Cadreau says.

Sustainable power systems like wind and solar have one serious drawback: they can only operate when the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing. Energy storage systems solve those barriers to truly sustainable power systems. Indian Energy uses a patented 3rd generation kinetic energy storage device. Instead of mining more lithium, which can exact a heavy environmental toll on surrounding lands, Indian Energy’s system uses inexpensive and readily available materials and components which make kinetic storage affordable. And, these materials are easily recyclable, making them even more environmentally friendly.

Indian Energy is positioned to be at the forefront of these new technologies, thanks to the firm’s brainpower and their expertise in selecting key partners with both smart money and energy sector skills.

Indian Energy’s capabilities are built on a firm foundation: not only do Cadreau and Boulley bring more than 70 years’ experience in their respective fields, they are living the dream of educating and teaching their children the importance of giving back to their people through knowledge and industry expertise. “Education is our modern-day weapon—without knowledge we are helpless and dependent,” says Cadreau. “We choose to motivate our children from a place of love, respect, independence and company ownership. Mind your manners, complete your engineering degree and you will own a piece of the company.”

Cadreau’s children all have their engineer-

Indian Energy officials with Navajo Code Talkers

ing degrees, while Boulley’s are currently acquiring theirs.

Even Nancy, Cadreau’s wife of 33 years, is an electrical and software engineer for a major defense contractor. “I couldn’t add fractions going into college,” says Cadreau, “so I was assigned a math tutor. I ended up falling in love and marrying her.” The same sense of family extends to close friends.

Cadreau notes that his family has invested time and energy in their childhood friends by creating talking circles and tutoring sessions. The family anticipates that they will obtain their education and join the company in the next few years.

This commitment to building self-sustaining, prosperous Tribal communities springs in part from the staff’s Native heritage. The Sault Ste. Marie Chippewa people, like other Indigenous peoples, have a millennia-long history of building sustainable communities in often challenging environments. Their ancestral territories in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Sugar Island are beset by long, brutal winters, yet Cadreau’s and Boulley’s families not only survived but thrived in the area, thanks to their ancestral knowledge and ways passed down through generations.

But most of all, Indian Energy’s mission is building Tribal self-determination through ownership and operation of Tribal-owned energy systems, says Cadreau.

“We want to put power into the hands of our own people.”

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TRIBES MAKE MILLIONS IN CARBON CREDITS

By Suzette Brewer

I

Top Right: Yurok Chairman Joseph James

t’s an idea so simple that it sounds almost too good to be true: Tribes are using their forests and grasslands to generate income by selling carbon credits in the California emissions trading industry. Meanwhile, they’re preserving their lands for future generations.

“A few years ago, I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me, but now more and more Tribes are beginning to ask important questions about greenhouse gases, climate change and adaptation plans, and how this process works,” says Bryan Van Stippen, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and program director for the National Indian Carbon Coalition. “Carbon sequestration projects and the offset credits they produce focuses on the preservation of Tribal natural resources while still being able to derive revenue even if a Tribal entity has a commercial logging operation.”

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PHOTO BY MARTIN CATHRAE, FLICKR, HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YBFXMPUQ/ NO CHANGES MADE

WHILE CONSERVING THEIR FORESTS

PHOTO COURTESY YUROK TIRBE

“The National Indian Carbon Coalition is working on a grassland project with the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in South Dakota under the Plan Vivo standard to develop carbon credits on the voluntary market,” says Van Stippen. “Their project will be the first of its kind in Indian Country and the U.S.”

Over the last 150 years, the negative environmental and health impacts of railroads, mining, dams, deforestation and drilling on Tribal lands have left many Tribes riskaverse and even opposed to extractive industries, says Van Stippen. So the notion of making money while conserving their natural resources is big news for land-based Tribes, who control hundreds of millions of acres in forests, wetlands and grasslands from Alaska to Maine.

In fact, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI), it is estimated that indigenous communities manage approximately 300 million metric tons of carbon stored in trees, roots and soil worldwide.

Into the Woods In 2013, the Yurok became the first Tribe in the country to participate in California’s carbon trading program, an environmental initiative launched with the goal of reducing greenhouse emissions to pre1990 levels by 2050.

The Yurok, who are the largest Tribal nation in California with over 6,000 members, once owned over a million acres of prime land in Northwest California.

During the Gold Rush that began in 1849, nearly 75 percent of the Tribe was decimated due to disease and massacres by white settlers. Subsequently, the Tribe’s land holdings were substantially whittled away by the federal government to approximately 3,000 acres in the late 20th century.

Since joining the carbon trading market, the Yurok have obtained over 2 million offset credits, the income from which the Tribe has used to buy thousands of acres of their original homelands, protect their salmon habitats, improve water quality in the creeks and rivers, create jobs and preserve their culture.

“We are a natural resource-based Tribe and we manage our lands in the traditional way, so this is a program that has worked well for us,” says Yurok Chairman Joseph James. “We are reinvesting the income from our carbon credits into our roads, our infrastructure, our land management, our

businesses, as well as our cultural and language preservation programs, which is the backbone of who we are as a Tribe.”

Ultimately, however, James says the Tribe intends to reacquire all of its original homelands—over a million acres—in northwest California.

“We are determined to exercise our economic sovereignty,” says James. “We don’t want to depend on the federal government.

It is our job to continue the way of life that our grandparents and parents passed down to us so that we can pass it on to our children.”

Currently, eight Tribes from Alaska to Maine have received approval to participate in the program.

Ahead of the Curve California, which has the fifth largest economy in the world, modeled its program on the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) that was enacted in 2005 to fight global warming. That same year, then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger

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signed an executive order setting emissions reduction targets for California, including responsibilities, implementation and reporting requirements for state agencies.

In 2006, California—which is also the 12th largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world—passed its landmark Global Warming Solutions Act, which requires sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the state’s economy.

“It will begin a bold new era of environmental protection in California that will change the course of history,” Schwarzenegger said at the time. “We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late.”

The state’s carbon trading industry was subsequently launched in 2012, which allows big polluters to purchase carbon offset credits. Known informally as “cap and trade,” the market-based system is designed to reduce pollution in the atmosphere by “capping,” or limiting, the harmful emissions of fuel companies and other big polluters that emit 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year or more.

These companies have to obtain permits for each metric ton of greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and flourinated gases) they pump into the atmosphere. They can then buy carbon off-set credits from Tribes and other entities to help meet their required reduction goals.

Conversely, Tribes must adhere to a strict set of standards in managing their forests in order to obtain verified credits, which are issued by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Forest management in carbon offset projects may include afforestation (or establishing new forests), reforestation, the avoidance of deforestation, as well as sustainable practices including managed burn plans, thinning diseased trees, managing brush or other competitive vegetation, and allowing tree populations to age without harvesting them for logging.

Critics of the program allege that the carbon offset market allows big polluters, such as coal plants and manufacturing industries, to “buy” their way out of compliance. Proponents, however, point out that these companies are only allowed to purchase up to eight percent of their total carbon certificates― which will go down to four percent in 2020.

These deadlines give companies time to find more efficient ways to operate their businesses. Moreover, as the carbon credits

become more limited (and expensive) over time, polluters will become more motivated to reduce their carbon footprint, according to CARB. The ultimate goal of the initiative, according to the legislation, is to establish a comprehensive program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, promote renewable energy sources and build sustainable, longterm solutions for a healthier communities. The economic impact is also notable: California receives more clean energy venture capital than all other states combined, which has resulted in green technologies, new initiatives and the creation of thousands of jobs. In fact, “green” jobs are the fastest growing sector in the California economy, according to CARB. In recent years, Oregon and Washington State have struggled to pass similar legislative efforts; however, both states will take up cap and trade bills in 2019, which are expected to pass. Additionally, they will be modeled on California’s market.

The compliant markets have certain restrictions and requirements for Tribes—including a 100-year commitment and a limited waiver of sovereign immunity—which have dissuaded many Tribes from participating in the program due to concerns over how their needs may change over time and what that may mean in regards to their sovereignty and control over their lands.

Troy Eid, who is the co-chairman of the American Indian law practice group at Greenberg Traurig LLC in Denver, Colorado, worked with a Tribe to secure a carbon credit agreement with a major corporation through the California carbon trading market. He says that there were many concerns that came up as the Tribe considered its options.

“There were many passionate arguments regarding the ‘hundred year’ clause,” says Eid. “Granting a limited waiver of the Tribe’s sovereign immunity for a century— binding several future generations—was a consideration.”

Moreover, says Eid, there were those who believed that there was no way to anticipate how the Tribe’s needs would evolve in the forseeable future in regards to how they would use their lands.

“They might grow and need to develop it for housing, for example, or they might want to do other things with it,” he says. “Ultimately, however, they decided to use a portion of their lands for conservation and income from the carbon credit markets.”

In the voluntary emission trading markets, the airline industry is poised to become a major purchaser of carbon credits, according to Ecosystem Marketplace. In 2016, for example, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) adopted the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) to meet the global cap on airline emissions.

As the first market-based effort to regulate carbon emissions for the global airline industry, any airline that operates international flights must monitor, verify and report their emissions starting in January 2019.

According to the report, voluntary carbon markets have helped reduce over 437 metric tons of carbon emissions—more than all of Australia’s energy related emissions in 2016.

Additionally, other well-known companies like Disney have also entered the voluntary carbon trading market. In addition

Ultimately, however, the notion of selling carbon credits to preserve Tribal lands aligns with Tribal values of environmental conservation and a sustainable way of life.

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According to CARB, carbon offset credits are sold at the state’s quarterly cap-andtrade auctions. Each offset is equal to one metric ton of carbon dioxide and sells for approximately $11 to $14 per credit, depending on market rates.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe of Maine, for example, used nearly 100,000 acres of their forest lands to generate 3.2 million credits w ― hich have been valued at between $35 and $45 million that they used to invest in other business projects.

A Fork in the Road Currently, there are two markets in the carbon credit industry: The compliant markets in California and the Canadian province of Quebec, which have joined together to allow businesses to buy credits issued within those jurisdictions; and a voluntary market which is used by companies, individuals and governments to purchase carbon offsets.

In August 2018, the Quebec government announced that it had raised $215 million, selling approximately 90 million units for an average of $19.67 per unit for both current and future credits.

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to buying carbon credits, the company also charges its businesses for the emissions they generate, which goes into the Disney Climate Solutions Fund (DCSF). With these resources, the DCSF invests in forestry projects around the world. According to the company’s website, Disney has invested $48 million in carbon offset projects since 2009.

With many Tribes leery of committing to restrictive agreements that they feel may impede their sovereignty, groups like the National Indian Carbon Coalition are working with Tribal leaders to find alternative solutions.

“We are trying to develop projects working within the voluntary market, because it does not require as many restrictions as compared to the compliant market,” says Van Stippen.

“Timeframes on the voluntary market usually run no longer than 40 years but can be even shorter and would not require a limited waiver of sovereign immunity.”

Across the Plains Van Stippen says that although the carHeadquartered bon trading industry has focused primarily on forests, Tribes that reside on grass and states range lands can also benefit from offsets.

According to the Environmental Defense Fund, a recent study from UC Davis found that grasslands and rangelands are more resilient carbon sinks than forests [because] grasslands lock carbon into the soil and do not release it during wildfires. Therefore, efforts to explore carbon sequestration projects have been renewed, which may be a benefit to Tribes with more grass and rangelands than forests. By preserving grasslands under the Grassland Project Protocol, for example, landowners can generate carbon credits and the credits can be sold on the voluntary carbon market at competitive rates, according to the Climate Action Reserve.

The Plan Vivo Foundation is a Scottish-based charity that established and administers the Plan Vivo Standard, a certification framework for supporting rural landholders’ and community groups’ transition towards sustainable land use, forest management, biodiversity and enhanced ecosystems. Through this performance-based system, Tribes and other communities can gain access to a range of infunding Fairbanks, Alaska, Doyonincluding operates sources and markets, voluntary carbon credits.

Van Stippen is currently working with

Plan Vivo to bring its certification process to Indian Country.

“The National Indian Carbon Coalition is working on a grassland project with the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in South Dakota under the Plan Vivo standard to develop carbon credits on the voluntary market,” says Van Stippen. “Their project will be the first of its kind in Indian Country and the U.S.” These and other projects now coming into Indian Country could provide an additional source of income from carbon credits to Tribes that may reside on vast tracts of grasslands.

Ultimately, however, the notion of selling carbon credits to preserve Tribal lands aligns with Tribal values of environmental conservation and a sustainable way of life.

“Carbon sequestration projects on Tribal lands focus on sustainable land management practices that avoid the exploitation or extraction of natural resources,” says Van Stippen. “We at the NICC are committed to working with Tribal nations to provide resources and support to ensure the preservaa tion diverse family of companies across of their lands while reducing the effects of climate change and generating a sustainable income for generations to come.”

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LEADER In All We Do PHOTO COURTESY

Headquartered in Fairbanks, Alaska, Doyon operates a diverse family of companies across Alaska and the Lower 48 states.

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Doyon Drilling, Inc. Doyon Remote Facilities & Services Doyon Associated, LLC Doyon Anvil Corp.

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Doyon/Aramark JV Kantishna Roadhouse Kantishna Wilderness Trails

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Alask

OCETI SAKOWIN POWER AUTHORITY

Apex Clean Energy team on CRST site visit with Ryman LeBeau (Cheyenne River Tribal Council Rep, and OSPA Board Director)

HOW A SIX-TRIBE COALITION IS DEFINING A NEW AND BIGGER BUSINESS MODEL

By Josh Robertson

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PHOTOS COURTESY OSPA/APEX CLEAN ENERGY

out a deal and took it to the Tribal Council, and they approved it. We were going to lease the land, put no money down and just collect lease and royalties. Which was standard back then."

It wasn't that simple. "As with any Tribal agreement, you have to go to the BIA for approval. So we sent it on to the BIA. And at that time, it was so new, that no one knew what the fair market value of wind energy was. And [the BIA] had to determine what was fair payments to the Tribe, because of their trust responsibility to the Tribe. So they sat on it for about a year and a half."

The potential partner couldn't wait that long. "You know, time is money," Jack says.

"They said, 'We're sorry, but we have to move on.'"

The obvious failure of the process made Lyle Jack want to try it again — the right way. "I stayed with it, because it intrigued me," Jack says. "I thought, here’s a resource where we don’t have to drill, we don’t have to dig for it or tear our land up, we don’t have to pollute the air. And it’s very abundant here on the reservation."

W

ith a massive wind power project, Tribes in South Dakota are raising the stakes for energy production on Tribal lands. The Oceti Sakowin Power Authority (OSPA) is a joint venture of six Sioux nations that has pulled in unprecedented startup funding without sacrificing economic sovereignty.

The Tribes are looking to use their land’s natural resources — wind, specifically — to generate significant electrical power.

The project will bring revenue to the various Sioux peoples who are participating, as well as economic stimulus to the Tribal territories, which are situated in some of

the poorest counties in the nation.

The best part about OSPA? The Sioux own it.

The idea of a wind farm on Sioux land isn’t new. Lyle Jack, the chairman of the OSPA board, says his interest goes back to 2004, when he was a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribal Council. A Chicago-based renewable-energy firm came to the Tribe with a proposal for a 280-megawatt wind farm. "We didn’t know much about [wind power]. We did a little research and thought it was a good deal. We worked

The next breakthrough came in the form of a phone call from Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney and activist from Standing Rock.

Jack recalls Iron Eyes' radically sensible idea. "Lyle, I'm sitting here with a bunch of Tribes, and all these Tribes are interested in doing wind energy," Iron Eyes said.

"They've all tried to do projects on their own, but they were all failures. We'd like to get together and just share ideas. We're all running into the same problems, so let's see what we can do to help each other."

It wasn't long before Jack found himself in a meeting at Eagle Butte, the Cheyenne River Sioux headquarters, that was also attended by representatives from several other Sioux Tribes. Those gathered described their Tribes' frustrations at trying to bring wind power to their lands. This was, in a way, the beginning of the Oceti Sakowin Power Authority, though those in attendance didn't know it.

When it came time for Jack to tell of the Oglalas' misfire, his story was hopeful. "I told them, 'Maybe the BIA sitting on our deal, and practically killing it, was a blessing for us. Because it allowed us to research it and learn more. And what we determined was we want to develop our own project, but we also want to wholly control it, not just sit back and collect royalties. I think that's the path [Oglala is] going to take.'"

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WIND

Jack sees OSPA as a template for other projects in Indian Country. He often re-

With a structure in place and financial backers on board, there was just one thing left: An actual partner experienced in building large-scale renewable energy projects. OSPA put out a request for information (RFI), hoping to attract a qualified partner. "We got a lot of response back, the bigger corporations," says Jack. "They told us they would have to own the project. There's too much money involved; once they've poured in these hundreds of millions of dollars, they were not going to feel comfortable with the Tribes handling all that." Jack says that OSPA had found a firm based in Montreal that offered an acceptable deal. But as OSPA was preparing to close a deal with the Canadian firm, the Clinton Global Initiative again came through for the Sioux.

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turns to the idea of "going big" — of coming up with a project that is of a scale that will impress and entice large investors. But going big, in this case and perhaps others, can require some maneuvering.

"It's very rare that our Tribes come together, especially amongst the Sioux Nation," he observes. "We all share the same cultural beliefs, we speak the same language, we're pretty much interrelated. But it's very hard to bring us together because each Tribe is allowed to pursue what they

PHOTO COURTESY LYLE JACK

The Oceti Sakowin Power Project (as it was then called) held its first official meeting in 2011. The organization began the process of sending out RFPs, and talking with developers and investors. The initial results were familiar and frustrating — big power companies were interested in reaping wind power from Tribal lands, but only if they could own the operation.

A fateful conversation with a developer along the way taught Jack another lesson, perhaps the most valuable one: Investors aren't interested in small projects. "They don't want to do just 100 or 200 megawatts," the developer said. "They want something big. You do 500 to 1,000 megawatts, then you'll get attention. Then you'll get the big boys' interest."

A call from Bob Gough of the InterTribal Council on Utility Policy brought up a tantalizing, big-thinking possibility: A meeting with President Bill Clinton to present the Oceti Sakowin Power Project’s (OSPP) plan to the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

So it came to pass: In the closing session of the 2013 CGI America Conference in Chicago, President Clinton welcomed six Sioux Tribal presidents to the stage to announce the CGI's commitment to OSPP. They were joined by representatives from the Bush Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers, and the Northwest Area Foundation, all of which would become key sponsors for OSPP. "That was basically our coming-out party," Jack says.

"This is where my hat really goes off to President Clinton," Jack says. "Clinton's representatives got ahold of us and said 'We have a firm that is very interested in working with you. They like what you guys are doing and we think they would agree to your terms.' And that's how we met Apex."

Apex is Apex Clean Energy, a Charlottesville, Virginia-based company that provides a full slate of services — from development to financing — to bring projects like OSPA's to life. "We told them what we wanted," says Jack, "and they had no problem with the Tribe owning the majority of it." OSPA looked at the two proposals — one from the Canadian firm, and one from Apex that promised OSPA a 51 percent majority — and decided Apex was the better fit.

The company that OSPA formed with Apex in 2017 is called 7G Renewable Energy, a name that embraces a fundamental Native idea about stewardship of the planet. Putting together all the pieces, OSPA aims to use one sacred gift, the wind, to mitigate the abuse of Mother Earth, all in the name of preserving the planet for the next seven generations.

Lyle Jack, the Chairman of the OSPA board

WIND

want. One Tribe can't tell another Tribe what to do." But for the sake of going big, Jack and the other OSPA board members were able to — had to — bring the Tribes together.

"Some of our Tribes don't have the resources to do that, to go big," Jack observes.

"Some of us do, and some of us don't. So what we do is, we come together and we share our resources, and share the governance, and share the power of them."

PHOTO COURTESY OSPA/APEX CLEAN ENERGY

The six Tribes of the OSPA (Cheyenne River Sioux, Flandreau Santee Sioux, Oglala Lakota, Rosebud Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, and Yankton Sioux) have agreed upon a system that empowers members with equality but rewards production. On the board, each Tribe has one vote — the Oglala, with an enrollment of over 35,000, have the same voting influence as the 726-member Flandreau Santee. The board’s resolutions are decided by simple majority. There's one more layer to the OSPA: A six-member board of elders who sit in on meetings and provide guidance as regards the culture and values of the Sioux people.

It's a parallel structure; just as the board members are empowered to speak for the Tribes and Tribal councils, these elder-representatives are empowered to speak for

Apex Clean Energy team member talking with Ryman LeBeau (Cheyenne River Tribal Council Rep, and OSPA Board Director)

the elders on their respective reservations.

While the board is supremely democratic, each Tribe's operation is self-contained and capitalist. Tribes are encouraged to produce as much power as they can, and are entitled to the revenue it earns.

The first two Tribes set to build their facilities — and reap the benefits — are the Oglala and Cheyenne River, who aim to produce a combined 570 megawatts of power out of the gate: 450 of it at the Ta'teh Topah ("Four Winds") wind farm on Cheyenne River, and the remaining 120 megawatts at the Pass Creek facility on the Oglalas' home of Pine Ridge.

Construction on these projects should wrap up by late 2020 or early 2021.

Jack says there's a simple reason that these two will go first: transmission lines.

"You have to go where the transmission lines are," Jack explains. "At this stage, we don't have the financial resources to go out and build our own transmission lines.

Cheyenne River are located near the Oahe Dam, so there's transmission running in and out of there because it's a hydro dam."

OSPA found that a transmission line that was close to Pine Ridge and Rosebud was running 120 megawatts under capacity, so those two Tribes planned to build wind farms that would each produce 60 megawatts. But slowdowns in Rosebud's administrative process put them behind Pine Ridge's schedule. "As I said, time is money," Jack notes. OSPA decided to shelve the Rosebud facility, and build a wind farm on Pine Ridge that would produce all 120 megawatts. The decision was made together, based on what was best for the Power Authority. "Even the Rosebud board member agreed," says Jack, clearly pleased at the cooperation.

Rosebud and the other three reservations will benefit from Ta'teh Topah and Pass Creek. Jack explains that the Power Authority gets a "substantial" development fee. The board decided together that the development fee collected will be applied to the next project — in this case, wind power facilities on the other reservations.

"When we do that," Jack says, "we reduce the need for outside investors. And we're able to control a larger share of future projects, because we're going to be putting more skin in the game. We're non-profit, so what we make off [our wind farms], we have to put that back in. And what we

make off of Rosebud, we'll put that into, say, Yankton."

As for the power itself, some of it is destined for local use, to lower utility bills on the rez, and some will be sold to utilities.

Lyle Jack and the OSPA board see a unique opportunity to sell power to tech giants — for instance, in Silicon Valley.

Beyond that, Jack and others see a unique opportunity to sell power to tech giants — for instance, in Silicon Valley. These operations use a lot of electricity, and tend to be forward-thinking and conservation-minded. They might even pay a little more for power they know is clean. "And for them, to buy power from a business that's majority Native American-owned, that's good for their public relations," Jack adds. With a relationship established, tech companies might even look to set up an office or facility in a place like Pine Ridge, with its abundant power and affordable workforce.

The wind has always been a sacred resource for the Native people of the Plains.

And in recent years, it has emerged as a key solution to an energy crisis that is no mere matter of dollars and cents, or geopolitical conflict. Natives have for so long seen their lands bespoiled by reckless pursuit of energy: The toxic leftovers from uranium mining; polluted air and wasted water caused by fracking; oil-drenched fields resulting from pipeline spills. All over the world, these and other abuses have contaminated regions of Mother Earth for this generation and those to follow.

But perhaps the OSPA signals a turning of the tide — a way to power our lives with a gift given freely from the Creator, rather than one wrested away with much collateral damage. "We hope to share this with the rest of the country," Jack says, "and say 'Look, the Tribes are doing their part.

They're actually trying to reduce that carbon footprint. They're actually practicing what they preach.' And hopefully when we share that with other government entities in the United States, they'll want to do the same."

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TRAPPING THE Solar Power Makes Economic Sense For The Confederated Tribes Of The Umatilla Indian Reservation

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By Native Business Staff

atrick Mills, scientist and project management professional for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), is the first to admit that it’s a bit challenging to get a big solar project off the ground.

“Where do you start? Does the chicken come before the egg, or does the egg come before the chicken?” he laughs.

What he means is that the CTUIR, a union of three Tribes: Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla, didn’t have funding in hand. But to move their vision for the project along, they had to scope it. So, they handled that by soliciting proposals from contractors, ultimately selecting Elemental Energy for the installation of the solar array. “We had to have that all in-hand to get the funding,” Mills told Native Business Magazine.

Once the Tribe secured initial funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Indian Energy, it could move forward—in theory. But the Tribe couldn’t make payments until it received final authorization from the DOE to begin incurring costs.

“From 2016 to summer 2017, there was a bit of a downtime when contractors were wondering, ‘What the heck is going on?

Do we have a project or not?’ So, a lot of

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communication had to be done to make sure they were still in the loop and knew we were going forward with this project— or else it would have been dropped,” Mills said. “There were a few times when the contractors and groups we were working with were really difficult to get a hold of, because I don’t think that they thought we were going to be able to go forward with this.”

In September 2017, DOE authorized the Tribe to begin accruing expenses.

The DOE put up about 50 percent of the total cost of the project: $133,705. The CTUIR contributed $63,413. Another $71,000 came from Energy Trust of Oregon, and the Wild Horse Foundation provided $20,000.

The total project budget came to $288,206.

“The Wild Horse Foundation grant came later on in the process, and that really saved our bacon. About 7 percent of the costs associated with this project were not planned. That extra $20,000 really made this possible for us; we were very pleased with that,” Mills said.

But before installing the solar project, the Tribe implemented energy efficiency measures in January 2018 to improve economics, replacing fluorescent lighting with high efficiency LED lighting in three Tribal buildings on 332 individual light fixtures.

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“That had quite a bit of energy savings associated with it alone,” Mills said.

The solar array was constructed by the end of April 2018. The CTUIR named the new array Ántukš-Tińqapapt, meaning “sun trap.” Ántukš (on-took-sh) comes from the Umatilla Language and Tińqapapt (tin-cop-popped) is Cayuse.

“We gave a culturally relevant name to the solar system to bridge the gap between traditional, cultural values of the Tribe and newer technology,” Mills said.

The solar array footprint is 300 feet by 20 feet, built with 276 individual 355-megawatt solar modules. The racking for the solar array is set in seven-feet-deep concrete, so it can hold its own against the strong winds that whip through the Blue Mountains of Oregon.

“We had some utility requirements, some GRID safety protection requirements to abide by, so it was close to June when we got the solar array commissioned and online,” Mills shared.

Getting the project up and running is just part of the process. Knowing the utility requirements is equally essential. While CTUIR’s solar contractor, Elemental Energy, was experienced working with many different utilities, energy provider Pacific Power had recently came out with a new

E SUN

Top Left: The solar array footprint is 300 feet by 20 feet.

Top Right: A drone photograph captures the racking for the solar array. The racking, set in seven-feet-deep concrete, can hold its own against 125-plus mile per hour winds.

Bottom Left: Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and Elemental Energy representatives install the last of 276 solar modules.

PHOTOS COURTESY PATRICK MILLS / CONFEDERATED TRIBES OF THE UMATILLA INDIAN RESERVATION

Bottom Right: Before installing the solar array, the Tribe ordered a geotechnical survey to ascertain the composition of the soil. The design is based on that, “so it wouldn’t fly away in the wind,” Mills said. “It’s really windy here.”

grounding transformer requirement that Elemental wasn’t familiar with. “Luckily they were very cooperative in working with us and making sure that it didn’t cost extra to have the grounding transformer installed in our system. But it took a lot of time and energy on their part to get it in, so they could turn on the solar system and start pushing power to the grid,” Mills said.

Native Business Magazine spoke with Mills on a sunny day in December, when the solar array was generating more power than his Tribal building could use. Pacific Power’s net meter measures that excess power and offsets electricity use with solar power at the Tribes’ public transit center, which houses two buildings (though it’s fed power through a single meter).

Pacific Power balances the bills for those two meters. “That’s called an aggregated net meter agreement with Pacific Power.

When you apply for aggregated net metering, you can take one solar system, such as this, and then scale it for multiple buildings or houses, and it really improves the economics,” Mills said.

Mills underscored that it’s not effective to send more power back to the grid than what you use, “because if you are providing power to the utility, then they’re probably going to be paying you wholesale for that

power. It actually decreases the cost of the power. Whereas if you’re offsetting your usage, you’re getting anywhere from 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour.”

That’s important to keep in mind when designing a renewable energy project: It doesn’t make economic sense to create a system that will provide more power than you need.

According to the CTUIR’s most recent economic analysis, the Tribes’ return on investment is about four-and-a-half years.

“It’s really easy to justify when the economics are that favorable,” Mills said.

If it doesn’t pencil out economically, it’s difficult to take a project from idea to reality. Mills added: “It takes some work to make sure you can satisfy those interests.

When you have an idea and you’re trying to get it funded, the economic viability is incredibly important. It might be one of the most important things from an organizational perspective.”

The CTUIR monitors its solar system performance daily through SolrenView. com. “It gives a lot of useful data and information,” said Mills, adding, “It’s real time. You see when the solar system turns on and how the power increases throughout the day. You can click on the analytics for weekly, monthly and yearly produc-

tions. It’s very useful.”

Beyond offsetting energy costs for the Tribes, the new energy source also creates educational opportunities for CTUIR students. They have the unique opportunity to witness energy from the sun being converted to electrical energy.

“There are not too many places where you have an opportunity to see, up close and personal, a system of this scale. It’s a really good learning opportunity for students, and especially those going into science and engineering,” Mills said.

Looking ahead to the future, Mills speculates that in 10 years’ time, several more community-scale solar projects will dot the reservation, and the Tribes will pursue energy efficiency to a greater extent, working it into all future building and construction projects.

“In 20 years, energy independence completely will be doable, but we would have to step up all renewable projects—solar and geothermal,” Mills said.

When Mills considers true Tribal energy independence, he acknowledges the CTUIR need their own electric utility: “That would be phenomenal, I think, and help not only with maintaining energy independence, but all the employment and economic benefits that come with that.”

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By Clifton Cottrell

From Fear

TO FAVOR Geothermal Energy’s Future

ON THE RESERVATION

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he area that now encompasses Yellowstone National Park, a 3,400 square mile expanse in the northwest corner of Wyoming complete with thousands of hot springs, geysers, and other geothermal features, as well as waterfalls, canyons, lakes, mountains, bison, grizzly bears, and wolves, was once a thriving hunting ground, meeting place, and home to Tribes like the Nez Perce and Shoshone.

Shortly after its designation as a national park by the U.S. government in 1872, park officials circulated a rumor that Indians feared the geysers to assuage concerns many American tourists had visiting this remote region on vacation. This myth ignored the deep-seated spiritual connection many Tribes had to the volcanic hotspot and served to sever Native ties to a powerful source of energy that physically bubbles up to the surface from the center of the Earth, often in violent and spectacular eruptions that reach hundreds of feet into the sky.

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Geothermal energy, power derived from the heat escaping the subsurface of the Earth, accounted for more than 17.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2016. This is a little less than one-half of one percent of the total electricity generated in the United States that year.

The vast majority of America’s geothermal potential is concentrated in California (72%) and Nevada (22%), with pockets of subterranean heat rising in states like Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and New Mexico. A few other states such as Texas, Louisiana, and North Dakota also have small geothermal facilities in operation.

More than a dozen countries utilize geothermal energy to heat homes and offices, pipe hot water under roads to melt snow and ice, and transport steam through turbines to generate electricity. According to the National Energy Authority, Iceland generates 25% of its electricity from geothermal energy via its more than two dozen active volcanoes, geysers, and hot springs.

Geothermal power comes from one of

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three methods- dry steam, flash, or binary systems. Dry steam takes advantage of the steam escaping subterranean thermal areas to drive turbines at the generation facility.

Flash systems pump hot water extracted from the Earth into pools of cooler water to produce steam that then pushes through turbines. Finally, the binary method runs the hot water next to a fluid with a lower boiling point, causing that fluid to turn into vapor to power the turbines.

Because the heat generated by the substrata of the planet can dissipate quickly upon exiting the Earth’s crust, facilities often must be built directly on top or adjacent to the heat source. This makes geothermal energy very site specific.

Geothermal does have its benefits. Geothermal fields emit very few carbon emissions, with estimates at around one-sixth the emissions of a gas plant. Some binary plants have near zero carbon emissions, making geothermal an excellent alternative to fossil fuels. Also, unlike wind and solar, geothermal hot spots tend to provide

PHOTO VIA: HOWARD IGNATIUS, FLICKR/CREATIVE COMMONS, HTTPS://TINYURL.COM/YA92M6VH, NO CHANGES MADE

Great Fountain Geyser in Yellowstone National Park

continuous energy for power generation.

With much of it concentrated in isolated pockets surrounded by western mountains and deserts, vast geothermal reserves have been slow to develop. Expensive costs for exploration and connection to distant transmission networks also limit geothermal’s potential in mainstream energy markets.

Connectivity is not the only worry with geothermal. The fluids used in some geothermal plants may contain toxic materials that complicate storage and disposal. For anyone that has visited Yellowstone National Park more than once over the past 30 years can attest, events like earthquakes can significantly alter the natural underground plumbing system that feeds these hot spots. A geothermal pool or fissure can quickly fizzle out and cool if a quake or man-made disturbance (like drilling) causes the collapse of the subterranean network that allowed heat to escape to the surface.

A 2002 policy guide by the U.S. Department of Energy expressed numerous concerns about Tribes exploring geothermal potential, including harm to spiritual sites, financing, Tribal decision-making, a perceived bias in Tribal courts, and pushback from Tribal members that were against electrification of reservations in general.

Although geothermal resources are often associated with the generation of electricity, these hot spots can also contribute

to local economies in a myriad of ways. The Office of Indian Energy noted that geothermal operations can aid in fish farming, bathing, concrete curing, the drying of fruits and vegetables, and beet sugar evaporation, to name a few.

From an electricity generation standpoint, geothermal requires very little land and water compared to other generation sources derived from renewable energies or from fossil fuels. Geothermal stations need only 47 acres per gigawatt (GW) produced, compared with 900 acres for coal, 1,400 acres for wind, and 4,300 acres for solar photovoltaic. The Office of Indian Energy further reported that around 6,000 megawatts (MW) of geothermal energy are in development now.

The top 5 Tribes for geothermal energy development are all located in the arid deserts of Arizona and Nevada or the dry steppe of eastern Oregon. Combined, the Navajo, Tohono O’odham, Warm Springs, Pyramid Lake, and Walker River Tribes have a geothermal capacity of more than 2 million megawatt-hours (MWh). According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), total Tribal potential at 196 different sites could ultimately account for

more than 2% of U.S. geothermal potential at a staggering 236 million MWh. So why are Tribes not tapping this unique geological resource at higher rates?

As previously mentioned, the cost of exploration to determine the best place to site the facility is a large barrier to entry.

Tribes interested in pursuing geothermal facilities should tap the $2 billion loan guarantee program recently announced by the U.S. Department of Energy to help ease that investigatory burden.

Another factor might lie in the often strong spiritual connection many Tribes have to unique landscapes across America.

In June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture rejected an application to explore and build a geothermal facility on a 46,000 acre lease in the Santa Fe National Forest after objections from the All Pueblo Council of Governors. The U.S. Geological Survey had previously designated more than 200,000 acres of the forest with “significant geothermal potential.”

The Forest Service’s explained that the rejection was in part to preserve the area from disturbance in order to respect and protect certain religious beliefs and cultural uses from nearby Tribes. The Forest Service concluded that “Tribes may consider the disturbance of the land or use of geothermal resources as an adverse impact that could not be avoided or minimized.”

Finding a way to harness these resources while honoring culturally relevant spiritual sites could hold the key to geothermal’s future in Indian Country.

For Tribes that are able to respectfully balance culture with development, the payoff is potentially high. Just south of the border, Mexico has instituted its own loan program with the goal of harnessing some of its 25 GW of untapped geothermal resources. The Maori of New Zealand are experiencing exceptional returns by extracting silica, a common component in paint, from the geothermal fluids on their lands. Such secondary benefits from the geothermal generation process only improve the environmental and economic impacts of capturing this natural resource.

The Yellowstone Caldera and other volcanic hot spots in the American West have served many important roles throughout the centuries. Tribes now have the opportunity to utilize this unique gift from nature to sustainably and responsibly power communities. Now is the time to prove that we do not fear what bubbles from the Earth; we favor it.

So why are Tribes not tapping this unique geological resource at higher rates?

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DAILY DIGEST: A Tribe in Northern Wisconsin Turns

F

FOOD WASTE TO ENERGY

By Mary Belle Zook

or the Forest County Potawatomi Community (FCPC), protecting Mother Earth and caring for its citizens are the Tribe’s highest priorities. Because of the Tribe’s commitment, it diversifies its businesses beyond gaming by incorporating green energy generation and usage across all FCPC buildings and enterprises.

“It’s part of the big picture plan for the Tribe to have a positive impact on the environment,” said FCPC Attorney General Jeff Crawford. “One of the things we wanted to do was reduce our carbon footprint, so we evaluated what kind of damage we were doing to the environment through our energy use.”

As a FCPC Tribal member, Crawford grew up on the northern Wisconsin reservation.

Upon graduating law school, he worked in the private sector and returned as an employee of the Tribe in 1997. He has served as the FCPC attorney general since 1999.

In the early 2000s, FCPC leaders, including Crawford, reached out to Tribal elders to gain a better understanding of the changing climate’s impact on the plants and animals that have sustained the Potawatomi people for generations. The elders explained the roots, plants and medicines they gathered were not as potent as they were in the past and that animal patterns were changing, Crawford said.

The Tribe began to study the world around them and ways in which they could propel the community forward while also ensuring natural resources for generations to come.

“We independently were able to scientifically look … and say ‘yes, there is, from our perspective, global warming. There is mercury in the air, water, plants and animals,’” Crawford said.

The conversations and findings inspired the FCPC to develop an environmental

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The Forest County Potawatomi Community's biodigester facility diverts millions of gallons of waste from going back into the earth and transforms it into electricty. mission statement that highlights its dedication to preserve Potawatomi traditional values by respecting all living things—protecting the air, water and soil for future generations, while employing efforts to remedy the negative impacts of its carbon footprint.

“It’s also part of that mission to look external[ly] to see how we can affect policy in the United States and to see how we can impact others by demonstrating that … you can have a strong economy and still protect the environment,” he explained.

Motivated by the Tribe’s renewed dedication, FCPC leadership looked for opportunities to mitigate its dependence on non-environmentally friendly energy.

“We made ourselves more efficient wherever we could, but in the end, we were still using energy that was coming from coalfired plants. And so for the Tribe to con-

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tinue on its mission to reduce our adverse environmental impacts, we’re going to have to produce our own green energy.”

Charged with this knowledge, FCPC began looking at building and developing a power plant, but to accomplish this, they had to find a feasible source to generate electricity.

“Whenever you want to open up any kind of power plant, you need to have a feedstock or a natural resource that’s close enough that it’s not going to cost you a lot of money to transport that resource to your energy plant,” Crawford said. “One of the abundant resources in the Milwaukee area, as in every major city in this country, is waste that’s going to dumps or down drains.”

Research determined food waste from across the Milwaukee metropolitan area was the most advantageous option for the Tribe. In 2013, FCPC implemented a $20

PHOTOS COURTESY FOREST COUNTY POTAWATOMI COMMUNITY

million biodigester facility located near the Potawatomi Hotel & Casino in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that converts the discarded material into electricity.

How it works FCPC’s biodigester utilizes anaerobic digestion, which is the process a human body undergoes in the stomach during digestion, to break down the food waste collected from around the city.

As trucks arrive, the facility pumps the contents in two 1.3 million gallon tanks that contain a balance of both good and bad bacteria.

“The bacteria in the tanks are essentially eating the carbon in the organic material,” Crawford explained.

This breakdown creates gases, mostly nitrogen, which is then cleaned, burned and transformed into electricity.

“We also capture the waste heat from generating that energy into our nearby casino, which is then used to offset the heating costs,” Crawford said.

The facility annually diverts approximately 12 million gallons of feedstock from going into landfills and converts it into 2.0 MW of clean energy. The electricity produced can power around 1,500 homes.

While the energy produced by the biodigester is not enough to meet the Tribe’s demands, all of its enterprises and buildings run on 100 percent green power from wind farms across the region.

“Until we get to the point where we are producing all of our green energy equivalent to or as much as we use, we are purchasing renewable energy credits on the

open market,” he said.

Additional green initiatives The Tribe installed solar panels on 15 Tribal buildings located on their Forest County, Wisconsin, reservation in 2015. The power generated from the panels creates enough energy for 750 homes and offsets energy demands by 20 to 90 percent.

“We’ve figured out how to make solar work in an [economical] way, so I’m pretty sure that means that almost any Tribe or any other governmental entity can make it work and make sense,” he said.

The FCPC strives to serve as a beacon for complete energy independence across Indian Country.

“If every Tribe became energy self-sufficient and the lights went out, there would be 500 points of light throughout North America, because the Tribes will be energy sufficient,” Crawford said. “But that’s not enough. It’s like being a role model to other governmental entities or businesses is part of it.”

FCPC also implemented a four-day work week, which has decreased overhead and carbon footprint across the Tribe. In fact, its efforts divert more than 14,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. That equates to the emissions from more than approximately 2,000 passenger vehicles or enough electrical usage for nearly 1,500 homes for one year.

Since the Tribe began utilizing eco-friendly practices like the biodigester and solar panels, the Environmental Protection Agency recognized the FCPC as one of the 100 largest green power users in

Above: Forest County Potawatomi Community Attorney General Jeff Crawford leads the Tribe’s green energy efforts.

Opposite page: The biodigester serves as an economic opportunity and lessens the Tribe's carbon footprint.

the United States, and the Tribe received acknowledgment as the 11th largest green power user in the nation among local government partners within the Green Power Partnership.

Beyond its innovative efforts, the FCPC advocates for Tribal sovereignty through actively monitoring legislation and regulation on the local, state and federal levels.

“We want to be able to make our own rules and laws that govern ourselves, but we also want to be independent and produce our own food. We want to be independent and produce our own energy. And so, it clearly a reflection of the Tribe and the Tribe’s sovereignty and it’s reflected in many ways including energy self-sufficiency,” Crawford said.

Tribally-owned businesses, like the biodigester facility, serve as a way to provide the FCPC financial stability now and for generations to come.

“We want to have a diversified economy so that we’re growing and diversifying our businesses beyond gaming,” Crawford said.

“At the same time, we’re using more energy. We’re using it more efficiently, but we’re still using more energy. So that means then we have to be creative and look for other opportunities to produce more green energy as we go forward.”

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PREPARE TO ENTER

HYDROPOWER MARKET

A

By Debra Utacia Krol

consortium of New England Tribes may be ready to kickstart an effort to get into the energy market after their first attempt crashed into a budget black hole.

Hiawatha Brown, former Narragansett Tribal councilman, and Shinnecock Nation Trustee Lance Gumbs partnered with representatives from the Aquinnah and Mash-

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pee Wampanoag Tribes in 2014 to discuss a common goal: “What industry can we enter into that will have a direct, but long-term impact for our people to provide economic development?” Brown notes that over the past 500 years of European occupation of New England, much infrastructure was put into place, including damming nearly every river to provide power.

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NEW ENGLAND TRIBES

“We talked about renewable energy,” he says. “We talked about wind towers, hydro, solar, biofuel and other sources.” But ideally, in New England, Brown says, the group determined that the most practical source is hydro power.

In fact, Brown says, “We found more than 6,000 hydro plants throughout New England from Maine to Connecticut.”

These waterways are very important to Native peoples in the region, and the dams had had a negative impact on their communities and homelands, disturbing waterways as well. “But we were also aware of the industrial development over the past 600 years since the Europeans came here,” he says.

Many of these plants’ leases were coming up for renewal, and the consortium devised a plan to put together and lease 10 dams at a time. “We would generate electricity, sell some on the grid [the electric market] and send some to our homes,” he says. The group soon found a team of 16 attorneys, grant writers and electric utility experts to support the effort, including “a member of the team that retrofitted the world’s largest dam in China,” says Brown. They developed a working plan and created a nonprofit energy organization to run the plants.

The group studied several dams and decided that a group of 60 dams would best meet their needs. They then created a smaller contingent of 10 dams to start the project. “The idea was, once we worked through all the environmental and government processes, it would take about 2 to 3 years to get the first one going,” Brown says.

After three years of preplanning and preparation, everything was ready to go, with one exception: the funding to make it happen. The U.S. Department of Energy had no funding source for Tribes wishing to enter the hydro power industry, he says, although there was funding available for other sustainable energy projects. Lacking government funding or a way to raise enough resources in the private sector to get the first dams online, which would help provide funding for the next ones, the group became discouraged and melted away.

Brown left office in 2016 after serving his Tribe off and on for nearly 35 years but is still hoping to restart the energy project, now that he’s learned that hydro power funding may be available from the Department of Energy. Gumbs was recently re-elected to a new term as trustee and is still serving as vice-chair of the energy consortium. “The first thing we’re going to do is go out and see which of our original team are still available,” says Brown. The group is also exploring the possibility of ocean wave energy generation.

DECADES OF PLANNING WENT INTO TRIBAL ACQUISITION OF HYDROELECTRIC PLANT

Flyovers provide a birds-eye view of the former Kerr Dam in Montana. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes became the first Native owners of a major hydropower plant in 2015, when they acquired the dam and the plant for $18 million after a decades-long planning process.

Subsequently they renamed the dam for the three Tribes on the Flathead Reservation, the Salish, Kootenai, and Upper Pend d’Oreille, and it is now called Seliš Ksanka Qĺispe Dam.

By Mark Fogarty

A

lot of careful planning went into the takeover of the Kerr Dam by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of Montana. In fact, it took 40 years for the Salish and Kootenai Tribes to realize their vision of owning a hydroelectric plant as part of a slow reacquisition of ancestral lands.

According to Brian Lipscomb, president and chief executive of Tribal affiliate Energy Keepers, Inc., the Tribes, based on the Flathead Reservation, made their first move to acquire Kerr Dam, now renamed Seliš Ksan-

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ka Qĺispe Dam after the three Tribes on the reservation (the Salish, Kootenai, and Upper Pend d’Oreille), in 1976.

“There’s quite a long story to this that paints a picture of who the Tribal people are and what their visions are for restoration of our reservation,” he said.

The development of the damsite by non-Tribal parties began during an assimilation period and the Tribe lost control of the site, he said.

“This is part of a longer story of reacquiring the reservation,” he said, that began with

Brian Lipscomb

the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

That strategy has taken Tribal ownership from 20 percent of the reservation to nearly 70 percent, he said.

The Tribes gave up their original land bases in the 1855 Hells Gate Treaty and were relocated to the present reservation. The Tribes have maintained a vigorous economic development pace over the years, with such companies as S&K Technologies, S&K Electronics, a Tribal college, an internal mortgage loan department, Eagle Bank, and the KwaTakNuk Casino and Resort on the shores of Flathead Lake.

In 1976, the Tribes put in a competing licensing application with Montana Power Company for a 50 year lease on the dam and the associated hydroelectric plant that was coming up in 1980.

MPC and its affiliates had controlled the plant for the previous 50 years, since 1930.

After a nine-year battle, Lipscomb said, the Tribe and MPC in 1985 became co-licensees for the second 50 year lease.

Under the terms of the deal, MPC retained control for the first 30 years, or until 2015, at which time the Tribes would acquire the license solely for the next 20 years, with the power company relinquishing ownership. That transfer of ownership occurred on Sept. 5, 2015 at a price of $18.3 million. The acquisition was the first of a major hydropower plant by a Tribe.

The next relicensing will take place in 2035, Lipscomb said, and Energy Keepers will start planning for that about ten years in advance. “The Tribes are right now, through us, making significant investments to make sure it is in good working order for several decades into the future.”

The plant is a major resource for the Tribes, whose reservation is located in northwestern Montana to the north of Missoula. It has a 208 megawatt capacity and generates one million megawatt hours of electricity annually.

As an example of how much power that is, “It’s enough to provide electricity for Missoula for a year,” he said. “About 120,000 homes.”

About 10 percent of that output goes to the federally owned but Tribally operated utility, Mission Valley Power, with the rest being sold on the wholesale market to customers all across Montana.

Some of those are very big customers, like the city of Great Falls, large industrials like mining companies and cement plants, and even a Bitcoin technology development facility.

But Energy Keepers isn’t just a producer of energy. It also acts as a broker, buying and selling electricity on the open market as a commodity.

“We’ve had some pretty good growth in that area,” said Lipscomb.

And some financial success. In the three years Energy Keepers has controlled the dam and the plant, it has returned about $65 million in payments to the Tribes, he said. While he would not reveal annual revenues, he said in general a megawatt hour brings in about $30 to $35, meaning that at one million megawatt hours the math isn’t hard to do.

Lipscomb, who is of both Kootenai and Salish ancestry, has been involved with the project off and on since 1992 when he was hired by the Tribes as a fish

Then about 30 people were hired to get the company off the ground and take over the facility.

The project kicked into high gear with the establishment of Energy Keepers in 2012. Just three years later, it acquired the dam and site. Currently, the company has 27 employees, half of them Tribal members.

“It keeps me hopping,” he said.

The dam is located five miles southwest of Polson, Montana, a town on the shores of Flathead Lake. It dams the Flathead River, which emerges from the lake, and is as high as Niagara Falls.

Energy Keepers has some operating restraints on the lake and the river it uses to maintain the water supply and environment. “We take a long term look at balancing the resource so we’ve built some pretty advanced models inside of our company to help manage and balance that water,” said Lipscomb.

The project was built in three phases: 1934-39 (dam and Unit 1), 1949 (Unit 2), and 1954 (Unit 3).

Unit 3 was upgraded in 2006.

Looking forward, Lipscomb sees some “build or buy” opportunities for Energy Keepers, including from the ongoing transition to renewable sources.

Though Energy Keepers derives most of its revenue from brokering, Lipscomb still keeps a close eye on precipitation in the area and noted with satisfaction that it had just snowed prior to his interview with Native Business Magazine.

“The amount of water we receive on an annual basis determines our output. Everything north of us we consider inventory,” he said.

PHOTOS COURTESY ENERGY KEEPERS, INC.

“It’s enough to provide electricity for Missoula for a year,” Lipscomb said.

“About 120,000 homes.” and wildlife manager. He remembered being handed a file on the dam project in his first week of employment. A major pre-acquisition project he was involved in around 2003 was to buy about 30,000 acres of “mitigation” habitat for $30 million.

He was named Tribal director of energy in 2010 and again was immediately handed a file on the dam project.

“We started at zero,” he remembered, with himself and three board members.

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NANA Reaches For

By Renae Ditmer

Installing the solar array

The Closest Star

“We’re hoping for July 2019 to be completely there. If we get Buckland done, then we’re looking at heat pumps to heat with low-cost electricity rather than diesel fuel.”

A

l “Sonny” Adams, NANA Corporation’s Director of Energy, can almost hear eyes roll when he starts talking about bringing solar energy to bush Alaska. But it doesn’t take him long to convince listeners that maybe that’s not as crazy as it sounds at first to deliver renewables to this sparsely inhabited region accessible only via plane or boat.

The impetus for looking at renewables in the region? The outrageous cost of home heating and the desire for clean energy.

Residents of the eleven remote Tribal communities in this Northwest Artic Borough are paying through the nose — some more than $1,000 per month — for natural gas and heating oil, and they’ve had enough.

Enter NANA Regional Corporation, Inc., a for-profit corporation, and one of the 13

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Regional Native Corporations created as a result of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of 1971. NANA’s stated mission is: “improve the quality of life for shareholders by maximizing economic growth, protecting and enhancing our lands, and promoting healthy communities with decisions, actions and behaviors inspired by our Iñupiat Ilitqusiat values consistent with our core principles.” It does so via operation as NANA Development Corporation, which provides services to the oil and gas industry, mining, hospitality sector, federal contracting and Tribal services.

As part of its commitment to the Alaska Native Tribes, NANA has a social responsibility as well as a fiduciary one. As such, it must provide employment opportunities and lifestyle support to its largely subsis-

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tence-focused Tribes. This includes ensuring the survival of its Tribal members, including economic survivability, in some of the globe’s harshest living and working conditions.

But such a lifestyle doesn’t come cheap.

With the cost of living 61 percent more than Anchorage — already 37 percent higher than the U.S. average — Tribal villages are now seeking cheaper energy that is also more consistent with their core environmental values.

Exorbitant energy prices derive from, according to NANA data, liquified natural gas and fuel oil which can run from $4.49 to $10.29 per gallon, or roughly two to three times the price in the continental United States—and for a much longer, colder winter, it should be noted. NANA also shows electricity pricing at $0.45 to $0.75 per kWh after the first 500 kWh, which are subsidized by the state, compared to the average cost of a kWh at $0.13 in the lower 48. Part of the problem, according to Sonny Adams, is that fuel must be purchased three to six months in advance, making buying akin to gambling. Moreover, fuel

PHOTOS COURTESY NANA CORPORATION

INFRASTRUCTURE

deliveries can only take place after the ice has broken up. Worse, once fuel supplies are exhausted, emergency fuel must be brought in by air, exacerbating the cost of energy. This seems ironic in fuel rich Alaska, but the closest refineries are located on its southern coast.

What started was a thinking out loud exercise, with knowledge that Germany had done something similar with much less annual light available. In fact, Alaska has 219 more hours of light than countries at the equator. Although Buckland, Alaska, sits at roughly 66°N latitude — nearly on the Arctic Circle — the land of the midnight sun also averages between 10 and 17 minutes more sunshine year-round than

any state in the lower 48. This makes solar a reasonable energy option from April through September. Even longer as global warming extends Alaska’s use of solar to cover the decreasing temperature gap during its increasing warmer weather season.

NANA’s job? How to capitalize on that.

According to Adams, the planning dates back to the 2009 NANA Strategic Energy Plan (SEP), which led to an energy analysis to identify renewable energy resources located in proximity with the 11 Tribes in the 38,000 square miles of this Northwest Arctic Borough. They looked at everything — solar, wind, batteries, geothermal — “anything that would hold down energy costs,” Adams told Native Business Magazine. NANA also held an energy forum the same year to better understand the challenges they might face and to render solutions for various options. A survey of the villagers provided the last piece of the puzzle: Would they support it? The answer was a resounding “yes,” as long as it didn’t impact their subsistence living and traditional practices. NANA then formed a regional energy committee which included all stakeholders and generated an energy plan that forms the basis for the solar program today.

While geothermal was also identified as a possible source of renewable energy, the $450,000 per mile price tag for the transmission line was prohibitive. The Kotzebue wind farm, the largest in Alaska, has been running since the late 1990s, and a proven source that has been expanded several times. Solar was also determined to be feasible. It was a matter of money — and collaboration — from that point onward. The total program price tag was $2,000,000, with the Department of Energy (DOE) through the National Energy Renewable Laboratory (NREL) kicking in $1,000,000 to launch the program in three villages: Buckland, Kotzebue and Deering. Each village had to come up with a portion of the balance in matching funds, with Buckland coming up with the funds first. Their stakeholders also came up with in-kind contributions to move things along (grav-

el, equipment), with the only request being that funds be used to pay City of Buckland employees that performed the work.

The Buckland solar installation is now complete and producing. A video of the project can be viewed at www.boxpower. io. “The goal here is once you have solar, wind and batteries, to go ‘diesel off.’ We’re hoping for July 2019 to be completely there. If we get Buckland done, then we’re looking at heat pumps to heat with lowcost electricity rather than diesel fuel.”

And once they have batteries, they’ll have year-round supplemental energy to further cut costs.

It’s a long reach, but Adams is encouraged. He relayed that when he briefs the project around the country that he always surprises people in how quickly the project was implemented. “I can tell you, though, that people are amazed that we went from making a regional energy plan and getting it implemented tangibly in Alaska.”

He chalked that up to the incredible collaboration they had amongst stakeholders across the region — and the lack of infighting. They just wanted success. He also credited Launch Alaska, a business accelerator working in the energy industry, for their solid support.

Erik Weber, Supervising Operator of the Buckland Water System, lauded the cooperative spirit of the stakeholders as well. “Everyone in the community and on the council was so supportive. We had easy-to-assemble, well-designed products from Box Power, great local management from David Rolland, an excellent electrician named Tim Weidensee, and an educated, hardworking local crew. Everyone pitched in. The mayor Tim Gavin, Jr., as part of the City’s in-kind services, led a crew, building fences around the utility complex. Everything went smoother than any construction project I’ve ever seen.

The time line was accelerated by months from what was projected!” Other governments could take a page from that book.

Weber reiterated that they want to be “diesel off” on schedule. At the rate they’re moving, they just might make it — and a bit of history at the same time.

A WAY TO MEASURE

TRIBAL ENERGY POTENTIAL

By Mark Fogarty

THE TRIBAL ENERGY ATLAS, AN INTERACTIVE TOOL, MEASURES THE CAPACITY FOR ENERGY GENERATION ON INDIAN LANDS.

T

ribes have long touted renewable energy sources as a means for revitalizing reservation economies.

Now, there’s a tool that can help them measure that potential directly.

The Tribal Energy Atlas, an interactive geospatial tool sponsored by the federal Office of Indian Energy and developed based on analyses done by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., looks at wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, woody biomass and biomethane energy, as well as infrastructure, environmental issues, energy expenditures and efficiency, electricity and natural gas prices, and utilities. It can be found at https://maps.nrel.

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gov/Tribal-energy-atlas.

Users can also sort the data by land administration, including Tribal, county, state and federal areas, and even by Congressional district.

One potential economic finding (it is called a technical finding in the report) is that Indian lands may account for a higher percentage of renewable energy potential than the overall national average. Tribal lands, making up 5.8% of the nation’s land area, are estimated to have 6.5 percent of the country’s technical renewable energy potential. And it is double that if you include the ten-mile radius around Tribal lands.

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Economic potential for wind and photovoltaic could be more than $75 billion, according to the report, which cautions that there are so many variables that numbers should only be considered illustrative.

Hydropower has the highest national generation potential on Indian lands, according to the analysis, at 36.4 percent, followed by CSP or concentrating sun power (8.3 percent) and wind (7.8%). Hydropower maintains the highest generation potential if the area is extended to Indian lands plus the adjacent 10 miles at 65.8 percent, with wind second and CSP third.

The Atlas is an “interactive geospatial application that allows Tribes to conduct

PHOTOS COURTESY NATIONAL RENEWABLE ENERGY LABORATORY

INFRASTRUCTURE

their own analyses of installed energy projects and resource potential on Tribal lands,” according to NREL. It measures conventional energy such as oil and gas as well as renewables.

The Atlas “allows users to conduct simple analyses of demographics, installed capacity, utility-scale renewable energy technical potential, and more.”

Anelia Milbrand, one of the authors of the NREL analysis, called “Techno-Economic Renewable Energy Potential on Tribal Lands,” said the research updated an earlier effort done in 2013 and was designed to be “flexible and easy to use. No special analysis expertise is required.”

Milbrand, whose specialty is biomass, said: “We updated that analysis last year and added Alaska, which was not previously included. We also added an economic analysis.”

Native Hawaiian lands are also included, though there is no data populated for them yet. The economic analysis includes Native Alaskan villages and Tribes from the lower 48 states.

Milbrand said the report was “static in nature,” meaning “we had all this great data that was not visible to folks. It didn’t show all this great wealth of knowledge.”

So NREL approached the Department of Energy with the idea of the atlas.

She said feedback from Tribes has been very positive so far, and that people have been “very excited” by it. “Tribes can use it for decision making,” she said.

A lot of the data in the atlas comes from the Tribes themselves. Milbrand estimated that 70 percent of them supplied information on current capacity. Tribes also gave valuable feedback during the development process, including “a laundry list of things they have asked us to add,” she said.

The projections of potential generation are “very tech-specific” and are “derived from many years in the field,” Milbrand said. Many considerations such as land use and terrain were added in, with conversion factors applied to come up with the estimates.

At a webinar and feedback sessions with Tribes, Milbrand said “People played with the tool itself and gave feedback on functionality.”

They were especially excited about the Tribal land query functionality.

“You go to a list of Tribal lands and click on one of them. The tool summarizes everything and creates a map. It’s a very clean way to summarize the data.”

The tool is easy to use. If you are interested in particular reservations, there’s a button called “Tribal land query” that lists them all. Using the Atlas for a look at the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico, for instance, shows the largest potential energy source there is solar photovoltaic, at 1,043 megawatts and 2,087,312 megawatt hours.

That is followed by concentrating sun power, at 333 MW and 1,331,552 MWh. Other functionalities of the atlas include “select and query data” where data queries are available for a single point on the map, a specific region, a custom-shaped area you can draw on the map, and an advanced tool that can filter your query based on specific attributes.

“Data layers” drill down to specific types of energy like wind, solar, geothermal and also divide land by administration: state, federal, county or Tribal. The Atlas also has a tutorials button and even a print wizard.

Milbrand said work on the paper took a year, with another five months or so for the development of the tool. And it remains a work in progress. She would like to see Tribes continue to supply data for updates, and has included an e-mail where they can send that information.

Data used for the Atlas come from the Office of Indian Energy-funded report generated by NREL and authored by Milbrand, Donna Heimiller and Paul Schwabe.

The report contains some rankings of Tribes by potential renewable energy sources.

For instance, the Navajo Nation has the highest technology potential for wind electricity generation, with a net generation of 329 million MWh. The Navajo has a wide lead over the Cheyenne-Arapaho Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area, at 192 million MWh, and the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache-Fort Sill Apache OTSA, at 141 million MWh. In all, Tribal wind generation potential is nearly four billion MWh, according to the study.

Potential Tribal Solar PV generation capacity is 24.5 billion MWh. Top Tribal capacity again goes to the Navajo, at 1.8 billion MWh, with second place claimed

by Cheyenne-Arapaho with 900 million MWh, followed by Kiowa-Comanche-Apache-Fort Sill Apache at 769 million MWh. CSP (concentrating solar power) potential for all Tribes is 7.7 billion MWh. Navajo leads again in this category, at nearly 2 billion MWh, followed by Kiowa-Coman-

Photovoltaic panels, like this one at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., have a large potential for energy generation in Indian Country, an NREL analysis has found.

che-Apache-Fort Sill Apache at 830 million MWh and Cheyenne-Arapaho at 807 million MWh. Woody biomass power generation potential at Tribes is 2.5 million MWh, with the Choctaw Tribe of Oklahoma coming in first at 446,000 MWh, followed by the Couer d’Alene reservation in Idaho, at 140,000 MWh, and the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina at 121,000 MWh. Interestingly, many Tribes have efficient methods of producing biogas: their casinos. “The main food waste generation sources on Tribal lands are casinos. There are approximately 486 Indian gaming operations in the United States; however, not all have restaurants on-site—our research indicates that approximately 394 locations have at least one restaurant on-site,” according to the report.

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There will be more Native welders in the energy industry as a result of a training deal between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and Pipeliners Union Local 798. Shown here: grinding away at Big Elk Energy Systems, a Native-owned manufacturer of pipeline parts in Tulsa.

How To Launch A

NATIVE ENERGY STARTUP

Below: Geoff and Alma Hager went through a few challenges getting the successful Big Elk Energy Systems off the ground.

By Mark Fogarty

PHOTOS COURTESY BIG ELK ENERGY SYSTEMS

Geoff Hager has some advice for potential Native entrepreneurs who want to follow his lead in starting up a successful energyrelated company: they have to really want it.

Really, really want it.

“You have to know that you know that you know that this is what you’re supposed to do,” he said.

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H

e can also guarantee potential entrepreneurs will face some of the trials he faced in starting up the now-successful Big Elk Energy Systems: loss of pay, potential bankruptcy and loss of health insurance and retirement benefits, among others.

But those that stick it out can be inspired by the success of Big Elk, a firm that manufactures massive parts for the pipeline industry and that this year is turning its first profit.

Native Business Magazine profiled Big Elk this past summer when the Tulsa-based company earned several number ones in the annual Inc. magazine rankings, including the status of fastest-growing manufacturer in the country (its revenue increased by a huge 3,152 percent over three years).

Since then, Big Elk has hired another 15 or so people (the current headcount is about 120), gotten traction on an internal training program for welders, gotten customer commitments for a new venture, and gotten to the brink of signing its first international contract.

Hager, a descendant of the Osage chief that Big Elk Energy Systems is named after, estimated the company will add at least 30 to 40 more jobs this year, despite an industry-wide labor shortage of welders and other skilled workers (see sidebar on the Cherokee Nation-Pipeliners Union Local 798 training deal for the opportunities this is providing Natives

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CHEROKEE CITIZENS GETTING TRAINING AS WELDERS Citizens of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma will be able to train for skilled welding and other positions in the energy industry as a result of a deal the Tribe has made with Pipeliners Union Local 798 of Tulsa.

The pipeline business has been experiencing a shortage of skilled workers, presenting a potential career opportunity for Natives.

The Tribe has inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the union to provide the training free for Cherokee citizens. The new skills could lead to jobs at sites all around the country.

The deal is significant not only for expanded job opportunities, but the chance to get more Native perspective into what can be contentious disputes between Tribes and pipeline companies.

“This MOU is historic because it means Tribes, especially the Cherokee Nation, will be at the table early in the development process so that we can voice opinions about cultural resources and natural resources before pipeline routes are determined and finalized here in Oklahoma,” said Bobby Gonzalez, Tribal liaison at the union.

“The union and Tribal government will have each other’s interest in mind.”

The 6,500-member union, which specializes in “downhill” pipeline welding, does work in 40 states and already counts a significant number of Tribal unionists.

The jobs are potentially well-paying, with entry level “welder helpers” having potential wages of more than $100,000 per year. Journeymen and senior welder positions, which require a lot more training, are also possible.

Local 798 business manager Danny Hendrix said, “This agreement could provide job opportunities for Cherokee Nation citizens that include nice wages, per diems, pensions, health care, 401(k) and structure. We want to help build careers.”

The Tribe’s Career Services department now provides training in carpentry, welding, masonry, electrical work, heavy construction and other trades, said Career Services executive director Diane Kelley.

“Our partnership with Local Union 798 will give Cherokee Nation citizens another avenue for training and wellpaying jobs,” she said.

PHOTOS COURTESY BIG ELK ENERGY SYSTEMS

OIL & GAS

to learn new trades).

Landing its first international contract, a potential $50 million Latin American deal, would generate enough demand to double its workers, and Hager is confident Big Elk will ink at least one of several potential deals.

Big Elk has started an internal program to train “high spec” welders from its own workforce. To date, three people have gone through the program, which involves them volunteering their time to work with mentors from Big Elk to develop the skills needed to step up from other positions, such as “lower spec” welders.

The company has also been helped on workforce by its high retention rate. “Our employees just don’t leave,” Hager said.

“They stay. They feel like a part of something very special.”

Hager, a man of faith, often speaks of things in religious terms (he calls entrepreneurship “a calling”). “Our people are evangelists,” he said.

The firm this year won an award from OK2Grow, a Tulsa-based small business workforce development and career pathways nonprofit, for Tulsa’s Innovation in Workforce.

Another venture ready to go wheels up with firm customer commitments is M3 Energy Services, a new effort Hager said is

“the first of its kind” in the industry. In essence, M3 is a field test operation to check on the accuracy of the parts Big Elk manufactures, like flow meters. Otherwise, the massive parts have to be taken to remote locations for testing.

Hager’s vision, hard work, sacrifice, and good connections are what those young Native entrepreneurs are going to need to launch startups in the energy field, if his experience is anything to go by. And connections to Native heritage and a few answered prayers might help, as well.

Hager, founder and general manager of Big Elk Energy Systems, believed that in starting the firm, he was doing what he was supposed to be doing with his life.

He and his family had to sacrifice a steady paycheck and health and retirement benefits to get it off the ground. He made a

Tulsa-based Big Elk Energy Systems builds massive parts, the size of semi tractor-trailers, for use in the pipeline industry.

his own company.

Hager’s grandmother, Big Elk’s granddaughter, died around the time he started the firm, and the company name reflects “the extremely important part my personal heritage” has for him.

The company’s website (www.bigelk. com) has a section devoted to photos and a biography of Big Elk, who was born in 1852 and died in 1902 and whose Osage name was Opahtunkah.

What does Opahtunkah, a chief of the Claremore band of Osage that settled near Hominy, Okla., mean to the company that now bears his name?

“The family name stands for strength, courage and leadership, an insight into the mission of Big Elk Energy Systems,” according to the firm. “We strive to bring to our company the proud tradition of the Big Elk family and the strength of that name.”

The biography notes that Big Elk was part of a delegation of Osage that went to Washington, D.C., in March of 1897 and was involved in many other significant

Hager’s vision, hard work, sacrifice, and good connections are what those young Native entrepreneurs are going to need to launch startups in the energy field, if his experience is anything to go by. good connection with investors who put a couple of million dollars into his startup.

A very religious man, Hager felt a divine guidance telling him he should be starting

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Tribal events. It also details the chief’s genealogy from the Nineteenth Century until now.

“The Big Elk descendants still own their original allotment in Hominy, Okla. where the Big Elk family cemetery is located,” the biography notes.

And when Big Elk launched its paint facility, a bunch of Big Elk’s descendants came out for the ribbon cutting.

Hager graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in Industrial Engineering and Management and worked in private industry before he experienced a divine intervention which convinced him he should start his own company.

It took a while. “I went two years without a paycheck and one year without medical insurance,” he said. He also liquidated his retirement account. But he was “one hundred percent” sure about what he was trying to achieve.

Raising the $7 million to open the doors of the 144,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in 2014 wasn’t easy, and it was helped by a vote of confidence by Onefire Holding Co., the investment unit of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

According to an account in the Tulsa World, “Citizens Bank of Oklahoma lent the

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company about $5 million of the required funds on the contingency that Big Elk could raise around $2 million in private capital.

“Big Elk succeeded, with Onefire Holding Co. and NewRoad Ventures acting as the leading private investors.”

As a result, Big Elk regularly reaches out to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation for potential personnel. Hager described one Native hire who started as a janitor and worked his way up to welder.

With its anticipated expansion, Big Elk is thinking big. It is building big, too. The things it manufactures for the oil and gas (mostly gas) pipeline industry are huge, carbon steel parts as big as semis.

Some of their products and services include: • Precision meter tubes.

• Meter skids.

• Control valve skids.

• Pig launchers and receivers.

• Fuel gas skids.

• Electronic flow measurement and gas quality analysis.

Big Elk also touts its manufacturing plant, which has more than 100,000 square feet of shop space. “Three large fabrication bays allow us to work at an increased ca-

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pacity, and still have room to fast-track projects,” it says.

Big Elk’s paint booth is one of the largest and best equipped in the industry, the firm says. It is also proud of a well-stocked warehouse. “We keep a safety stock of common material so that we have it on hand when we need it.”

Hager is thoughtful about the issues that Native people have had with pipelines and feels having Native people in the business can add some sensitivity to the frequent disputes about pipeline routes.

Hager is also thoughtful about the pleasures and perils of entrepreneurship.

People often think they are starting up a company for financial gain and to benefit their families. Yet in his case, the money equation first turned out to be a skirmish with bankruptcy. And as far as families go, entrepreneurs often spend so much time starting up their companies that they have little time for their families.

But after going through the ordeal, Hager is happy about the result. “After living it, I have an appreciation for how right it was,” he said.

“What kept me going is knowing [that] starting the company was what I was supposed to do.”

PHOTO COURTESY BIG ELK ENERGY SYSTEMS

Descendants of Osage chief Big Elk came to the launching of the paint facility at Big Elk Energy Systems, named after their ancestor.

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