your tax dollars at work

November 12th, 2008

Your Tax Dollars at work.

You may remember in last week’s article I mentioned the D & I railroad. Well, let me give you some additional information that will really make you sit up and take notice. At the very least it will give you an inside look at your tax dollars at work.
The D & I railroad runs from Dell Rapids to Sioux City. The D & I is a wholly owned subsidiary of L.G. Everist. Now here is where it gets interesting. I’m sure my facts are straight, but I’m not able to confirm all the information so if this isn’t correct, I apologize, but I’m 99% sure this is correct. The D &I railroad operates on a rail line owned by the state of South Dakota. Yes folks, the State of South Dakota. So even though the state owns the railroad line, the D & I has almost exclusive use of the line. The other would be Burlington Northern. L.G Everist is one of the biggest if not the biggest aggregate mining company in this part of the country. I believe among others, they own the Higman gravel pit in Akron and the gravel pit in Hawarden. In their agreement with the state of South Dakota they do not pay anything for moving the aggregate up and down the railroad. Another interesting fact is that this rail line is part of the Sioux Valley Regional Railroad Authority. The board of directors is made up of representatives from each town that the railroad goes through. Some of the members are Brad Mccoy representing Beresford, Spencer Haacke of Hawarden, Gerald Bohr of Westfield, Maggie Gillespie of Alcester, Mark Fincke of Rock Valley, (formerly of Beresford) Union County Commissioner Milton Ustad is a participant but nonvoting member representing Union County. Also a member of the board is the president of D & I railroad, Mr. Jack Parliament from Sioux Falls.
Now here comes Hyperion and wants to have the D & I build a spur to the refinery. Well, the D & I doesn’t have the money for this project so they will have to get a loan. Guess where they will get the money? The state of South Dakota railroad board has in excess of $10 million dollars which is to be used exclusively to build, upgrade and improve rail lines in the State of South Dakota. They will loan the money to D & I at a very reasonable rate of interest and let D&I build the line on the state owned railroad to the Hyperion site. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. This refinery is going to be built with our tax dollars. If Hyperion gets a loan from the government; not a tax credit, but a loan for the $10 billion for the refinery, this is more of our tax dollars at work folks. Between the state of South Dakota and the Federal Government this will be a slam dunk for Hyperion. I’ve always heard that if you want to get rich, think big. Is this big or what?
Now before you go any farther, I was doing some research on the internet about Alberta tar sands, and ran across an article that almost made my heart skip a beat. It is from Time magazine dated November 4th, 1966. That’s right folks, November 4th 1966. This isn’t something that is made up. I couldn’t make this up, It is too bizarre; it is straight out of the Time magazine. You can find the whole article if you go to timemagazine.com and then do a search for Alberta tar sands. This is the 5th paragraph of the article. Hold onto your hats folks!! ! !
This is dated November 4th, 1966. Time magazine.
Those White House Calls. Brisk demand has given fresh urgency to some projects for new oil sources. Next fall in Alberta, a $240 million plant built by a Sun Oil Co. Canadian subsidiary will begin extracting 45,000 bbl. of oil a day from the Athabasca tar sands, which contain 369 billion bbl. of recoverable oil. Interest is also reviving in Colorado's vast deposits of oil shale. Recently, some producers in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas raised basic crude-qil prices 80 to $3,08 per bbl.—closer to the point at which extraction of oil from shale could be economical. After that price rise, other producers were telephoned by White House officials, who warned them that anything over $3.05 would displease President Johnson. Since then, none have stepped across the line.
Talk about being completely stunned. The united states has know about the tar sands for over 42 years and still practically nothing has been done up there. Who is kidding who about this refinery? This is pure poppycock. If it wouldn’t have been economical at $3 a bbl. It sure isn’t economically feasible at $90 a bbl. I said the very first day that this announcement came out that it might be homeland security building an operations center, but no way would it be refinery. After reading that article from 1966 I have never been more convinced that this is a big scam; a land grab and I’m sticking to it. I don’t know what Huddleston is spending his money on but it sure isn’t a refinery.
I don’t know what to think about DENR. I figured they were just a formality for Hyperion to go through to get the air permit, but suddenly DENR gets some backbone and wants Hyperion to take extra precautions by putting thermal oxidizers on the 100+ storage tanks to prevent pollution in the local area. Hyperion says it restricts its flexibility on storage options. Does this mean they will be storing something other than oil products? Wonder what that statement means? Is it possible that Hyperion is being devious in their plans for the refinery site? Stay tuned folks.