A major oil company is facing a substantial fine for years of pollution on Native land. The Justice Department announced Thursday that it had secured a $241.5 million settlement from Marathon Oil for polluting the air of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota with methane from natural gas flaring.
“This historic settlement — the largest ever civil penalty for violations of the Clean Air Act at stationary sources — will ensure cleaner air for the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation and other communities in North Dakota, while holding Marathon accountable for its illegal pollution,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland.
The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, home to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara peoples, was established in 1870 by executive order. Its creation was part of an effort to halt years of violence and settler incursions into Native land in the northern plains of what is now the United States.
High Country News reported in 2012 that although oil was discovered on the territory in 1951, federal U.S. bureaucracy made access difficult. This bureaucracy was reduced ahead of the Bakken shale oil boom, which brought money into the area where poverty remains double the national rate. These riches were unequally distributed, leading to significant conflict and even murder.
However, this financial influx came at a significant environmental cost. One byproduct of natural gas drilling is “flaring,” when natural gas not captured by drilling operations is partially burned off and released into the atmosphere. The Justice Department noted that methane, one of those gases, is “a climate super-pollutant that is 25 times more potent in the near term than carbon dioxide.” Inside Climate News reported two years ago that as much as 240 billion cubic feet of natural gas was released on reservation land between 2012 and 2020.
Most of the settlement money will not be handed over in cash. Marathon told the government that it will spend $170 million to reduce emissions at its Fort Berthold operations. The company will pay $64.5 million, which the Justice Department says is the largest-ever instance of such a fine.
Marathon Oil, which is in the middle of a $170 billion acquisition by ConocoPhillips, said in a securities filing that “we do not believe that the mitigation expenditures, penalties, and injunctive relief that resulted from this settlement will have a material adverse effect on either our business or operations or the previously announced Agreement and Plan of Merger with ConocoPhillips.”