Hyperion's impact? It's personal
By Michele Linck and Dave Dreeszen Journal staff writers | Posted: Sunday, April 06, 2008
Clarence Hanson, 98, stands in front of his home north of Elk Point, S.D. Hanson has sold options on his home and land, which would be in the middle of the proposed Hyperion oil refineral site. His home was once used for a Gateway 2000 television commercial designed to show rural South Dakota. (Staff photo by Tim Hynds)
ELK POINT, S.D. -- In a land where fifth-generation farmers are no rarity, Clarence Hanson is only the third generation of his family to live on the 160 acres homesteaded by his grandfather Andrew Hanson in 1899. But Clarence is nearly 98 years old. He and his first wife, who died of cancer, had no children, but a nephew owns the adjacent farm.
Hanson's white, wood-frame farmhouse was built by his parents in 1910, the year he was born. The house, with its broad front porch, is so evocative of wholesome Midwestern values and the rural way of life that Gateway filmed a computer commercial there about 10 years ago.
The TV spot shows a man driving up to the house in a shiny red pickup truck with a big cow-spotted box in its bed. It's the same route Hanson remembers traveling years ago himself in the bed of a wooden-wheeled, horse-drawn lumber wagon driven by his mother on their way to town for groceries.
Now, the peaceful country lifestyle Hanson and JaNice, his second wife, have chosen for decades may be coming to an end. The Hansons' house sits squarely in the footprint of the mammoth $10 billion, 400,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery proposed by Hyperion Resources of Dallas, Texas, for 3,292 acres of farmland north of Elk Point.
If the company's recently granted zoning for the refinery wins voter approval in the June 3 referendum, the couple plans to move to an assisted living home in Elk Point.
Hanson, like dozens of others, sold purchase options on his land a year or so ago to agents of a then-unidentified company touting a "major economic development project." He doesn't want to talk about where he stands on the refinery now that it could be imminent, except to acknowledge he feels sad about leaving the land and his home.
Some of Hanson's neighbors and others in southern Union County aren't as circumspect about their views. Whether they laud the jobs and wealth a refinery would create or decry the pollution and cultural changes it would most certainly bring, they are willing to share their thoughts.
Adds to the 'arsenal'
Ron and Maxine Bird, who live just two miles from Hanson's home, were among the first families to sign a deal. The couple optioned 680 acres nearly a year ago, before they knew exactly who was buying the land or what the buyer intended to do with it.
After Hyperion identified itself last June, the Birds remained comfortable with their decision, even though most of the acreage has been in Maxine's family for 140 years.
"We're behind it 100 percent,'' Ron Bird said of the energy center. "We think the country is in great need for additional refining capacity. Now it's a chance to add one more refinery to the arsenal.''
Much of their optioned land falls within the energy center's footprint. Their home of 48 years -- about 3 miles south of the small town of Spink -- is just outside the proposed construction zone.
Maxine Bird has lived her entire life on the farmstead, which was homesteaded by her great-great-grandfather in 1868. Ron and Maxine's son, Reid, 47, is the fifth generation of their family to farm.
If Hyperion exercises its options, the couple plans to invest the proceeds into other farmland. "My son has many years of farming ahead of him,'' Ron said.
As for Ron, he would retire from active farming. He and his wife also are prepared to leave their longtime home.
"They haven't closed on the options. We will live here until that time,'' Ron said. After that, ''we will probably end up moving to town.''
Opportunity knocks
Barbara Bernard, 79, grew up on the Union County farmstead where she lives with her husband, John Bernard, 82. The couple, who have farmed there since the early 1950s, agreed last year to option 160 acres for the Hyperion project, which they support.
"I think it's a great opportunity for Union County,'' John said.
The couple are currently cash renting their farm ground. Though their home is outside the refinery footprint, they have been looking ahead to where they would go if Hyperion exercises the options. Early on, they thought about building a new home on another farm they own a mile to the north. Because they'd still be a dozen miles from the nearest town, they're now reconsidering.
"We got to thinking, at our age, it's almost a foolish thing to do,'' he said. "If we move, we should move to town.''
'I want to be left alone'
Kevin Kelley, 59, and his significant other, Pam Kadous, live on an acreage where Kelley settled permanently in 1975. When his house burned down, uninsured, neighbors helped him build a new one. Over the next 20 years he continued to develop the property, where he runs an ag equipment repair business.
Turkeys, deer, pheasants and coyotes frequent the acreage, and the view extends to the Nebraska bluffs. The couple cherish the organic orchard Kelley established 30 years ago -- cherries, apples, peaches and more. They grow vegetables without chemicals and preserve them each year and keep a few chickens for eggs.
"I moved here planning to spend my retirement here," Kelley said. "Now it looks like I won't be able to live here. I don't want to be compensated. I want to be left alone." He said he doesn't think he could sell the acreage, either.
The property, at 47440 315th St., is not only adjacent to the refinery site, but given the roads the project will close, Kadous said, they'll need a 1.5-mile easement just to leave their driveway. Yet the company has never contacted them.
Kelley, who said he's attended every public hearing and commission meeting he could on the subject, said Hyperion "has no real site plan, no accurate data, no elevations and no way to know where specific units are gong to be." He said he worries about the 350-foot-tall flare stacks and the estimated 80 tons per year of sulfuric acid mist the company's air permit application shows the refinery could emit, along with tons of other pollutants.
'What are they losing?'
"I'm not necessarily against the refinery," said Brian Davis. "I don't think this is the area for it."
Davis and his wife, Mary, were bankers in Pierre, S.D., when they married and a couple of years later moved to Brian's native Union County to farm land homesteaded in 1901 by his great-grandfather. That land is a half-mile from the proposed refinery site.
The Davises raise crops on 1,000 acres along the Missouri River and built their house on 500 acres where they live with their three children, Caitlin, 13, Cody, 11, and Calli, 6, and have a cow-calf operation. Brule Creek runs along their property, an asset for the cows and the children.
And Mary, a runner, loves the low-traffic gravel roads. "It's so peaceful," she said. " Now I think, is it going to be safe?
"I don't think people realize this isn't a little ethanol plant or a manufacturing plant," she said. "I think that's our greatest fear; It's going to change our way of life drastically."
Mary said the younger children aren't too affected by the uncertainty yet. But Caitlin asks whether they'll have to move. And Mary has already told her that with thousands of men living on the site and all the traffic the refinery would generate, she didn't know if she would let her drive.
Brian said he worries that the rail spur and pipeline, whose routes haven't been revealed by Hyperion, will come right through some of his fields and "screw up" his farming. And he fears that if Hyperion exercises enough options, land rents will rise beyond reach for some.
It's unclear how many acres Hyperion controls through purchase options.
Brian said he bears no ill will against neighbors who have sold options and might have done the same if he were ready to retire. Hyperion negotiated with the Davises early on over their land near the river, then they heard nothing for six months, Brian said. Then they negotiated over the land where they live, then nothing.
"I guess that's not the way we do business here in South Dakota," he said. "They left us hanging."
What riles him the most is the attitude of the refinery's supporters, who he says "paint (the opposition) like a bunch of radicals. My question is, what are they losing in this deal? We're looking at giving up our homes and businesses.
"These guys are 25 miles away. It isn't going to affect them a bit. If they want it so bad, let them come up and build a house next to me. I'll find a lot for 'em."
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Hanson's white, wood-frame farmhouse was built by his parents in 1910, the year he was born. The house, with its broad front porch, is so evocative of wholesome Midwestern values and the rural way of life that Gateway filmed a computer commercial there about 10 years ago.
The TV spot shows a man driving up to the house in a shiny red pickup truck with a big cow-spotted box in its bed. It's the same route Hanson remembers traveling years ago himself in the bed of a wooden-wheeled, horse-drawn lumber wagon driven by his mother on their way to town for groceries.
Now, the peaceful country lifestyle Hanson and JaNice, his second wife, have chosen for decades may be coming to an end. The Hansons' house sits squarely in the footprint of the mammoth $10 billion, 400,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery proposed by Hyperion Resources of Dallas, Texas, for 3,292 acres of farmland north of Elk Point.
If the company's recently granted zoning for the refinery wins voter approval in the June 3 referendum, the couple plans to move to an assisted living home in Elk Point.
Hanson, like dozens of others, sold purchase options on his land a year or so ago to agents of a then-unidentified company touting a "major economic development project." He doesn't want to talk about where he stands on the refinery now that it could be imminent, except to acknowledge he feels sad about leaving the land and his home.
Some of Hanson's neighbors and others in southern Union County aren't as circumspect about their views. Whether they laud the jobs and wealth a refinery would create or decry the pollution and cultural changes it would most certainly bring, they are willing to share their thoughts.
Adds to the 'arsenal'
Ron and Maxine Bird, who live just two miles from Hanson's home, were among the first families to sign a deal. The couple optioned 680 acres nearly a year ago, before they knew exactly who was buying the land or what the buyer intended to do with it.
After Hyperion identified itself last June, the Birds remained comfortable with their decision, even though most of the acreage has been in Maxine's family for 140 years.
"We're behind it 100 percent,'' Ron Bird said of the energy center. "We think the country is in great need for additional refining capacity. Now it's a chance to add one more refinery to the arsenal.''
Much of their optioned land falls within the energy center's footprint. Their home of 48 years -- about 3 miles south of the small town of Spink -- is just outside the proposed construction zone.
Maxine Bird has lived her entire life on the farmstead, which was homesteaded by her great-great-grandfather in 1868. Ron and Maxine's son, Reid, 47, is the fifth generation of their family to farm.
If Hyperion exercises its options, the couple plans to invest the proceeds into other farmland. "My son has many years of farming ahead of him,'' Ron said.
As for Ron, he would retire from active farming. He and his wife also are prepared to leave their longtime home.
"They haven't closed on the options. We will live here until that time,'' Ron said. After that, ''we will probably end up moving to town.''
Opportunity knocks
Barbara Bernard, 79, grew up on the Union County farmstead where she lives with her husband, John Bernard, 82. The couple, who have farmed there since the early 1950s, agreed last year to option 160 acres for the Hyperion project, which they support.
"I think it's a great opportunity for Union County,'' John said.
The couple are currently cash renting their farm ground. Though their home is outside the refinery footprint, they have been looking ahead to where they would go if Hyperion exercises the options. Early on, they thought about building a new home on another farm they own a mile to the north. Because they'd still be a dozen miles from the nearest town, they're now reconsidering.
"We got to thinking, at our age, it's almost a foolish thing to do,'' he said. "If we move, we should move to town.''
'I want to be left alone'
Kevin Kelley, 59, and his significant other, Pam Kadous, live on an acreage where Kelley settled permanently in 1975. When his house burned down, uninsured, neighbors helped him build a new one. Over the next 20 years he continued to develop the property, where he runs an ag equipment repair business.
Turkeys, deer, pheasants and coyotes frequent the acreage, and the view extends to the Nebraska bluffs. The couple cherish the organic orchard Kelley established 30 years ago -- cherries, apples, peaches and more. They grow vegetables without chemicals and preserve them each year and keep a few chickens for eggs.
"I moved here planning to spend my retirement here," Kelley said. "Now it looks like I won't be able to live here. I don't want to be compensated. I want to be left alone." He said he doesn't think he could sell the acreage, either.
The property, at 47440 315th St., is not only adjacent to the refinery site, but given the roads the project will close, Kadous said, they'll need a 1.5-mile easement just to leave their driveway. Yet the company has never contacted them.
Kelley, who said he's attended every public hearing and commission meeting he could on the subject, said Hyperion "has no real site plan, no accurate data, no elevations and no way to know where specific units are gong to be." He said he worries about the 350-foot-tall flare stacks and the estimated 80 tons per year of sulfuric acid mist the company's air permit application shows the refinery could emit, along with tons of other pollutants.
'What are they losing?'
"I'm not necessarily against the refinery," said Brian Davis. "I don't think this is the area for it."
Davis and his wife, Mary, were bankers in Pierre, S.D., when they married and a couple of years later moved to Brian's native Union County to farm land homesteaded in 1901 by his great-grandfather. That land is a half-mile from the proposed refinery site.
The Davises raise crops on 1,000 acres along the Missouri River and built their house on 500 acres where they live with their three children, Caitlin, 13, Cody, 11, and Calli, 6, and have a cow-calf operation. Brule Creek runs along their property, an asset for the cows and the children.
And Mary, a runner, loves the low-traffic gravel roads. "It's so peaceful," she said. " Now I think, is it going to be safe?
"I don't think people realize this isn't a little ethanol plant or a manufacturing plant," she said. "I think that's our greatest fear; It's going to change our way of life drastically."
Mary said the younger children aren't too affected by the uncertainty yet. But Caitlin asks whether they'll have to move. And Mary has already told her that with thousands of men living on the site and all the traffic the refinery would generate, she didn't know if she would let her drive.
Brian said he worries that the rail spur and pipeline, whose routes haven't been revealed by Hyperion, will come right through some of his fields and "screw up" his farming. And he fears that if Hyperion exercises enough options, land rents will rise beyond reach for some.
It's unclear how many acres Hyperion controls through purchase options.
Brian said he bears no ill will against neighbors who have sold options and might have done the same if he were ready to retire. Hyperion negotiated with the Davises early on over their land near the river, then they heard nothing for six months, Brian said. Then they negotiated over the land where they live, then nothing.
"I guess that's not the way we do business here in South Dakota," he said. "They left us hanging."
What riles him the most is the attitude of the refinery's supporters, who he says "paint (the opposition) like a bunch of radicals. My question is, what are they losing in this deal? We're looking at giving up our homes and businesses.
"These guys are 25 miles away. It isn't going to affect them a bit. If they want it so bad, let them come up and build a house next to me. I'll find a lot for 'em."
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Dave Wilson wrote on Apr 11, 2008 11:49 AM:
homeiswheretheheartis wrote on Apr 8, 2008 9:57 PM:
savemysmalltown wrote on Apr 7, 2008 4:27 PM:
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