A Native American tribe in Minnesota has revolutionized their reservation’s energy production, combining their beliefs with modern sustainable technologies.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) incorporated biomass fuel production, wind energy and water reclamation on their Prior Lake, MN, reservation to create well-functioning renewable sources of energy and reduce dependency on oil production and natural gas. 

The tribe’s commitment to being a good steward of the earth is the driving force behind their environmentally-friendly initiatives.

According to the tribe’s website, their term for earth, “Unci Maka,” translates to “Grandmother Earth,” indicative of the kinship relationship between the SMSC people and the earth.

“As a relative, the Dakota people are dedicated to protecting and preserving the environment,” the site says.

One of the biggest steps the SMSC has taken is constructing the Koda Energy Plant. 

The plant burns malting and food processing byproducts, raw materials such as wood chips and sawdust, bio-solids, and dry grasses to generate approximately 12.5 to 24.1 megawatts of electricity.

Waste heat created from the electrical generation is used by Rahr Malting, one of Koda’s partners and a main source for the biomass material. Excess energy that is not used by Rahr or the SMSC is sold to Xcel Energy and placed back on the grid.

A wind turbine provides another primary energy source for the Shakopee Community, creating 1.5 megawatts of energy metered at the nearby Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative (MVEC) and sold to their supplier, Basin Energy.

Although the Community is located in a low-wind site, the wind turbine generates energy during high-wind periods that is stored for use during low-wind periods.

Water reclamation has also been an important area for the SMSC over the past twenty years.

Until 2006, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community had to make use of an older regional government Water Reclamation Facility (WRF) for its sewer system, which created several problems.

The facility dumped waste directly into the Minnesota River, a leading cause of water pollution in the area. The sewer system was outsourced to the government facility, which required the Community to make formal requests for extra units whenever new housing was built.

To remedy these problems, the SMSC built its own WRF in 2005, completed in 2006.  As a result, the Community is able to use treated effluent for irrigation purposes, and has reduced groundwater use by 35 million gallons per year.

The facility also boasts the latest technology in water reclamation, using biologically aerated filtration systems to clean the reclaimed water. Remaining Biosolids are removed to the irrigation system, dried, compressed, and used as fertilizer at the local golf resort and farms.

Because of the SMSC’s conservation efforts, the area’s dependency on oil and gas has been reduced to almost zero percent, an accomplishment pleasing to grandmother earth.

Facebook is in the news again.  But this time it’s not what the social media giant is doing, but what Facebook users are being asked to do. 

Stories surfaced a few weeks ago about employers asking potential employees for their Facebook username and password. 

There is no question that savvy employers are using simple searches on the internet to find out what potential employees are up to.  But asking for their username and password crosses a boundary that most people are uncomfortable with, as well as bringing up questions about the legality of the practice. 

Given the still shaky job market, many people feel that they have no choice but to surrender this private information in order to get a job.

All of this lands us in the murky waters of internet regulation. 

Facebook released a statement warning employers against the practice of asking for Facebook passwords. Two U.S. senators are working to get this practice under control. 

Senators Chuck Schumer of New York and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have asked Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate these claims under the argument that the practice violates the Stored Communications Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.  In addition, Senator Leland Yee of California plans to sponsor a bill that would stop employers from asking potential employees for their social network passwords.

I think it’s interesting that employers are prohibited by state and federal laws from asking about your race, religion, marital status, age, or sexual preference, yet these are all things that are available in your Facebook profile.  These laws have not yet caught up with social media. 

Catherine Crump, attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “I think it’s going to take some years for courts to decide whether Americans in the digital age have the same privacy rights.” 

I wonder if we’ll look back on this in five or ten years and think it was no big deal.  We are certainly in uncharted territory as far as social media and what may be considered crossing the line. 

What seems outrageous to adults now may seem like nothing to kids who have grown up with the technology that lets them share minute details of their lives.  When they enter the workforce, maybe it won’t be such a big issue for them. 

What do you think?

March 25, 2012, marks the 101st anniversary of New York City’s deadliest industrial accident, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

In less than 20 minutes, 146 workers burned, or jumped or fell to their deaths while trying to escape the flames at the factory.

The Fire Safety Commission at the time reported that over 95% of New York shops had defective safety conditions. Many lacked usable fire escapes and adequate exits.  A common management practice at the time was to lock employees inside the crowded and cluttered sweatshops during work hours to discourage breaks and stealing.

Soon-to-retire NYC Fire Chief Edward F. Croker had cited Triangle’s location (the Brown Building, fka, the Asch Building at 23-29 Washington Place) multiple times for lack of fire escapes, the last only a week before the fire.

Property owners and their representatives resisted, claiming sprinklers were “cumbersome and costly” and that such enforced regulations would “wipe out industry in the state.”

Individual witnesses and survivors of the Triangle fire agreed on numerous circumstances that contributed to the high number of deaths (several of which were preventable):

• The fire was likely started by a match or cigarette butt tossed into a scrap bin on the 8th floor of the 10-story building.

• Factory environment: long work tables difficult to get around, crowded rooms cluttered with flammable materials, oily floors from leaking machinery.
• Boxes (of work materials) blocked the exit.
• The door leading to the stairwell was locked from the outside.
• The building had no sprinkler system, only water pails – many of which were empty.
• The sole fire escape, many years rusted, collapsed.
• Firemen’s hoses lacked enough pressure to reach the fire.
• Firemen’s ladders reached only the 6th floor.

• Firemen’s nets all split upon impact.

In a report following the Triangle fire, the Commission quoted NYC Fire Chief John Kenlon as stating, “Had an automatic sprinkler system been installed in the Triangle Waist Company building, he believed that not a single life would have been lost.”

It is that time of year again.  A hint of spring is in the air, there is the sound of birds singing in the mornings carrying a feeling of the warm weather to come.  Another sign of good things to come is the opening of baseball spring training camps.  All of those players who have hibernated for the winter show up in places like Florida and Arizona to get ready for another season of challenge and fan enjoyment.

We at Citation, being headquartered in Scottsdale, have a tradition of taking all staff who wants to go to an afternoon spring training game.  The planning for the outing starts months in advance and gives baseball fans like me and my wife the chance to have our own little spring break each year.  This year we are going to a Diamondbacks vs. Angels game.  Being from the east coast, and more specifically from the New York area, my wife and I happen to be die hard Yankee fans, but that doesn’t matter.  Going to the stadium, eating a few hot dogs and maybe drinking a beer or two will be a lot of fun.

So, you are probably saying by now, what does any of this have to do with rules and regulations?  Well, as I reflected on why many of us like the game as much as we do one fact came to mind, that of the constancy of the game itself.  The rules as set down by Alexander Cartwright back in 1845 (and I bet many of you thought I would say Abner Doubleday – who by the way I thought really was the inventor for the first 50 years of my life) haven’t really changed much since those early days of the game, and I think that is a prime reason for the sport’s popularity.

The rules are fair to both the offense and defense and thus the game is not tilted to one approach or the other.  The consistency of the rules allows for measurements to be made and thus year to year comparisons as well.  Half the fun of watching the game is to delve into the stats and make the comparisons between now and then.

That is not to say that there has not been controversy over the years, and it was usually caused by a rule change.  I was a young kid when Roger Maris hit 61 home runs to break the home run title held for many years by Babe Ruth.  I witnessed many heated discussions amongst my family, many of whom could not accept the fact that Roger could hold a title they claimed he was only able to achieve because of a rule change (the number of games played in a season). The asterisk discussions we were so involved in during the 1990s regarding steroids and statistics actually started back in 1961.

To balance the consistency of the basic game rules are the cultural differences that each of the baseball clubs have.  These cultures seem to just grow into themselves.  You have the business-like demeanor of the Yankees to the more free flowing, anything goes Oakland A’s.  It is these team differences that make each of us gravitate to the team that probably best matches our own approach to life.  To augment what I am trying to say here I would refer you to a column recently written by David Brooks, New York Times columnist, who has an excellent piece on how we pick the teams we root for, titled “Hey, Mets! I Just Can’t Quit You.”

So, thanks baseball, for following good and consistent rules played by a diverse collection of teams that will bring us again this year lots of anguish, anticipation, hope and despair – but most of all fun.

In this year of political positioning it seems to be very popular to decry regulation as onerous and unnecessary.  I believe that there is a race to the bottom in this particular subject and those that profess this course of action just don’t accept the facts.  Those who believe that the free market will take care of all things through its own built-in mechanisms should look at an example of smart regulation that affects each of us every day.

 In the March 12, 2012 issue of Time magazine there appeared an article titled “Safer Passage.”  The gist of the article was primarily to show that traffic deaths have fallen to all-time record lows.  The lead of that article stated that, “America’s roadways are safer than ever.  The latest data show that traffic fatalities are at the lowest level since 1949 and that the death rate based on miles traveled is the lowest in history.”  Now, this great achievement didn’t happen by accident and it sure didn’t happen because free market forces were solely at work.

The article had a graphic that indicated the major milestones from 1952 to the present day that lead to achieving the lowest death rate in history.  As I scanned the list there was a definite mix of private industry innovation, such as the Daimler-Benz 1952 patent for the crumple zone to absorb collision energy or the patent for the child safety seat in 1962, and government regulation, such as the federal legislation that cars be outfitted with seat belts in 1967 and the regulation for the requirement for energy absorbing steering columns in 1968.

I must admit that I am old enough to remember the debate back then as to whether the auto industry could survive if it were forced to install seat belts in every car.  So I went to the archives of the New York Times to see if my memory was correct.  I found an article dated April 26, 1966 which reported on the auto industry “abandoning its fight against any Federal standards.”  The article went on to say the auto industry requested that if standards were to be introduced that the feds be directed to “collaborate with state motor vehicle authorities in an effort to achieve a consensus that will result in Federal and state standards being as uniform and complementary as practicable.”

Industry working together with regulatory bodies to set a minimum level of safety seems to have been the optimum and maybe the only way to achieve the goal of reducing needless death.  Private industry could invent the seat belt but could not enforce its use, however, the government could.  I know that I am treading on the libertarian view that government should not force an individual to wear a seat belt but I will reserve that discussion for another blog post.

By the way, there is a third element to this reduced death achievement and that is us, John Q. Public.  When people get passionate about a problem they typically form together and search for ways to find a solution.   An example in this case is the formation of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD).  These folks are passionate about finding ways to bring information to the general public about the danger of driving while intoxicated and advocating for regulations to punish those that do. 

I think this example has shown that when you put all three of these approaches to work you can achieve some fantastic results.  When you get into your car today you can feel assured that you are far less likely to die in a traffic accident than you were in 1950, even with all of the additional people on the road.  A success that we should replicate in many other areas.