North Dakota

Eco-tourism in North Dakota? It's more likely than you may think, as conservationists, travel agents, and big landowners turn the dwindling population of the Great Plains into an asset.

Plans to buy up land in the Great Plains and repopulate them with pre-settlement species such as buffalo have many cattle ranchers on edge. But proponents say these species are meant to be there -- in both an economical and and ecological sense.

The population shift from rural to urban areas is making big changes in the Great Plains. While many rural small towns are disappearing, the shift is opening new doors for business and preservation.

Mayor Al Christianson of Washburn, North Dakota, hopes to capitalize on the burst of interest in exploiting renewable, traditional, and alternative energy resources that are abundant in the Northern Plains.

In order to reverse its depopulation trend, one North Dakota town attracts young families with gifts of free property.

To "end our addiction to oil", ethanol, a bio-fuel, seems a likely transportation fuel to boost. However, from an air quality and global warming perspective, if the ethanol is going to be produced from coal-fired plants, is it worth it?

The Planning Commissioner's Journal offers free access to an article about the devastating flood that hit theGrand Forks metro area in 1997 and local recovery efforts.

North Dakota as a haven for refugees? Diversity arrives, too quickly for some, at doorstep of a homogeneous state.

The Great Plains frontier is faced with shrinking populations and mounting poverty, making government services difficult to deliver.

The federal government has spent $350 million building levees and moving homes as a rising lake that has already drowned 20,000 acres of land threatens to start a historic flood.