CNN Questions Hyperion's Cash, Commitment

A close observer of Elk Point affairs points me toward a seven-minute report by CNN's Drew Griffin on Hyperion's plans to build a refinery in Elk Point. (I love it when South Dakota makes the national news and the reporter manages not to confuse us with North Dakota.) The report casts Hyperion as a secretive, arguably shady company that lacks the experience and quite possibly the capital to build an oil refinery.

Among the oddities in Hyperion's behavior, Griffin shows Hyperion's shiny Elk Point office, where the reporter was told no one was available to answer his questions. The actual Hyperion people come maybe every couple weeks. The receptionist provides one of the richest soundbites of the report: "They golfed last week at the governor's tournament, but they're not here otherwise."

In Dallas, the company wouldn't give an interview at its headquarters and instead required that an interview with spokesman Preston Phillips be held at a public park six miles from Hyperion's main office. (Hyperion must be really committed to having trees in the background for its interviews to ask a reporter to conduct an interview outside in Dallas on a summer day rather than in the air-conditioned comfort of an office.)

More substantially, Griffin notes that Hyperion's experience is mostly in real estate and oil and gas leases, not actually building anything. Griffin also mentions Milo Vranac's lawsuit against Hyperion CEO Albert Huddleston (but wait, no hat tip from CNN to Todd Epp for his good reporting on the lawsuit? come on, Drew, where's the love?). Believing Hyperion can build a ten-billion-dollar clean oil refinery in six years requires a leap of faith perhaps beyond typical capitalist risk-taking.

CNN's Griffin invites Huddleston to give his side, but Huddleston won't come to the park to chat in person or answer questions directly. Instead, Hyperion provides a video of Huddleston holding forth on energy, history, and other topics of his choice (and again, in front of a backdrop of nice green trees—yes, they meant to do that). On actually getting the money to make the refinery happen, Huddleston only says he won't go to his "strategic partners" until Hyperion gets the permits for the refinery.

Huddleston evidently is willing to talk finances with Elk Point Mayor Isabel Trobaugh, who says Huddleston has told her personally that Hyperion has the money. Mayor Trobaugh also says of course the refinery will be good for Elk Point, since "If we don't grow, a small city dies."

Elk Point farmer Dale Harkness thinks clean water and air might be more important for a small city than a refinery. From his corn field and his front porch (and that's a heck of a front porch, Dale!), Harkness looks beyond his fence line and his lifetime to make the following calm yet firm declaration:

I'll keep fighting it. They'll never build here. 150 years from now, somebody will be enjoying that land and this land.

Now that's looking to the future. You'll never hear Hyperion or any other corporation talking about 150 years from now. Foresight is as important as finances in working toward a sustainable future. Maybe Huddleston should invite Harkness along on his next golf outing with the governor. He might learn a thing or two.