Environment & Energy
Related: About this forum"The Crop Is Dying As We Watch It": ND Farmers Trying To Cope With Fracking Waste, Toxic Dumping
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On Daryls land, also on the Wayne field, a few recent spills have left splotches of infertile land where he can still see the crystalized salt flecks on the soil surface. This year Daryl planted soybeans on areas of land where the wastewater was cleaned up and the land was remediated. But still, in some areas, nothing will grow. Theres three feet of new dirt here, but the salt is working its way into the field through the capillaries, he said. The crop is dying as we watch it.
On the Wiley oil field, which sits about three miles south of the Wayne field, wastewater contamination has caused not only crop failure, Larry said, but also the death of ash and cottonwood trees. The cattle wont even eat the grass here, he said. On the Renville field, Christine Peterson pointed out where she discovered a spill in the winter of 2010 because the snow was streaked yellow. Nearby, the land around a 2011 wastewater spill at a disposal site operated by the company PetroHarvester still has a running generator pumping the contaminated water out of the field. As is the case with many incidents, the quantity of wastewater released in this spill is contested. The Oil and Gas Divisions follow-up report cites 300 barrels, but local residents say the state health department initially estimated the spill to have been closer to 50,000 barrels. Either way, its been an expensive cleanup; the Oil and Gas Divisions report estimated it would ultimately cost $2.5 million.
Mike Artzs land is still showing high levels of contamination, despite an ongoing cleanup and remediation effort by Murex, the well operator responsible for the spill. But even more troubling to the Artz family and their neighbors is the perception that the process has been riddled with misreporting and a lack of regulatory enforcement by state agencies. The Oil and Gas Divisions reports say that the spillage lasted for only 24 hours and, impossibly, that it amounted to exactly zero barrels of liquid. (At a recent meeting, Helms, who worked for Texaco and Hess Corp. before becoming the head of the states oil regulatory agency, defended the divisions reporting, explaining that farmers shouldnt expect complete accuracy in an initial spill report.) Artz and his neighbors had to file a Freedom of Information request just to get a record of the health departments estimate that 16,800 to 25,200 gallons of wastewater had spilled.
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A third problem is tanker rollovers, which occur when a drivers wheels catch the often icy edges of North Dakotas narrow highways and flip over. There are more wrecks and fatalities than Ive ever seen, said the owner of a small trucking company in Williston who previously worked as a driver for the oil industry in Alaska and Texas and spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the winter there are two or three every day. But not all of the tanker spills are accidental. Jerry Samuelson explained that some truck drivers illegally dump wastewater alongside the highway to avoid having to haul it all the way to the disposal sites. A huge fine levied against a driver in the city of Minot has helped curtailed the practice, he said. But it hasnt stopped completely; as Samuelson spoke, his fellow emergency manager Karolin Rockvoy was out investigating a report of an illegal dump. You can tell someones doing some illegal dumping, she said when she returned a few hours later with photographs. The thing is to catch them in the act, because otherwise they keep doing it.
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http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/9/6/north-dakota-wastewaterlegacy.html
montanacowboy
(6,081 posts)And they will continue their red state ways
My daughter & son-in-law were over there for a year and couldn't take it anymore. Both left good paying jobs to come back to Montana. They said even the air was like breathing toxic fumes. There are no trees and nothing green. It is a disaster area and they dump toxic waste in black plastic bags everywhere. We have so shit in our beds that nothing can fix it.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)With red state mentality vs blue state mentality.
The ability of the Big Fracking Forces to go into an area and destroy the environment is due to two separate things:
One: that state and local governing officials simply tell "activists" that they themselves are powerless to stop it - that if something is a "legal activity" then it must go through.
That legal activity can be anything from a 40,000 pig industrialized pig farm, that destroys the air and the water and the land, to the fracking activities.
Two: The destruction of Science as we once knew it:
Science once involved having the most pre-eminent people in a field investigate a situation and determine, through careful modeling, data collection and analysis, whether an activity's benefit to risk situation is such that the benefit is more important than the risk.
Perhaps the last time that this nation experienced such a truly scientific investigation was back in 1998, when Gov Davis (D) of California appointed pre-eminent scientist and researcher John Froines to oversee a Blue Ribbon team of scientists and determine the fate of MTBE. As a result of that team's investigation, the gas additive MTBE was banned, and Californians saw that noxious substance reduced significantly in their gasoline's content, saving our aquifers and drinking water, and our health.
These days, any pre-eminent scientist in their field must have never ever dissed any product that is important to Big Huge Industrialized Corporations such as Big Oil and Energy, Big Pharma, Big Agriculture etc.
So any scientist who has ever hinted at the notion that fracking is not a good idea has already been purged from the Big Oil and Energy's "go to list" of researchers who will be chosen by them to research and "scientifically" determine the possibility of whether fracking is or is not harmful.
It is also important to note that our governmental agencies themselves are merely revolving doors by which industry has their people placed in governmental positions - a good example being what happened before and during the approval process of Aspartame. (Google Aspartame, Donald Rumsfeld, approval of Aspartame to read a compelling story of what goes really on when a substance is "examined" and "investigated" by our agencies.)
About the only way that I see that we can stop fracking is for Democrats, Republicans and Third Party people to all unite and utilize the process that The Community Rights movement is teaching people to take our communities back from the Fascistas now ruling over us.
I have already looked into my "Delphic" crystal ball, and I can tell you with total certainty that Big Corporate Science is going to spend the next fifty years telling us the "proven scientific" fact that many areas' water became undrinkable, its land became barren, its wildlife crippled and dying -- all that is merely coincidendental to the fact that these things happened immediately after fracking began in those areas.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)I visited family there 4 years ago. I don't care to go back. Its just another oil boom town.
Hope your family is better where they are now. Smart decision to leave the "promise of riches" for a home that hasn't been bulldozed over by Big Greedy Oil.
Thanks for posting.
progressoid
(49,963 posts)phantom power
(25,966 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)The excitement of oil development as the Bakken took hold, is suddenly met with staring directly at the reality of an out of control business. Their beautiful clean air & skies is clouding with the smell of 7 wells per section of land.
The beautiful fields & prairie that offered great hunting of pheasant, deer & water fowl is toxic by unreported & unregulated toxic spills & intentional dumps.
Their beautiful Lake Sakakwea & Missouri River is now fragile & vulnerable with a new maze of pipelines running under & around in all directions.
The recreation lovers in that State have their livelihood threatened for generations.
Winter ice fishing, & summertime tournaments on the Missouri, where the grand fish of them all, the Walleye exists in plenty, is not so certain as this State continues to drive their own shiny beautiful bus into a deep toxic sludge filled ditch.
Good Luck North Dakota.
Glad I knew you when you were clean & green in the summer & bright & white in the winter.
When your clear blue skies by day reflected back that star filled Milky Way by night.
Thanks for the memories & as many nights I watched the Northern Lights dance across the sky, from childhood to adult, a good 30 years worth, I delight in having never once seen you dance the same dance twice.
I'll stay away & remember the pure land as it was when I was there.
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BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)I wonder if one day people will realize the riches beyond measure were the visions you describe, not the resources that could be stripped from the land.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)The land has been changed forever.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Land that had thrived for millions of years, poisoned in 100.
WoodyD
(215 posts)I grew up on a farm in northwestern North Dakota. Clear skies, clean air, endless fields of wheat, green pastures, the Milky Way and the gorgeous northern lights, Lake Sakakawea stretching out blue and sparkling to the horizon. It was beautiful then. Now, I stay away.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)State Law says there can be 7 wells pr section of land.
However, I am told that oil co's. are currently petitioning the State to allow for 12 per section.
That's a lot of wells flaring & a lot of oil to be moved out of state, and a lot of frack waste to be dumped in that small corner of the world.
My grandfather & his siblings all settled & farmed near Killdeer. They were Germans from Russia. They found that part of the USA most familiar to the home they left a world away.
Like your family, they took pride in their work, their days were long & their homes, churches, & towns were built to last generations.
They had music, laughter, & some pretty good home brew to unite the community, on the time off from working the land.
They were careful considerate stewards of the prairie land they claimed.
You & I also lived the best of that lovely peaceful place that barely anyone in the USA ever knew existed.
Nice to meet you.
Peace & happiness & good memories to you & yours.
hatrack
(59,583 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)There are conservation & environmental groups within the State that fight wholeheartedly for regulations & to hold companies employed in the Bakken, accountable.
They cannot kep up with the task at hand & fighting the State for justice is defeating most times.
I do donate to them. They are true to their cause.
Have to do what we can.
niyad
(113,213 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)Problem is in realizing what an enormous giant we are up against.