Fracking: The frightening story of a North Dakota Farm Family

[cali]

n 1979, Brenda and Richard Jorgenson built a split level home in the midst of a large ranch outside the tiny town of White Earth, North Dakota. Richard's family is from the area – his grandfather started homesteading on the plains in 1915 – and the couple's affinity for the area runs deep. They love the land they live on: the epic sky and seemingly endless grasses of the prairie, the White Earth River meandering through a tree-lined valley. For most of their lives the landscape of the region has been dominated by agriculture – wheat, alfalfa, oats, canola, flax, and corn. The Jorgensons always figured they would leave the property to their three children to pursue the same good life they have enjoyed.

Then the oil wells arrived. They began appearing in 2006, and within just a few years dominated the area landscape. Today at least 25 oil wells stand within two miles of the Jorgensons' home, each with a pump, several storage tanks, and a tall flare burning the methane that comes out of the ground along with the petroleum.

Like most people in North Dakota, the Jorgensons only own the surface rights to their property, not the subsurface mineral rights. So there was nothing they could do when, in May 2010, a Dallas-based oil company, Petro-Hunt, installed a well pad on the Jorgensons' farm, next to a beloved grove of Russian olive trees. First, heavy machinery brought in to build the well pad and dig a pit for drilling wastes took out some trees. Then the new hydrology created by the pad drained water away from the olives, while others became exposed to the well's toxic fracking fluid. Some 80 trees were dead by the summer of 2011.

On February 2, 2012, drilling started on a second well even closer to the Jorgensons' home. "The smell of ammonia permeated the house," Brenda says, "and the yard was thick for quite a while too. The workers told us the smells came from corrosion inhibitors and biocide." Indignant, Richard called Governor Jack Dalrymple's office. A North Dakota health inspector arrived – but not until days later, after the drilling had stopped and trucks had left, and when neither of the Jorgensons were home. "We knew he'd come only because we found his card on our door," Brenda says drily. She tried contacting the county to see if they could re-zone their land as industrial, which they hoped would lead to closer regulation. County employees referred her to the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which regulates oil drilling. When she got ahold of staffers at the industrial commission, she was told she needed to talk to the county.


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http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/04/north-dakota-fracking-boom-family

[a la izquierda]

1. This story is sick and sad.

The plunder of the land, it's poisoning, and the abuse of the people is so wrong.

[cali]

2. I'm becoming semi-obsessed with fracking

It cannot be overstated how bad it is. At this point, I believe it's the single greatest threat to the U.S. environment. What's terrifying is the support it has by both dems and repubs and just how fast the practice has spread.

[a la izquierda]

3. You're not kidding!

Awful, awful damage. I live in Ohio and it's all over the news here. How long will politicians wait to act? Probably until it effects them

[ananda]

6. Drilling and fracking are causing earthquakes around Dallas.

It's a bad business.

[AngryAmish]

13. It is like an airplane crashing every minute of every day of every year

[marions ghost]

14. +++++ditto

[Le Taz Hot]

4. President Obama

just sold off a bunch of federal land to oil interests in California wherein the plan is to start fracking. This is in PRIME ag land with municipal ground water. This would affect the GLOBAL food supply. We are going to have a HELL of a fight here in CA and I'm going to be at EVERY action I can humanly get to.

[watoos]

10. You can protest till the cows come home

state laws and local laws don't supercede federal laws. Remember back when Dick Cheney met with non-disclosed people (the White House logs were redacted) to draw up our energy plan?
I can picture T.Boone Pickens and the Kochs sitting in the meeting with Cheney. Fracking does not have to conform to the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. It doesn't have to conform to about a dozen other laws also.
Good luck fighting them, we tried in our little town in Pa. to stop them from fracking on our watershed. Joe Scarnati is from our little town so we should have had some pull in stopping them.
We hired the best lawyer, went to water board meetings, formed a local "Clean Water group", all to no avail. When the frackers drilled their 1st well we lost the water from one of our artisan wells. When they encased the well the water came back. That means their well hole intersects one of our drinking wells, what can go wrong? The frackers have had numerous violations that we informed our Pa. DEP about, to no avail. DEP is in bed with the frackers.
Our federal policy that Cheney created needs changed or nothing can be done to stop them. Good luck.

[Le Taz Hot]

11. The alternative is to do nothing.

That's unacceptable.

[Esse Quam Videri]

5. Unbelievable story

Thanks for posting

[cali]

7. sadly, all too believable

I could post a dozen of similar stories. There's an awful one about fracking in PA Amish country.

[dotymed]

8. But, but..."they" just had an Irishman

do a documentary (it was on tee vee) about how fracking does not hurt the environment...He told us how "Gasland" was totally made-up and all of the people involved were liars.
Really..

[april]

9. I just watched water on fire....

went to library and got the documentary GAS LAND unbelievable that this is going on !

Watch it !

[madamesilverspurs]

12. The county where I live is approaching 20K wells.

The "flaming faucet" that was featured in Gasland is just a few miles down the road. Our farmers take a distant back seat to frackers at water auctions. Those of us who have very real concerns are routinely dismissed by our city councils or shouted down by county commissioners who spend their time fellating big oil/gas. It's damned horrific - and very telling - that some of the most in-depth reportage on the subject is done by foreign press.


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[cali]

15. that's just terrifying

you must feel so helpless.

[cali]

16. kick for the evening crowd