Here we go. Again. Back in the early 90’s, it was plans to drill for oil on the Line Creek Plateau, on tundra so fragile that it takes a thousand years to build a single inch of soil. Then it was the Noranda Corporation, plotting to dig for gold at the edge of Yellowstone National Park. Now, big plans for fracking. Ten days ago, Energy Corporation of America Chief Executive John Mork stood before a crowd in Billings, Montana and, as if bearing boundless good news, announced with a smile that his Denver company had returned after a thirty-year hiatus. And furthermore, that they’re planning to exploit oil resources in the region, in large part by means of fracking – all a stone’s throw from the little tourist town where I live, on the front edge of one of the last great wilderness reserves in the continental United States. “I would love to bring something like the Bakken ... to the area in the Big Horns and other areas in Montana,” said Mork.“It would fundamentally change these areas the way it has changed other areas of the United States.” Of course those of us who live here, worry that some of those changes might be at the expense of the environment. Fracking even a single well, after all, can require literally millions of gallons of water – a harsh reality in an increasingly arid West. Further, given that many parts of the fracking operation require handling and transport of passage of toxic chemicals, both above ground and beneath it, contamination problems aren’t just sourpuss fantasy. And there’s also growing proof that methane levels tend increase significantly in water wells near fracking operations – a contention recently verified recently by a Duke University Study, published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But in truth, the real changes may end up being levied on the human environment. Over in the Bakken, in Watford City, North Dakota, between 2006 and 2011 police calls increased a hundred fold. Just last week members of a federal task force brought in to try to help local authorities deal with increased major crime in the Bakken, compared it to the heyday of street gangs in Los Angeles during the early 90’s; also to the rampages thirty years ago in Florida by the so-called cocaine cowboys. Meanwhile in nearby Williston, North Dakota, DUI’s and assault continue to skyrocket; on average now, more than once a week come reports of rape. So right now a lot of my neighbors are gearing up for a fight. A big one. As if their lives and the land they’ve come to know and love depend on it. God speed.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 21:07:49 +0000
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