Bismarck, North Dakota
A pipeline leak in North Dakota last month that reached the Missouri River, the longest river in North America, is just the latest in a series of failures by the state to regulate the oil industry, a local environmental group claims.
Three million gallons of brine, a by-product of hydraulic fracturing, spilt last month, contaminating the drinking water that serves more than 20,000 people living in the western North Dakota city of Williston. “There is a spill almost three to four times a week, sometimes every day,” said Don Morrison, executive director of the Dakota Resource Council.
January’s spill is the worst in the state’s history. Brine wastewater, along with a high concentration of salt, can contain traces of heavy metals that can be radioactive. The spills, which can destroy farmland, have been increasing in western North Dakota. The state is a major oil producer, which pumped 1.2 million barrels of oil last year. The wastewater is extracted along with the oil and gas from deep beneath the ground and must be disposed of.
“These spills are happening because we have a state government that wanted to develop the shale oil as fast as possible. Nothing was going to get in their way,” said Morrison. “They didn’t prepare, they didn’t take caution,” he added.
State Senator Connie Triplett, a Democrat, admits the state has failed to adequately regulate the industry despite billions in oil revenues flowing into state coffers. “We need to increase our standards and numbers of inspectors,” she said in an interview at the state capitol building.
In North Dakota, the organisation responsible for regulating the oil industry, the North Dakota Industrial Commission, is also responsible for promoting it. Morrison said that “makes absolutely no sense.”
Lynn D. Helms, director of the Department of Minerals at the industrial commission, declined requests to be interviewed on the state of North Dakota’s oil industry.
State Senators are debating legislation that will separate the industrial commission’s joint role as a regulator and promoter. Helms, supported by the North Dakota Petroleum Council, a group that represents the interests of more than 500 companies working in the state’s oil industry, has testified to Senators that separating the roles is not necessary.
