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Page added on April 18, 2014
North Dakota oil boom keeps getting the wrong kind of attention
Despite already dealing with a slew of issues ranging from a housing shortage to an increasing crime rate, North Dakota officials now have another problem grabbing headlines: illegal dumping.
On May 11, several news outlets reported that 200 hundreds bags of radioactive material were found in an abandoned building in Noonan, a small northwest town in North Dakota. It is likely the largest case of illegal dumping in state history, twice the size of the amount found in Watford City three week earlier.
Continental Resources, one of the largest Bakken producers, immediately cut ties with RP Services LLC, the company state officials blamed for the Watford City dump.
The bags were filled with filter socks, or oil socks, which are made from absorbent material and used to filter waste water. Luckily, there’s not enough radiation emitted by the socks to be truly harmful.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the state acted swiftly and implemented new regulations starting in June that require companies to use containers to store these filter socks on site.
As for a long-term solution? North Dakota doesn’t have one. The closest place to store radioactive waste is hundreds of miles away in Montana.
As if radiation isn’t enough, wastewater dumping also continues to be an issue for the state, with the latest infraction drawing a $1 million fine from the guilty party. Black Water Hills Trucking, Inc. is facing more than $1 million in dumping charges after pouring wastewater onto the side of a Williams County road.
The company “is alleged to have violated multiple environmental sections of the North Dakota Administrative Code by allowing fluid to flow directly on the ground, by improperly disposing of fluid and by failing to have a proper license to haul waste,” the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources said April 15 in a release.
While dumping wastewater is a common problem in the Bakken Shale play, it’s nearly impossible to catch perpetrators in the act. North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem also came out with a statement April 15 condemning the Black Water Hills Trucking and asking citizens to “call the local law enforcement agencies, the state highway patrol, or the Department of Mineral Resources, and help us put a stop to it.”
With crude production reaching records high nearly every month, North Dakota still seems to attract plenty of unwanted attention.
2 Comments on "North Dakota oil boom keeps getting the wrong kind of attention"
kervennic on Sat, 19th Apr 2014 5:02 am
Nice ! Napolitan business model ! They are probably flushing politics with money…when are they going to start shooting at each other ?
rockman on Sat, 19th Apr 2014 6:20 pm
“It is likely the largest case of illegal dumping in state history, twice the size of the amount found in Watford City three week earlier.” That’s too bad because that might be the largest discovered but having worked in the oil patch for 4 decades I can assure you it wasn’t anywhere close to the largest amount every dumped.
But also don’t be alarmed by the intentionally inflammatory “radioactive” tag. We call it NORM… Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material. You might call it by a more common name: dirt. And you can carry it around in your pocket all day with no problem. The real sin was probably the oil contamination.
“While dumping wastewater is a common problem in the Bakken Shale play, it’s nearly impossible to catch perpetrators in the act.” In Texas we call them “midnight haulers” since they usually do it after the sun goes down. And it really takes the public to keep a watch out for them. Years ago I began advising folks in PA to stop watching those frac trucks but keep an eye on those innocuous looking water tank trucks… especially after midnight on back roads. Many midnight haulers get busted with help from oil patch hands since we tend to notice where they shouldn’t be at times they wouldn’t be there. I’ve helped bust two myself. You have to remember that many oil patch families (like my 13 yo daughter) drink from their own shallow wells every day. We’re less likely to tolerate illegal dumping then many because we know what’s in that crap.