Drill, Baby, Drill

Our Opinion/Since Statehood, N.D. has been challenged with finding a balance between outside interests and our own interests

By John Strand
Staff Writer

The oil patch in western North Dakota is booming. With that explosion of development come some lessons. Whether we as a state heed those lessons and change critical policy regarding oil development is an urgent issue, as the boom is expected to continue for another 20 years.

Policies that need change soon include: flaring of natural gas, management of oil well permits issued, licensing of vehicles working in the oil field, and, last but not least, protection of the environment and way of life in rural North Dakota, to name but a few.

Natural Gas Flare

Everywhere you look in the oil patch, you see flares burning natural gas into the atmosphere.  Hundreds upon hundreds spanning the countryside. It’s a travesty and a waste, to say the least.

The New York Times recently reported that North Dakota is burning 30 percent of its natural gas. “Every day, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this way – enough energy to heat half a million homes for a day,” The Times reported Sept. 26. “The flared gas also spews at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, as much as 384,000 cars or a medium-size coal-fired power plant would emit, alarming some environmentalists.”

This needs to change. We need new policy regarding flares immediately in North Dakota. The notion that we expect gas capturing systems to be in place within two to five years is a cop out, especially in light of the reality that the bulk of such natural gas from oil wells comes to the surface within the first twelve months of a wells’ lifespan.

Canada requires natural gas capturing systems to be in place before a well is operational. In western North Dakota, there are examples of wells within a short distance of existing gas pipeline infrastructure, yet we do not require the drillers to hook into them and to capture the gas.

This policy needs immediate review and we need to require the capture of natural gas, period.

Drilling Permits

Yes, development in the Bakken is a boon to North Dakota’s economy but that does not mean we need to unleash a flood of drilling without some semblance of management. While Norway, for example, keeps oil well permits down to a number you can count on your own hands and feet, North Dakota is issuing permits at an alarming rate, thousands already with many thousands more expected in the next two decades.

The implications of such an unleashing of development contributes to a flurry of activity that results in things like man camps housing tens of thousands of workers, safety risks for residents and employees alike, skyrocketing costs for everything from rent to food staples, and a visual and physical polluting of the pristine environment, to name only a few concerns.

There needs to be stringent management at the state level of oil well permits issued and that needs to be done now, not later, before it’s too late.

Vehicle Licenses

If and when you go to the oil field, you’ll see for yourself that a large percentage of the trucks and vehicles working there, many for extended periods of time, are licensed in practically every state but North Dakota. This needs to change. A simple notion, but a key one.

Our roadways in the oil field are bustling with hundreds, actually thousands, of trucks and vehicles, with immense consequence and challenge in terms of safety and maintenance. We need to require such vehicles to be licensed here if they are working here, simply put.

Other Concerns

Historically, since statehood, North Dakota has been challenged with finding a balance between outside interests and our own interests, particularly in the arenas of agriculture, energy, and transportation. Yes, our state coffers are overflowing due to tax revenues, but remember this oil boom is a one-time harvest.

We’ve seen an erosion of our own people in our population base for years and now we are paying a price beyond measure with the influx of thousands upon thousands of people we do not know at all and who have little if any connection to the land and the culture here that is so very precious.

North Dakota’s younger generation needs to be groomed and encouraged to take these high paying jobs and to embrace their future here whereas before our state gave far too many of them very little incentive to stay.

That our long-term residents are seeing rents increase from $700 to $2,000 a month is disheartening. That a pound of coffee can cost as much as $19 is indicative of the impact on locals, as well. That county and township roads cannot be maintained due to record demands on the system leaves many at risk. That restaurants, businesses, medical facilities cannot find or keep employees speaks volumes. That those same restaurants run out of food sometimes early in the day or cannot stay open because they cannot afford competitive pay scales for employees exacerbates the situation. That the skyline is alit with flares, our roadways laden with heavy truck traffic 24/7, our peoples challenged with cultural issues heretofore seldom if ever experienced in North Dakota’s history, these all point at some of the change needed as we ride this horse into the future.

Otherwise, if we choose to sleep at the wheel, we can rest assured that our interests, North Dakota’s interests, will be secondary and afterthoughts, and that, quite frankly, is unacceptable.

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