U.S. gasoline prices reached a record high: “Gas Prices Hit Record High,” CNN Money, May 7, 2007.
2008 USGS survey: U.S. Geological Survey, “3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate,” press release, April 10, 2008.
9 out of 10 oil and gas wells … use hydraulic fracturing: Leonardo Maugeri, “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Geopolitics of Energy Project, Discussion Paper #2013-05, Harvard Kennedy School, June 2013, p. 25.
15 million Americans live within a mile: Russell Gold, The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), p. 19.
Harold Hamm quote: Quoted in Chico Harlan, “How the Plunging Price of Oil Has Set off a new Global Contest,” The Washington Post, July 15, 2015.
Hamm estimate of 900 billion barrels: Christopher Helman, “Oil Billionaire Harold Hamm on the 40th Anniversary of the OPEC Embargo,” Forbes, October 16, 2013.
Between 2007 and 2014, oil production skyrocketed: U.S. Energy Information Administration, “North Dakota Field Production of Crude Oil.”
David Petraeus quote: Quoted in Eric Killelea, “Wardner: Petraeus Called Oil Patch a ‘War Zone,’” The Williston Herald, September 26, 2014.
CHAPTER 15: DONNY NELSON
Interviews: Donny Nelson, Frank and Wanda Leppell, Brenda and Richard Jorgenson, and Theodora Bird Bear
oil companies in North Dakota burned away: U.S. Energy Information Administration, “North Dakota Natural Gas Flaring Targets Challenged by Rapid Production Growth,” November 13, 2015.
$100 million of it every month: Ernest Scheyder, “Exclusive: Bakken Flaring Burns more than $100 Million a Month,” Reuters, July 29, 2013.
as much carbon dioxide a year as a million cars: Ryan Salmon and Andrew Logan, “Flaring Up: North Dakota Natural Gas Flaring More than Doubles in Two Years,” Ceres, July 2013.
60 types of pollutants: Douglas M. Leahey, Katherine Preston, Mel Strosher, “Theoretical and Observational Assessments of Flare Efficiencies,” Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association 51, no. 12 (2001): 1610–1616.
benzene, methane, propylene, and butane: Eman A. Emam, “Gas Flaring in Industry: An Overview,” Petroleum & Coal, December 3, 2015.
University of Michigan study: E. A. Kort et al., “Fugitive Emissions from the Bakken Shale Illustrate Role of Shale Production in Global Ethane Shift,” Geophysical Research Letters 43, no. 9, May 7, 2016.
1993 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report: Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, “Report to Congress on Hydrogen Sulfide Air Emissions Associated with the Extraction of Oil and Natural Gas,” October 1993, pp. 24–66.
George P. Mitchell quote: Quoted in Michael R. Bloomberg and George P. Mitchell, “Fracking Is Too Important to Foul Up,” The Washington Post, August 23, 2012.
Lynn Helms quote: Quoted in “Hydraulic Fracturing on Public Lands Forum” transcript, forum hosted by the Bureau of Land Management, Bismarck, North Dakota, April 20, 2011, p. 212.
A nationwide 2015 study: Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, “Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas: Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in the United States,” Washington, DC: EPA/600/R-16/236F, 2016.
drinking water systems for more than 8.6 million … within a mile of at least one fracked well: Ibid., p. 44.
Anthony Ingraffea’s cement study: Anthony R. Ingraffea, Martin T. Wells, Renee L. Santoro, and Seth B. C. Shonkoff, “Assessment and Risk Analysis of Casing and Cement Impairment in Oil and Gas Wells in Pennsylvania, 2000–2012,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 30 (2014).
nearly 300 cases of pollution: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, “Water Supply Determination Letters,” February 3, 2017.
Fines to Pennsylvania gas companies: Susan Phillips, “Marcellus Shale Drillers Fined for Methane Migration,” StateImpact, NPR, August 25, 2015.
Recoverable gas in Marcellus compared to Bakken: U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Assumptions to the Annual Energy Outlook 2016,” p. 136.
Edwin Dobb quote: Dobb, “The New Oil Landscape,” National Geographic (March 2013).
2013 State Senate hearing on setback bill: Senate Natural Resources Committee, “2013 Senate Standing Committee Minutes,” SB 2206, Fort Lincoln Room, North Dakota State Capital, January 24, 2013.
CHAPTER 16: TOM STAKES
Interviews: Tom Stakes
Tom Stakes’s DUI charge: Michael R. Wald, “Case/Incident Report,” North Dakota Highway Patrol, July 26, 2013.
DUI arrests had increased by over 1,000 percent: 15 in 2008, 205 in 2012: Eric Killelea and Jerry Burnes, “Police Playing Catch Up to Oil Patch Crime Increases,” The Williston Herald, February 15, 2014.
CHAPTER 17: WILLISTON
$353 million worth of building permits: “Williston Impact Statement, 2014,” Williston Economic Development, 2014, pp. 18-19.
9,000 man camp units: Bartley Kives, “Welcome to Williston, North Dakota: America’s New Gold Rush City,” The Guardian (UK), July 28, 2014.
CHAPTER 20: FORT BERTHOLD
Interviews: Marilyn Hudson, Lisa DeVille
40 percent of the tribe’s workforce was unemployed: Sierra Crane-Murdoch, “The Other Bakken Boom: America’s Biggest Oil Rush Brings Tribal Conflict,” High Country News, April 23, 2012.
crammed with three or more families: James William Gibson, “Shale Oil Boom in North Dakota Is Impacting Native Americans Especially Hard,” Earth Island Journal, December 3, 2012.
Life expectancy on the reservation was 57 years: Deborah Sontag and Brent McDonald, “In North Dakota, a Tale of Oil, Corruption and Death,” The New York Times, December 28, 2014.
Tex Hall quote: YouTube, “Chief Tex Hall,” Robin Bossert from Bossert and Company, August 3, 2013, accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMA9AgVnfNQ.
tribal government set aside $421 million: “Tribal Business Council [TBC] Four Bears News Letter,” December 2013, Publication No. 13-6, p. 3.
$2.5 million yacht: According to a senior tribal official, reported by Sontag and McDonald, “In North Dakota, a Tale of Oil, Corruption and Death.”
“70 percent of our community is living in overcrowded conditions”: Lisa DeVille and Walter DeVille, personal communication and “The Mandaree Community Volunteers Needs Assessment,” August 9, 2012.
First case of heroin on the reservation in 2012: Cindy Carcamo, “Drug Explosion Follows Oil Boom on North Dakota Indian Reservation, Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2015.
evidence of sex trafficking on the reservation: Kayla Webley and Christa Hillstrom, “Sex Trafficking on the Reservation: One Native American Nation’s Struggle Against the Trade,” Marie Claire, September 22, 2015.
white mechanic on the reservation: Sierra Crane-Murdoch, “On Indian Land, Criminals Can Get Away With Almost Anything,” The Atlantic, February 22, 2013.
smallpox outbreak tore through the area: Paul VanDevelder, Coyote Warrior: One Man, Three Tribes, and the Trial That Forged A Nation (Boston: Little, Brown, 2004), p. 59.
official reservation borders were drawn in 1870: Horwitz, “Dark Side of the Boom.”
1.6 million acres of reservation land: “Tribal Historical Overview—Change,” The History and Culture of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sahnish, North Dakota Studies, State Historical Society of North Dakota.
By the early 1910s, fewer than 3 million acres: “Tribal Historical Overview—1900s—Garrison Dam,” The History and Culture of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sahnish, North Dakota Studies, State Historical Society of North Dakota.
fewer than 3 percent of those living on the reservation: VanDevelder, Coyote Warrior, p. 112.
Martin Cross’s efforts to stop the Garrison Dam: Ibid., p. 114–121
some 155,000 acres of land: “Indians L
ose Land in Path of Big Dam,” The New York Times, June 10, 1952.
436 properties: VanDevelder, Coyote Warrior, p. 116.
The tribes received only $12.5 million in compensation: “3 Indian Tribes Sell Land for Dam, but Reluctantly,” The New York Times, March 17, 1950.
Louise Holding Eagle’s home: VanDevelder, Coyote Warrior, pp. 139–140.
former high school basketball players: Ibid., p. 159.
study by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1964: U.S. House, Report on House Resolution 108 Authorizing the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, cited in VanDevelder, Coyote Warrior, p. 173.
Paul VanDevelder quote: VanDevelder, Coyote Warrior, p. 183.
unemployment on the reservation fell to the single digits: Joe Cicha at North Dakota Department of Commerce, “Growing ND by the Numbers,” North Dakota Census Office, December 2015.
CHAPTER 21: CHELSEA NIEHAUS
Interviews: Chelsea Niehaus, Jacob Klipsch
average income … had doubled: David Bailey, “In North Dakota, Hard to Tell an Oil Millionaire from Regular Joe,” Reuters, October 3, 2012.
five millionaires were made every day: Bruce Gjovig of the University of North Dakota’s Center for Innovation, reported in ibid.
CHAPTER 22: PASTOR JAY REINKE
Interviews: Jay Reinke, Stuart Bondurant, Gloria Cox, Caleb Fry, Blake Hall, Stephanie Nelson
Donna Sieg quote: Quoted in Hank Stephenson, “Love Thy Neighbor,” The Williston Herald, June 18, 2012.
Homicides at highest level; rapes highest: Wayne Stenehjem, Office of Attorney General, Bureau of Criminal Investigation, “Crime in North Dakota, 2012: A Summary of Uniform Crime Report Data,” prepared by Colleen Weltz, 2013, p. 5.
drug-related arrests in the state: Ibid.
alcohol was a factor in more than half of the deadly traffic accidents: “GOP Bill Imposes 4 Days in Jail for First-Time DUIs,” Grand Forks Herald, December 18, 2012.
Andy Anderson quote: Quoted in James MacPherson, “Firearm Permits Rise in ND’s Booming Oil Patch,” Associated Press, April 7, 2012.
Williston Herald editorial about sex offender list: “Here’s Why We Ran the List,” Williston Herald, February 18, 2012.
The Williston Police Department went from receiving: Williston Police Chief Jim Lokken, cited in Jenna Ebersole, “Emergency Responders Struggle to Keep Up,” The Williston Herald, November 6, 2012.
Scott Busching quote: Quoted in “Bursting at the Bars,” The Williston Herald, November 15, 2014.
CHAPTER 26: DONNY NELSON
Interviews: Donny Nelson, Jim Fuglie
$550,000 from oil-related groups: Deborah Sontag, “Where Oil and Politics Mix,” The New York Times, November 23, 2014.
Dalrymple’s ExxonMobil stock: Lauren Donovan, “N.D. Gov. Dalrymple Owns Stock in Company That Plans to Drill Near Elkhorn Site,” Bismarck Tribune, March 22, 2013.
New York Times review of Industrial Commission minutes: Sontag, “Where Oil and Politics Mix.”
fewer than 50 disciplinary fines for all drilling violations: Nicholas Kusnetz, “North Dakota’s Oil Boom Brings Damage Along with Prosperity,” ProPublica, June 7, 2012.
19 inspectors in 2012: Ibid.
Lynn Helms quote about EPA involvement: “Hydraulic Fracturing on Public Lands Forum” transcript, forum hosted by the Bureau of Land Management, Bismarck, ND, April 20, 2011, p. 47.
Kathleen Norris quote: Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (New York: First Mariner Books, 1993), p. 18.
Unitization was promoted in the early 1990s: John P. Bluemle, “The 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Oil in North Dakota,” North Dakota Geological Survey, Miscellaneous Series No. 89 (2001): 50.
ConocoPhillips revised that number to 200 wells: Lauren Donovan, “Lots of Unknowns Surround Corral Creek Unit,” Bismarck Tribune, December 16, 2012.
CHAPTER 28: TOM STAKES
Interviews: Tom Stakes, Jay Stakes, Gary Westerman, Eddie Bergeson
On May 29, 2014, Stakes was arrested: “Williston Municipal Case Summary,” Case no. WI-2014-CR-01365.
The roommate pulled out a knife: Cynthia Hubert and Phillip Reese, “Mental Patients Bused—and Crime Followed,” The Sacramento Bee, December 15, 2013.
CHAPTER 33: FORT BERTHOLD
Interviews: Edmund Baker, Josh Wood, Lisa DeVille, Marilyn Hudson, Donny Nelson, Dr. Avner Vengosh, Theodora Bird Bear
pipeline had been built in 2010: Amy Dalrymple, Forum News Service, “EPA Involved in 2014 Bakken Pipeline Leak Investigation,” The Billings Gazette, May 18, 2015.
and didn’t have monitoring equipment: Associated Press, “EPA Trying to Confirm North Dakota Spill Didn’t Reach Lake,” Rapid City Journal, July 10, 2014.
not required under North Dakota law: Chester Dawson, “Farmers Fight a New Kind of Pipeline Spill—Salty Wastewater,” The Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2015.
The spill was discovered only as the company: Associated Press, “EPA Trying to Confirm North Dakota Spill Didn’t Reach Lake.”
path of the brine: Associated Press, “Cleanup Area Extends Nearly 2 miles After N.D. spill,” USA Today, July 10, 2014.
fracking wastewater laced with chemicals: Theo Colborn, Carol Kwiatkowski, Kim Schultz, Mary Bachran, “Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective,” Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal 17, no. 5 (2011).
10 times saltier than ocean water: Neela Banerjee, “Wetland Contamination Can Be Predicted in Oil Boom States, Study Finds,” The Los Angeles Times, January 8, 2014.
Some batches even contain traces of radium: Lisa Song, “‘Saltwater’ from North Dakota Fracking Spill Is Not What’s Found in the Ocean,” Inside Climate News, July 16, 2014.
10 barrels of wastewater brine: Banerjee, “Wetland Contamination Can Be Predicted in Oil Boom States.”
4,000 brine spills in the state: North Dakota Department of Health Environmental Health, “Oilfield Environmental Incidents Older Than 12 Months,” accessed at http://www.ndhealth.gov/ehs/spills/.
Kris Roberts quote: Quoted in Nicholas Kusnetz, “North Dakota’s Oil Boom Brings Damage Along with Prosperity,” ProPublica, June 7, 2012.
spills totaling about 1.7 million gallons of brine: Jeff Larson and Nicholas Kusnetz, “North Dakota Spills,” ProPublica, June 7, 2012.
many companies report zero barrels spilled: North Dakota Department of Health, Environmental Health, “Oilfield Environmental Incidents,” accessed at http://www.ndhealth.gov/ehs/spills/.
an estimated 75 tons of those filter socks are generated: Lauren Donovan, “North Dakota Takes Slow, Historic Step toward Radioactive Waste,” Bismarck Tribune, February 15, 2013.
filter socks can contain as high as 70 picocuries: Lauren Donovan, “Study to Look at Raising Radioactive Waste Limits,” Bismarck Tribune, November 15, 2013.
Timeline of when Tesoro reported the spill: Dan Frosch, “Oil Spill in North Dakota Raises Detection Concerns,” The New York Times, October 23, 2013.
The spill contaminated about 15 acres: Amy Dalrymple, “Two Years after North Dakota Oil Spill, Dirty Pile Still Dwarfs Clean Pile,” Forum News Service, September 26, 2015.
only a few pipeline inspectors and didn’t require companies to reveal any data … until April 2014: Dawson, “Farmers Fight a New Kind of Pipeline Spill—Salty Wastewater.”
Fines … are limited to $12,500 a day: Ibid.
More than 50 percent of pipeline incidents: Carl Weimer, “Testimony of The Pipeline Safety Trust,” Subcommittee on Energy and Power of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, July 14, 2015.
Mark Fox quote: Quoted in George Lerner and Christof Putzel, “Tribal Environmental Director: ‘We Are Not Equipped’ for N.D. Oil Boom,” America Tonight, May 16, 2015.
checkpoint manned by a single guard: According to Lisa DeVille. The checkpoint was there before the spill, according to Josh Wood (though, in general, checkpoints are rare at oil drilling sites in North Dakota).
North Dakota’s largest brine spill to date: Ernest Scheyder, “Millions of Gallons of Saltwater Leak into North Dakota Creek,” Reuters, January 22, 2015.
The pipeline was only six months old and had a monitoring system: Amy Dalrymple, “Pipeline Company Didn’t Use Remote Sensors Before Leak,” Forum News Service, February 28, 2015.
Energy Transfer Partners, claimed it would create: Holly Yan, “Dakota Access Pipeline: What’s at Stake?” CNN, October 28, 2016.
original path was closer to Bismarck: Amy Dalrymple, “Pipeline Route Plan First Called for Crossing North of Bismarck,” The Bismarck Tribune, August 18, 2016.
DeVille’s testimony in June 2015: North Dakota Public Service Commission Public Hearing at Killdeer, ND, at the High Plains Cultural Center on June 15, 2015.
Dr. Vengosh’s report on water contamination: Nancy E. Lauer, Jennifer S. Harkness, and Avner Vengosh, “Brine Spills Associated with Unconventional Oil Development in North Dakota,” Environmental Science & Technology 50, no. 10 (2016): 5389–5397.
CHAPTER 40: TOM STAKES
Interviews: Tom Stakes, Rick Sonstegaard, Darin Henderson
Oil company layoffs and first-quarter losses: Christopher S. Rugaber, “Layoffs by Energy Companies Drag Down Job Growth in Oil Patch States in April,” Associated Press, May 27, 2015.
CHAPTER 41: WILLISTON
Jeffrey City population and $1.2 million gym: Dale D. Buss, “Uranium Industry Boom Goes Bust As Growth of Nuclear Power Falters,” The Wall Street Journal, November 3, 1981.
95 percent of the area’s workforce had left: Michael A. Amundson, “Home on the Range No More: The Boom and Bust of A Wyoming Uranium Mining Town, 1957–1988,” Western Historical Quarterly (Winter 1995): 484.
some pumping nearly two thousand barrels a day: Continental Resources press release, “Continental Resources Continues to Improve Initial Well Production Rates in the North Dakota Bakken,” January 6, 2010.
Well production declined by half in first year, 30 to 40 percent in second year: Leonardo Maugeri, “The Shale Oil Boom: A U.S. Phenomenon,” Geopolitics of Energy Project, Discussion Paper #2013-05, Harvard Kennedy School, June 2013, p. 3.
90 new producing wells per month were needed: Ibid., p. 1.
The New Wild West Page 33