How can pouring 80,000+ gallons of chemicals (containing know carcinogens) into one well be safe for drinking water? It was alarming to learn that this is what fracking is all about. The people of ND are going to pay big time for allowing thousands of wells to be fracked in western ND. The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa are working hard to protect our water from this horrid process. Our government passed a law banning fracking on our reservation in November 2011. Our ancestors told us to be diligent and always protect our water because someday we will have the only drinking water that is not contaminated. Somehow, they knew fracking was coming. The sad part in all of this is that the big oil companies are the only ones who will benefit from ND’s oil. The people who think they are benefiting now will pay with their health, and the contamination of their homeland will ruin their quality of life. The people who contaminate our land and water don’t live here and don’t drink our water. They live in their resort homes far away. It is time for our legislators to take control of the oil boom. Take it out of the hands of the governor and the Industrial Commission and put laws in place that protect the people. This is not a political opportunity for a few. It is a crises for all of us, if we continue to allow the process to put our future in jeopardy.

I want to caution any worker that is going to North Dakota to get short term and long term disability before you go there. I was eligible for both through my work, but I got called out to work when I was filling out the paper work. I did not turn it in. Fracking chemicals and H2S Gas will ruin your life. I have permanent lung and heart injuries. I can’t concentrate, my memory is sporadic. My fingernails are now clubbed. I am loosing my hearing now a year and a half after I left.

North Dakota Workforce Safety is a joke. They are suppose to protect workers. Only thing protected so far is the employers. They will deny everything when the truth is in there face. They are in control of everything. They are the insurance company, the adjusters, the courts, the appeals courts etc… You are not guaranteed medical care. You are guaranteed that you will be given the run around. Google. ND workers comp complaints. They have been caught lying and cheating workers, but nothing has changed. You cannot get an attorney to help without paying 5k dollars. It’s a game and you are the Monopoly piece getting moved around.

If you are a truck driver, do not idle your truck close to oil well sites. The H2S stays by the ground. It will be pulled up to your HVAC system. If you do go, just be aware that you may never be the same. If I cough or laugh I black out. If I do anything I am out of breathe.

The boom has made ND a lawless state. Environmental laws, Personal Property laws, and DOT laws are violated with impunity. ND has sold out to the oil giants. Several trucking companies and their drivers are blatantly violating the DOT Hours of Service Rules. Some companies force their drivers to run with complete disregard for DOT and FMCSA laws, rules and regulations, thereby threatening the safety and well being of their drivers and the general traveling public. The Hours of Service Rules were put in effect from preventing tired/fatigued drivers to operate their vehicles for everyone’s safety. Other companies, just turn a blind eye when drivers violate the rules as long as their Driver Logs look good. The ND DOT is sleeping. All the weigh scales are closed and nobody is checking/enforcing the law because in the end the oil drilling/fracking companies benefit from lower rates from the trucking companies.

… my grandson said he was going there and I haven’t heard from him since. He’s a person who always called his mother on her birthday and he missed Thanksgiving too. I heard on the radio about people working long hours, getting over tired, getting injured. I wonder what happened to him and if he’s OK. And I don’t know how to even begin looking for him.

North Dakota boom has affected me in a sad way, my husband went there in 2011 to work to help with getting things set up for our retirement days and it didn’t work out that way, instead he came home after a year and half with the long term brain damage from the H2S exposure and it hasn’t been a easy road for him and it is sad to know there really isn’t any type of cure, he will be health damaged for the rest of his life and they are not taught up there about the long term or do they use the prevention to keep it from happening. No money in the world is worth seeing him suffer on a daily basis from this. The sad part is that probably many up there is suffering from signs of this and can’t get a diagnosis to what is happening to them because there really isn’t any medical test that will show this H2S exposure in your body after about 45 hours of being exposed and by that time all you can do is wonder why your having syncope spells on a daily or weekly basis. Luckily after about a year after he came home we did find a enviromentalist specialist that can detect this thru testing and now my husband is doing a lot better since going to this doctor but will never be able to do the things he use to do and also faced with every day if he will be able to walk that day when he gets up. This is a sad thing. So if anyone would like to like to contact me or have concerns I would love to hear from you because if I can help someone get help sooner and maybe not let them get to the point my husband is at, that is my goal. I have spent many hours researching this due to no medical doctor could never diagnose him because there isn’t a test that will show the damage this has done. Please contact me a terridarri2003@aol.com I would love to hear from you.

This week’s programming has really shook me to the core. For nearly two years now I have witnessed the essential rape of our state and it’s people by the unchecked greed that manifests itself in the oil patch of ND. The reporting on Code Blue has been riveting….all four have brought a truth to the listeners of what is really going on.

Here is food for thought….today ND touted how well it monitors the coal mining industry and fined a company 1000 for some spilled earth on the grass. Meanwhile in the western part of the state we have radioactive filters in dumpsters behind hotels, we have effluent from the drilling sites being dumped without being mixed with stabilizer to prevent them from leaching into the soil around the waste pit….the violations go on and on…yet the number of inspectors is sorrowfully slim, and our state legislators could really give a damn. Their greed is even more disturbing….

As a final note…I have not been a NPR supporter financially before, but the next fund raising drive will see my name on the roster as a contributor.

Well done….sadly.

Dr. Carmelita Lamb

It’s pretty sad when a person who was born here 40 years ago has to give up his life that he has known all his life because rent went from $300 a month to $1800, has to move out of the place where he was raised just to move into a camper where rent went from $285 to $900 and only has water 4 months out of the year just because he dosn’t work for an oil company, yet everyone relies on the services he offers to the community.

The “boom” SUCKS and everyone knows it.

The trash that has came here. They are a bunch of slobs. Throw their garbage everywhere, commiting all the crimes, and they call Williston a wasteland. Well, it wasn’t till they got here. Take your trash and go back to your own home.

Y’all can build this by yourself. I just wish I’d have bought a thousand acres here 5 yrs ago and fired everybody from Hettinger.

Absolutely hate it. ND will never be the same!

Even way down here in south central North Dakota, the impact of the boom is causing our property taxes to increase. Land values are soaring despite the absence of accessible oil. We have a beautiful piece of land and do NOT wish to be forced to sell because of a ‘perceived’ value having absolutely nothing to do with reality.

The BGB took my baby away.

Hate is a rather harsh word, perhaps “dislike” would be more fitting. Change is what makes the world go ’round, but it would be nice if the pace of the current change were a bit slower. What I like most about ND is the open spaces, clean air and lack of people. All those are changing in a negative way with the oil boom.

It has greatly increased numbers of low-lifes causing all kinds of trouble;
lousy out-of-state drivers w no manners or driving skills, such as idjits who pass on the RIGHT ON RAMPS;(they ALL have out of state plates, officers) –

It’s making a new class of ‘haves’ out of former ‘have nots’, which causes all kinds of additional trouble; it has raised housing & other costs far from the oil patch as greed – always a problem among whites – has risen to new levels because of ripoffs in the oil patch;

It dumps on the only environment we have – no other animal craps in its nest, only greedy stupid humans;
fracking causes problems with wells & roads far from the original fracking sites;

The oil is being taken out from under our Indn land but the legislature & governor don’t want to ‘give’ us the larger share of the taxes – sounds like the bad old days all over again to this Ndn; (in fairness, after we raised stink, ‘the state’ finally uncorked road-repair money – the alternative being, the oil wouldn’t leave the Rez); we who live in the country are having far more trouble with trespassing & vandalism of our fences, cattle, etc.;
alcohol & drug problems have risen, along with violence;

I don’t recall hearing about prostitution in ND – although there was almost certainly some – until the oil boom; now we hear about it often. Young female friends of mine say they’re nervous about going out because of the crudeness of oil workers’ flirting; young male friends of mine say they’re nervous about going out to have fun with young females because of the violence & belligerent attitude of oil frield workers – both these groups are in the BisMan area; & as usual, the political & business “leaders” of ND made no plans for any of the above when oil was discovered – they have always been over-focused on ‘jobs’, not ‘good jobs’, & ‘money at any cost’. These are not particularly creative people, as we all know, but this is unreal.

We NEED a couple of authentic ND winters to clean the lowlifes out – & I HATE winter. While such winters do nothing about the majority of problems caused by the oil boom, we need to start somewhere. I don’t see much good in any of this.

I pray my people back home in SD pay attention to the mess in ND & don’t wait to put plans in place to deal with eventualities because if they do, they will be playing catchup, which is always a poor game.

The City of Williston has failed to even come close to keeping up with the boom and the TRAFFIC. The daily commute has become a gamble for your life. There has been a rollover in my neighborhood, not even on the highway! There are so many uncontrolled intersections it has become a question of not “IF” someone will die, but rather, “HOW MANY” will die before the traffic control catches up.

It is ruining a good way of life in North Dakota! Crime, blight, living expenses skyrocketing! It sucks!

I hate the boom because I am a “shut-in” because I have no car to get groceries or to do the things I have to do. I have to rely on the cab, or friends for rides and most of the time, I have to get my groceries delievered by Economart Grocery Store because my friends or the cab can’t take me. I also get my medicine mailed to me as I can’t always get to the pharmacy to get my medicine.

I have lived in Williston for 9 years. When I came to this town, I had a job interview with an In-Bound Call Center, that is no longer in operation back in August 2003.

When I got the job, I had to look for a place to live so I got the local Williston Herald newspaper and looked in the Wanted Ads and found my place. This was before the Boom even was a “pipe dream.”

I have had many jobs since 2003 and I even live in Low-Income Housing now & on Disability as well and still living in Low-Income Housing. The Low-Income Housing unit I live in is based out of Valley City ND called Valley Rental.

I have been in this unit since August 2005 and there is no chance I will be leaving Williston anytime soon as apartments such as mine that is 30% of your income.

Besides the long lines at Walmart, restaurants having to close early in the day because of the lack of help and the lack of affordable housing is the crime. Yes, I admit, we have had crime before the Boom came, but in the crime has gotten worse as the Boom sticks around. I listen to the Williams County police scanner online and with our police force stretched “thin” some calls that are considered “top priority” get handled and waiting for police can get to be “the Norm” when you really need them. It really gets bad when the city does try to make our town better for everyone by upgrading the city parks with new playgrounds and bathrooms. In Harmon Park, shortly after the new bathrooms were opened, someone or a group of people turned around and destoryed it right away and therefore the city parks & rec had to close the bathrooms for the public. People don’t respect anyone in this town let alone the public property.

Not everyone that comes here has a perfectly “clean” record, which makes it harder for them to get that job or that place to stay. These same people are living in there cars or RV’s because they didn’t “do there homework” for the housing problem before they got here.

My view out my living room window from my 3rd floor apartment changes daily, with apartments from the distance going up to houses being built, streets that were never there in 2003 that have just popped up out of nowhere.

I have been told some pretty scary stories about what happened in the 1980’s when the last Boom went Bust and the city was stuck with alot of property they couldn’t give away for a $1.00. I would hate to see what just might happen when it does go BUST as all of the new stuff being built on the west side of Williston is growing daily and fast.

I am a native to North Dakota as I grew up in the southwestern part. My parents owned until September 2010 the Hafele Ranch 30 miles north of Rhame ND. I was educated in Rhame and graduated in 1990. My parents now live in Beach ND since Oct. 2010.

I am really hoping things will change soon, but it is hard to tell when that will even happen. The crazy rent hikes to lack of respecting property & people is a common thing anymore. I lock my door to my apartment everytime I check my mail, take my garbage outside or even going down the hall to visit a neighbor.

I don’t mind that we are able to help those who need to have the money to send to home, but I don’t like there attitudes & behaviors because I am a single female and I am too affraid to go out for a walk in my own neighborhood by myself and I walked all the time to and from work when I got here. You won’t see me do it at all in the near future either.

Too darn scared even at night to venture outside.

It’s destroying a beautiful landscape, and it’s destroying the local culture.

Traffic! Flaring! Out of State People!

the fracking is filling up Devils Lake with water

it is killing our natural resources, land and water

The wildlife will be destroyed…It’s only a matter of time. I work there hauling crud oil & I see the most beautifull creatures living in their natural habitat…Enjoying the life they had for many years…But it’s all coming to an end if the oil boom continues!

The boom is making North Dakota famous for all the wrong reasons: greed, moral compromise for work, environmental abuse, and corrupt politicians. These are the things which North Dakota had many times avoided because they didn’t have anything for the most powerful and the most greedy to exploit. Now what they have is valuable because of oil prices and exploitable because of national corruption. The damage is being done. Dick Cheney will light up hell with flaring of the gas from his crude oil soul.

I live in Bismarck and seeing the oil boom effects here as well. Lots more traffic and out of state license plates. I stay out of the stores on the weekend, too busy. Don’t feel as safe as I used to. I hate how it’s all changing this beautiful town. Rents are being raised so some can’t afford them. The land out west is being devastated. I wish they’d all go home

I live in Havre Montana, in Hill county which is a natural Gas county, not a oil county. We are surrounded by oil North, South, East and West. Housing was tight 5 years ago now that he bakken is 5 hours away and only one company in Havre has experience some activity, they posted in the paper it is coming our way. The bakken formation does not reach this far west It ends at Wolf Point and there are several formations at least 6 in Montana. Now the rent is going thru the roof and people are sitting on their home with outragous prices. It is not expected to even Hit here, we may get just the risdual effects. Yes I am excited about it because I am in the Natural Gas field and this effects my business and future ventures. But I am a women and I may start to feel like I live in a foreign country and hide behinde a veil or I wil not carry a concealled weapon but put it in full view for all to see that I mean business, do not mess with me.

our whole way of life is changing. The wildlife that used to be in our backyard is gone, the roads are a mess, traffic is downright dangerous–there’s just too much hustle and bustle. Our little town (Watford City) is no longer little and sleepy and wonderful. One cannot just sit and enjoy the sounds and smells of the countryside. I miss that. We’ve been discovered, and that’s quite sad.