# The Canaries Are Dying In ND



## Dick Monson (Aug 12, 2002)

Who needs canaries anyway? NDGF gets suppressed, what else is new?

If the links don't show then you have to go to FULL STORY: http://www.northdecoder.com/Latest/the- ... dying.html

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The Canaries Are Dying 
Written by Chet 
Monday, 04 April 2011 12:53
On Saturday afternoon there was a spill of toxic water and oil ("salt water emulsion") about 13 miles north of Keene, North Dakota, and very close to Lake Sakakawea. According to my sources, about a hundred (100) barrels of salt water emulsion leaked from a pipe at a Petro Hunt well about a mile from the lake. The media has yet to report on this. It's not clear whether any of the spilled toxic cocktail reached the Lake as yet.

Last week, in a blog post about a Game & Fish report suppressed by Governor Hoeven's office, I posted this Google Earth 3-d view of the area of the spill. At that time I obviously did not know the spill was going to happen in that exact location a couple days later.

View Larger Map

(With the cursor on the map, use your mouse roller-ball to zoom in and out. With the cursor on the map, hold the left-click button down and move the mouse around to look around the area. Hold your [shift] or [Ctrl] keys down while moving the mouse roller-ball to change the perspective.)

This graphically depicts how we are packing oil wells, roads, chemicals, and who knows what else right up against the lake that supplies many North Dakotans with water and supports a big part of our recreation industry. You can see by zooming in close that the area where many wells are located drains aggressively into Lake Sakakawea. This as-yet-unreported spill is just one of many coal mine Bakken oil industry canaries that have died recently, and another barometer telling us we have big problems our government isn't addressing, and even hiding from the public.

The governor's office's suppression of the report from the Game and Fish is another dead canary. What else are they hiding from the public? You are a fool if you think these are the only State Secrets in North Dakota. Obviously oil activity in the west will impact the humans and wildlife that live, hunt and/or fish there. But our government doesn't want people to know the obvious. We're apparently not intelligent enough to be given information so we can have a discussion about it. And, more importantly, they don't want anything to obstruct their bottom-line-is-all-that-matters cheerleading for the oil industry. It's gotten to such a cheerleading frenzy that the state is even complicit in allowing multi-million dollar tax frauds of the public's treasury to go unaddressed.

There was a different spill reported this weekend separate from the one we are first to reporting on. Then there was the big oil well fire last month by Arnegard where the state was unprepared and had to have people and equipment flown in from Texas and Colorado to deal with it. These are just a couple examples of canary's that should be telling us we have problems, big problems, and a unprepared unresponsive state government. The media reported about the Arnegard fire, but the real story was how unprepared the state was for it and that went untold as usually. We keep just getting all this "We've got spirit yes we do, we got spirit how 'bout you" shtick from our state officials and media - and the dead and dying canaries are ignored or suppressed.

Last week the McLean County Independent ran a story about the concerns some people have regarding oil spills into the Lake. Here's what some state officials said in that story:

Dennis Fewless of the N.D. Health Department expressed his wariness with what the future could bring and how his agency would react. He said he intends to make it a priority to inventory the lake region to see where the pipelines go under or near the lake.

He said there are many departments working with oil companies, "but I'm sure we know where all the infrastructure is."

There were 2,000 wells drilled this year, he said, which makes it "hard to keep ahead of the infrastructure."

Fewless said if there were a spill on the north side of the lake, his department would call Earth Movers of Minot, a company armed to clean up an oil spill. He said he wasn't certain how they'd handle one on the south side: "They can't be every place at every moment."

He said the Environmental Protection Agency and the Coast Guard may be contacted if the state were unable to control and clean up the spill on its own. Fewless admitted that a spill adjacent to tribal land would require additional procedures when working with tribal officials.

Fewless admitted, "It's a major undertaking to keep it from getting to the lake."

Oil companies are responsible for reporting when an oil spill is detected, the agencies said. Some board members expressed concern that the first anyone would know of a spill would be when fish are found dead floating on the lake's surface, a thought that alarms Greg Power, N.D. Game and Fish fishery manager.

Power said some of the most productive fishing areas of the lake have oil wells dotting the shoreline. Sara Otte Coleman, state tourism director, expressed concern at the impact that a damaged fishery would have on the tourism industry.

There are a bunch of canaries in this article: 1) The health department officials states we have no plan (or a bad plan) for handling oil spills into Lake Sakakawea, we can't keep up with all the new wells, and nobody knows whether the 50-year-old pipelines running under the Lake are properly equipped. Yet look at how close to the Lake and its drainages we are putting stuff that leaks and spills. (See the Google Earth 3-D map, above.) 2) The Game and Fish official is concerned about our fishery, but of course the governors offices doesn't want stuff like that expressed in public so he's talking out of school. 3) The state tourism director is concerned about how an oil spill would impact tourism. That seems legitimate, but you have to subscribe to the McLean County newspaper to know any of this.

Unfortunately none of these concerns seem to matter to our elected state leaders, the Oil and Gas Division has supplanted all other agencies and interests in their eyes.

What the Frack? Numerous problems are surfacing across the country about hydraulic fracturing of oil and natural gas wells. For a good background of those problems watch this 60 Minutes piece:

The stuff online about fracking is too voluminous to post here and might have to be a separate post, or just check it out yourself. But, you will find some local governments are banning the practice within their jurisdiction.

I'm aware of one state that has banned this practice, entirely.. Many others are studying the issue of fracking and it's dangers and others are dramatically increasing regulations and regulators to deal with fracking and its toxic side-issues such as the disposal of dangerous frack water after it is done being used to frack wells.

So what's our oil company cheerleading academy legislature doing about fracking? Passing a bill to statutorily approve fracking as an acceptable oil industry practice. (We've got spirit, yes we do, we've got spirit how'bout you&#8230;.) I wonder what the real purpose of the oil industry wanting this bill at this time? There is no threat that the Industrial Commission is going to ban fracking. After all, the oil lobby owns those people. Perhaps to keep local government from enacting zoning ordinances against fracking when their people start getting sick from it like has happened in other states? Maybe the oil companies wanted this law to help them fend off future liability from causing people and livestock to get sick or die from fracking done proximate to where they are trying to live and ranch? I mean, the oil industrial has already put their man in charge of the State Oil and Gas Division, and their man has successfully seemed to have turned the Industry Commission into his sheep. No dangers to fracking there. Agencies like the Game and Fish and Health Department have been sidelined from having the health of humans and wildlife being at the table. No danger to fracking there. So they only thing left for the oil industry would be to get a bunch of lawsuit liability protection into state law before people start suing for their sicknesses and right now nobody is watching bills like this.

All the media does is keeps reporting how many new wells the cheerleaders at the Capital keep telling them we are getting. They don't report that we don't have the infrastructure to safely support any more wells. The only thing newsworthy is the churning and burning of new wells permits. GO TEAM GO!!!! We don't have emergency management plans or resources to protect the health and safety of the public, nor our wildlife and environment. Oh well, at least everyone has spirit, yes they do&#8230;.except for all the dead canaries, their spirits are both gone and ignored.


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## Plainsman (Jul 30, 2003)

I don't know how to accomplish it, but we need a legislature somewhere between socialism and worship of the almighty dollar. That's why we have this type of problems, and a rush to make drainage and tile more easy. It all comes from the same thing, no respect for the land or it's people.


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## dakotashooter2 (Oct 31, 2003)

I suspect many of the wells close to the lake are angle bored under it. The problem there is if fracturing did some damage the lake could potentially drain from the bottom..............


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## Mookie (Apr 4, 2011)

DRILL BABY DRILL! The corporations will take care of us!


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## shaug (Mar 28, 2011)

Dick Monson,

Just a thought. Have you tried contacting Lloyd Jones? The two of you could rally all the sportsmen and sportsmens groups to get behind his easement plan. You know the one. There is no oil drilling or coal mines etc. on land with a USFWS perpetual easement on it effectively shutting down any economic development. You posted it here.

viewtopic.php?f=48&t=87905

The Dakota Grasslands Conservation Area is to be funded $588 million. The money is to be used to buy easements. That money comes from the The Land and Water Conservation Fund Coalition. The LWCF got $900 million when Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) introduced the America's Great Outdoors Act of 2010. How dingy Harry got that money is an ugly story.

Here is what is nuts. Oil companies pay an oil lease of $5 billion for the Atlantic Continental Shelf. This money goes to the US General Treasurey. Dingy Harry diverted $900 million away from the general treasurey to purchase easements on land here in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming to stop oil drilling. That's nuts.

The US House passed HR 1 on Feb. 19th, 2011 to cut $68 billion out of the presidents budget. It would put back the $900 million that Harry Reid stole in the lame duck session. The Senate failed to pass HR 1. Most didn't think $68 billion in cuts is enough. 
Dick there will be cuts and what is abundantly clear is that Harry Reids theft made the first round of cuts.

So what you need to do Dick Monson is get all the sportsmen and groups to write their Senator and ask them please do not cut the America's Great Outdoors Act of 2010. Do it for clean air, clean water, the wildlife, and the next generation. Keep in mind that many sportsmen work at these oil wells, coal mines and like to drive trucks. They are not going to like it but you can explain it to them that it must be done to save us from ourselves. We will all be able to breathe easier as we pedal our bicycles looking for jobs that don't exist.


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