Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
EHRP: The North Dakota Oil Fracking Boom Creates Clash of Money and Devastation
In a way, history is repeating itself. Cities and towns across the country have gone through similar upheavals for the sake of energy production and jobs, including the small towns of southwest West Virginia and eastern Kentucky during the heyday of coal. That part of central Appalachia is still struggling to pick up after booms went bust.
Of course, North Dakota invited the oil companies. But the oil patch is like the high school wallflower who announces a backyard kegger on Facebook, only to find the entire student body has shown up. Before it gave oil drilling a go, North Dakota was the nation’s least-visited state. The once-overlooked, now overwhelmed oil patch never dreamed it would become the center of the biggest, messiest migration to one state since the California Gold Rush.
That it was unprepared for the deluge is painfully obvious. The oil patch looks like the aftermath of a natural disaster. There are long lines everywhere, from gas stations to taco trucks, store shelves look ransacked and forget about getting a hotel room within a hundred miles. Man camps, the makeshift encampments for oil workers, crop up overnight in fields where cows graze. So many newcomers crash at the Wal-Mart parking lot in Williston – at least 100 vehicles from all over the country every night – that it’s almost becoming a neighborhood.
And traffic in the patch is like traffic nowhere else, not even in the nation’s biggest cities. It can take 90 jaw-clenching minutes to drive 30 miles. Pity the passenger car driver surrounded on every side by tankers, flatbeds and cement mixers. Everywhere you go, people are beleaguered and out of sorts.
Of course, North Dakota invited the oil companies. But the oil patch is like the high school wallflower who announces a backyard kegger on Facebook, only to find the entire student body has shown up. Before it gave oil drilling a go, North Dakota was the nation’s least-visited state. The once-overlooked, now overwhelmed oil patch never dreamed it would become the center of the biggest, messiest migration to one state since the California Gold Rush.
That it was unprepared for the deluge is painfully obvious. The oil patch looks like the aftermath of a natural disaster. There are long lines everywhere, from gas stations to taco trucks, store shelves look ransacked and forget about getting a hotel room within a hundred miles. Man camps, the makeshift encampments for oil workers, crop up overnight in fields where cows graze. So many newcomers crash at the Wal-Mart parking lot in Williston – at least 100 vehicles from all over the country every night – that it’s almost becoming a neighborhood.
And traffic in the patch is like traffic nowhere else, not even in the nation’s biggest cities. It can take 90 jaw-clenching minutes to drive 30 miles. Pity the passenger car driver surrounded on every side by tankers, flatbeds and cement mixers. Everywhere you go, people are beleaguered and out of sorts.
More at: http://economichardship.org/the-north-dakota-oil-fracking-boom-creates-clash-of-money-and-devastation/
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
