Oil and gas fracking operators in North Dakota have dumped at least 1.7 million gallons of brine and 716,000 gallons of oil on the western plains between 2009 and 2011. And that's just what they've reported.
The economic boom for that state is undeniable -- it's now the second largest producer of energy in the country. But ProPublica, the non-profit, public interest investigative journalism organization, just published detailed look at what that boom is doing to the landscape. It's not pretty.
Star Tribune photos
Reporter Nicholas Kusnetz describes the economic explosion -- unemployment is now three percent, and the long slow decline in population has been reversed by an influx of new workers.We wrote about the social and economic impacts last year. But rents are as high as those in New York city, crime is up, and in many places the ground has been rendered sterile by toxic spills. Kusnetz writes:
What's disheartening is that state and federal regulators let it go.
