5 ms·

We're drowning in headlines these days that I feel like this story really fell through the cracks. People who live near fracking really need to know this.

lostlogin 7y ago
It’s not just those near it - places between the well and the dump site, near the rivers by the dump, near the truck stops, eating the crops the brine has contaminated, using the recycled pipes, washing workers clothes, living in the worker’s houses. If you were designing a dispersal system, you’d be hard placed to make a better one short of perhaps aerial spraying.
dylan604 7y ago
It's amazing what that monthly check can make people look over when the wells are placed on private property.
- mattbk1 7y ago
  That monthly check might not even be very large. Unfortunately, in many places (like North Dakota), mineral rights are severed from surface rights. So as a surface owner you might get a pittance for allowing a pad on your property, all the royalties are going to someone else who bought up mineral rights decades ago.
stevenwoo 7y ago
I grew up near a location in Texas in the 1970-1980's where oil well companies would truck in mud from wells, and dump it in a field to dry up and the liquid would run off, the water in the ditches had an oily sheen for miles (would ride my bike around town as far as I could go). I just checked and the field is still there and brown/empty but the company got replaced by a church and it's across the street from a junior high school now (and across a different street from the de facto segregated part of town where most of the African American kids got on the bus I rode to school).
hanniabu 7y ago
I know we're technically not supposed to discuss politics here, but I feel it's related to this. > People who live near fracking really need to know this. I'm surprised that middle America is so pro-Republican given how many times things like this have happened to them and how pro-corporate and anti-regulation Republicans are.
- andromeduck 7y ago
  A lot of it is because Democrats choose very strange hills to die on because it appeals to their base in more liberal/urban districts. Taking a weaker stance on policies important for single issue voters like gun rights for example would go an extremely long way.
makomk 7y ago
It looks like it's not exactly news as such; I found this USGS report about the problem from 1999: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0142-99/fs-0142-99.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0142-99/fs-0142-99.pdf

lostlogin 7y ago

It’s not just those near it - places between the well and the dump site, near the rivers by the dump, near the truck stops, eating the crops the brine has contaminated, using the recycled pipes, washing workers clothes, living in the worker’s houses. If you were designing a dispersal system, you’d be hard placed to make a better one short of perhaps aerial spraying.

dylan604 7y ago

It's amazing what that monthly check can make people look over when the wells are placed on private property.

mattbk1 7y ago
That monthly check might not even be very large. Unfortunately, in many places (like North Dakota), mineral rights are severed from surface rights. So as a surface owner you might get a pittance for allowing a pad on your property, all the royalties are going to someone else who bought up mineral rights decades ago.

stevenwoo 7y ago

I grew up near a location in Texas in the 1970-1980's where oil well companies would truck in mud from wells, and dump it in a field to dry up and the liquid would run off, the water in the ditches had an oily sheen for miles (would ride my bike around town as far as I could go). I just checked and the field is still there and brown/empty but the company got replaced by a church and it's across the street from a junior high school now (and across a different street from the de facto segregated part of town where most of the African American kids got on the bus I rode to school).

hanniabu 7y ago

I know we're technically not supposed to discuss politics here, but I feel it's related to this. > People who live near fracking really need to know this. I'm surprised that middle America is so pro-Republican given how many times things like this have happened to them and how pro-corporate and anti-regulation Republicans are.

andromeduck 7y ago
A lot of it is because Democrats choose very strange hills to die on because it appeals to their base in more liberal/urban districts. Taking a weaker stance on policies important for single issue voters like gun rights for example would go an extremely long way.

makomk 7y ago

It looks like it's not exactly news as such; I found this USGS report about the problem from 1999: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0142-99/fs-0142-99.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0142-99/fs-0142-99.pdf