Kilgore oil museum

At $7 a person and no student discount we were skeptical to say the least. The museum at the entrance was sub par and the option to have a volunteer walk through the museum or use an antiquated MP3 device for the audio since the displays did not have text accompaniment furthered our skepticism. The intro video was poorly tracked and the main exhibit hall was poorly maintained, as can be seen in this photo.



The final room in the main exhibit hall did have some informative videos on Fracking, even if they left out what the "other" is and if they made facking seem like the critical component in human existence  It is an oil museum, I guess that to be expected, not a two sided tale but one of the great patriotic realization.  The room was also home to some fantastic belt buckles that I am dying to find for myself.




Than we glanced at some nondescript doors and noticed that the museum had another exhibit hall. Upon entry the Kilgore boom town of the 1930's came it live in an amazing interactive way awaiting our discovery

Talking electrical worker, welcoming you to town

newspaper man getting the latest story

The barber telling town tales

Roughneck poem true across boomtown time

Well spews oily mist

Ill be leaving North Dakota on Monday, so this might be one of the final posts I make about the absurdity of life in the North Dakota Oil Patch.

Well spews oily mist near Parshall

PARSHALL — An oil well that began to malfunction Wednesday evening continued to spray a mist of oil into the air late Thursday but is expected to be contained this morning, an official at the scene said.

By: Amy Dalrymple, Forum Communications

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• Oil

Amy Dalrymple/Forum Communications A mist of oil sprays from an oil well near Parshall on Thursday, after an equipment malfunction occurred. A specialized crew flew from Texas to get control of the well.

PARSHALL — An oil well that began to malfunction Wednesday evening continued to spray a mist of oil into the air late Thursday but is expected to be contained this morning, an official at the scene said.
The mist of oil from the well about nine miles west of Parshall appeared to be contained shortly after 3 p.m. Thursday. Crews used the bucket of a backhoe to cover the mist and keep it from blowing up into the air, said Kris Roberts, environmental geologist with the North Dakota Department of Health.
But the risk of a static spark that could start a fire was too high, so crews removed the equipment about 4 p.m. and the mist continued to spray to the north Thursday evening, Roberts said.
“One spark would have been one way too many,” he said.
About 6 p.m. Thursday, crews were closing down for the day because it was getting too dark, Roberts said.
They will resume working this morning, he said.
The well did not pose any danger to public health and there was no need for evacuations, Roberts said.
Kyle Waliezer, Rockies area superintendent for Slawson Exploration Co., said a crew was working on the well between 6 and 7 p.m. Wednesday when an equipment malfunction occurred. No one was injured, he said.
The malfunction, which is under investigation, caused the workers to lose control of the well, Waliezer said.
A specialized team from Houston flew to North Dakota Wednesday night to get control of the well, but a brownish mist, occasionally surging higher than the top of the service rig, continued to spray into the air. They will continue their work Friday.
Lake Sakakawea, less than one mile to the south of the well, was not in danger of being affected, Roberts said.
The well sprayed oil, gas and water containing brine, Roberts said. The mist drifted more than 2,000 feet to the southwest of the well before the wind shifted, he said. The mist was spraying to the north and Roberts estimates it has affected an area of about 1,500 feet. The amount of oil released is unknown, Roberts said.
Cleanup crews would not begin working until the well was contained, Roberts said.
Slawson hired a firm to monitor gas levels in the area to ensure the safety of nearby residents, Waliezer said.
Workers constructed dikes around the well site to contain the spill and prevent it from getting to a drainage area that could affect the lake. Waliezer said Slawson constructs its well sites so oil can be contained on site in the event of a spill.
“They’ve done an excellent job of trying to make sure they’re safe and contained,” Roberts said.
Prior to the incident, the well had been in production, but a workover rig, or service rig, was brought in to clean out sand and improve production, Waliezer said.
The state Department of Mineral Resources and other agencies also were on the scene investigating.
A safety officer from the Three Affiliated Tribes energy division also was monitoring the well, which lies within the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Tags: lake sakakawea, oil, news, energy, parshall, dickinson, spew, rig

massive load of fracking

Published October 14, 2012, 12:00 AM

Clay under Stark, Dunn counties a boon: Study reveals massive load of fracking material

Could a certain type of clay prominent in western North Dakota make the hydraulic fracturing process easier for energy companies while simultaneously providing even more of an economic boost to the Oil Patch?

By: Bryan Horwath, The Dickinson Press

• Material

This material, pictured next to a penny to show its size, is a proppant used in the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, process that has allowed oil drillers to retrieve oil stuck deep within the Bakken. A large mass of clay material that’s good for use as a proppant has been located in Stark and Dunn counties.

 Talk about it

Could a certain type of clay prominent in western North Dakota make the hydraulic fracturing process easier for energy companies while simultaneously providing even more of an economic boost to the Oil Patch?
The foremost geologist in the state thinks both scenarios could become reality.
“We’ve estimated that there are 1.7 billion tons of economically mineable kaolin in western North Dakota,” said state geologist Edward Murphy. “This is something that could potentially be a boon for energy companies and for the state of North Dakota.”
After some extensive study by the North Dakota Geological Survey and North Dakota State University, two things are clear: the state has plenty of clay and most of it is buried in Stark County and Dunn County.
Commonly referred to as kaolin, these rock-like clay formations are full of kaolinite, a stable mineral that tends to be high in aluminum oxide content.
Common ingredients used in the fracking process are proppants — substances used to prop open cracks in the shale formation to allow oil to seep out — and can come in the form of sand-based mixtures and ceramic beads.
Much of the ceramic proppant materials currently used in the fracking process in the Bakken come from as far away as China, but that could soon change, Murphy said.
“On average, a Bakken well uses 3 (million) to 5 million pounds of proppant,” Murphy said. “In 2012, companies will drill and complete around 2,400 oil wells in North Dakota and use roughly 5 million tons of proppant. A big cost of drilling a Bakken or Three Forks well is tied directly to proppants.”
The GS has mapped two major deposits of this special type of clay: the Bear Den portion of the Golden Valley Formation, mostly in Dunn County, and the Rhame Bed of the Slope Formation, which is located primarily in the western half of Stark County.
A total of 232 rock samples were submitted to the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering at NDSU with a final report due in late 2012 or early next year, according to the GS website.
When contacted Thursday, representatives from energy contracting giants Halliburton and Baker Hughes — both of which are active in the Bakken — said they couldn’t enter into specifics about the potential for the mining of North Dakota kaolin.
“Our global supply chain acquires many commodities around the world on a daily basis,” said Baker Hughes spokesperson Pam Easton. “Based on this activity level, and for competitive reasons, we are not able to discuss just one ingredient or source for a particular commodity.”
Murphy said the decision on the use of a sand and chemical mixture or the use ceramic beads as proppant in the fracking process comes down to whichever a particular company prefers. A move to proppant which would be mined near the Bakken, however, could significantly cut down on shipping costs and efforts to bring sand in, often from places like Wisconsin.
“We’ve kind of done phase I of the process already,” Murphy said. “It’s now going to be a matter of companies and the state looking into the potential of mining these minerals. We could see that process move along in the next couple of years.”

Tags: stark county, dunn county, hydraulic fracturing, news, oil, clay, proppant, fracking, drilling

Wast Water Near Housing Development

I realize I have not been doing many personal posts over the last few weeks, I guess my life has become fairly unexciting but the fracking news just keeps coming ...

ND approves frack water disposal well near Killdeer

The North Dakota Industrial Commission on Monday approved the creation of a saltwater disposal well outside of Killdeer that some think is too close to a future subdivision.

By: By Bryan Horwath, The Dickinson Press

1. The North Dakota Industrial Commission on Monday approved the creation of a saltwater disposal well outside of Killdeer that some think is too close to a future subdivision.

During a meeting in Bismarck, the IC ruled that Waterworks Killdeer LLC would be allowed to dispose of saltwater and other fluids used in the hydraulic fracturing process in an area where lots are for sale.

In a compromise of sorts, Waterworks Killdeer agreed to position its new injection well further away from the planned 20-lot subdivision, but not the 2,500 feet further away engineer and contracting owner Cory Ravnaas had requested for the site, which is about nine miles west of Killdeer.

In a letter sent to the IC in August, Ravnaas argued it would be “inappropriate to site a commercial saltwater disposal well immediately adjacent to a platted residential neighborhood,” according to the IC.

In a separate letter to the IC, Dahl Homestead Development owners Tim and Fayleen Fischer also requested the disposal well be moved away from the subdivision site, citing concerns about added truck traffic, noise and dust.

“We don’t have an issue with the well itself,” Fayleen Fischer said Tuesday. “We would just prefer it wasn’t so close to the site.”

Ravnaas went a step further in his letter, saying he thought it would be “disastrous to the success of the new rural residential community.”

Testifying on behalf of Waterworks Killdeer at an earlier hearing before the IC, Brent Lansberg stated the company was willing to move the surface facilities of the operation away from the subdivision site, though he said they would not move the requested 2,500 feet.

In its finding, the IC did not list a specific distance for surface operations to be moved. At the hearing, Lansberg had noted Waterworks Killdeer still needed to obtain an approach permit from the North Dakota Department of Transportation for access to the site and added the company would attempt to receive permission to gain access directly from Highway 200 to limit truck traffic.

Also in the finding, the IC noted that “the proposed injection well will be constructed in such a manner as to prevent the movement of fluids into or between underground sources of drinking water,” something the IC doesn’t take lightly, said Department of Mineral Resources Public Information Officer Alison Ritter.

“The construction of injection wells is something that is taken very seriously,” Ritter said. “All wells are tested monthly to make sure they are in full working order.”

Another subdivision, owned by a different company, is planned for an 80-acre site east of Killdeer. Work is expected to begin on that site later this year.

Ravnaas declined to comment to The Dickinson Press about the decision by the IC.

Tags: industrial commission, oil, killdeer, well, frack, fracking, oil, energy, local, news, ic, regulation, minerals

Oil exec in Stark County Court for frack water disposal practices

Oil executive Nathan Garber made an initial appearance at the Stark County Courthouse in Dickinson on Wednesday on charges that he illegally threatened area drinking water with his company’s hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” waste disposal practices.

By: Bryan Horwath, The Dickinson Press

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• In court

Flanked by his attorneys Monte Rogneby, left, and Mandy Maxon, oil executive Nathan Garber listens to Judge Zane Anderson during an initial appearance at the Stark County Courthouse Wednesday morning.

Oil executive Nathan Garber made an initial appearance at the Stark County Courthouse in Dickinson on Wednesday on charges that he illegally threatened area drinking water with his company’s hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” waste disposal practices.
Garber faces a felony charge for allegedly knowingly attempting to deceive Industrial Commission inspectors.
Garber is set to return for a preliminary hearing over the charge, though no date had been set.
The North Dakota Attorney General’s Office is charging Garber with a violation of the rules and regulations of the IC in a case that represents the state’s first criminal charge against an oil and gas operator.
Stark County Judge Zane Anderson began the approximate 10-minute hearing by inquiring if Garber had read the charge against him. After answering softly that he had, Anderson told Garber that it was “important that you speak up so we can get your answer on the record.”
Anderson agreed to release Garber, listed in court records as a resident of Kalispell, Mont., on his own recognizance, as requested by Garber’s lead attorney, Mandy Maxon. Garber’s council pointed out that he has no criminal history and that he made the initial appearance voluntarily.
The state alleges that Garber, president of Executive Drilling LLC, knowingly violated IC rules by directing employees of another company to modify their fracking waste water dump site practices. The state alleges that Garber’s action could have led the drinking water near the Lodgepole formation to be contaminated with salt water.
The Class C felony charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $5,000 fine or both.
The IC has control of the site in question and officials continue to run tests for possible contamination. Any findings related to groundwater testing would not be released until a trial, North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources spokesperson Alison Ritter said.
Garber and his attorneys would not respond to questions on their way out of court.

Tags: nathan garber, executive drilling, oil, news, fracking, water, waste, disposal, felony, charge

same local problems across the nation

Truly heart breaking to know that so so many of our communities across the nation are grappling with the realities of powerful companies engaging in frackin. Each community is having its individual challenges, however we are all the same overarching challenge, how do we make our local and individual voices heard against these multi billion dollar companies? How do we recognize the progress they bring to us and still confront the damage? We need a leader and a voice to bring us all strength and a space to share and gain power to make changes.

Destroying Precious Land for Gas

By SEAN LENNON

Published: August 27, 2012

ON the northern tip of Delaware County, N.Y., where the Catskill Mountains curl up into little kitten hills, and Ouleout Creek slithers north into the Susquehanna River, there is a farm my parents bought before I was born. My earliest memories there are of skipping stones with my father and drinking unpasteurized milk. There are bald eagles and majestic pines, honeybees and raspberries. My mother even planted a ring of white birch trees around the property for protection.

A few months ago I was asked by a neighbor near our farm to attend a town meeting at the local high school. Some gas companies at the meeting were trying very hard to sell us on a plan to tear through our wilderness and make room for a new pipeline: infrastructure for hydraulic fracturing. Most of the residents at the meeting, many of them organic farmers, were openly defiant. The gas companies didn’t seem to care. They gave us the feeling that whether we liked it or not, they were going to fracture our little town.

In the late ’70s, when Manhattanites like Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger were turning Montauk and East Hampton into an epicurean Shangri-La for the Studio 54 crowd, my parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, were looking to become amateur dairy farmers. My first introduction to a cow was being taught how to milk it by hand. I’ll never forget the realization that fresh milk could be so much sweeter than what we bought in grocery stores. Although I was rarely able to persuade my schoolmates to leave Long Island for what seemed to them an unreasonably rural escapade, I was lucky enough to experience trout fishing instead of tennis lessons, swimming holes instead of swimming pools and campfires instead of cable television.

Though my father died when I was 5, I have always felt lucky to live on land he loved dearly; land in an area that is now on the verge of being destroyed. When the gas companies showed up in our backyard, I felt I needed to do some research. I looked into Pennsylvania, where hundreds of families have been left with ruined drinking water, toxic fumes in the air, industrialized landscapes, thousands of trucks and new roads crosshatching the wilderness, and a devastating and irreversible decline in property value.

Natural gas has been sold as clean energy. But when the gas comes from fracturing bedrock with about five million gallons of toxic water per well, the word “clean” takes on a disturbingly Orwellian tone. Don’t be fooled. Fracking for shale gas is in truth dirty energy. It inevitably leaks toxic chemicals into the air and water. Industry studies show that 5 percent of wells can leak immediately, and 60 percent over 30 years. There is no such thing as pipes and concrete that won’t eventually break down. It releases a cocktail of chemicals from a menu of more than 600 toxic substances, climate-changing methane, radium and, of course, uranium.

New York is lucky enough to have some of the best drinking water in the world. The well water on my family’s farm comes from the same watersheds that supply all the reservoirs in New York State. That means if our tap water gets dirty, so does New York City’s.

Gas produced this way is not climate- friendly. Within the first 20 years, methane escaping from within and around the wells, pipelines and compressor stations is 105 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. With more than a tiny amount of methane leakage, this gas is as bad as coal is for the climate; and since over half the wells leak eventually, it is not a small amount. Even more important, shale gas contains one of the earth’s largest carbon reserves, many times more than our atmosphere can absorb. Burning more than a small fraction of it will render the climate unlivable, raise the price of food and make coastlines unstable for generations.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, when speaking for “the voices in the sensible center,” seems to think the New York State Association of County Health Officials, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the New York State Nurses Association and the Medical Society of the State of New York, not to mention Dr. Anthony R. Ingraffea’s studies at Cornell University, are “loud voices at the extremes.” The mayor’s plan to “make sure that the gas is extracted carefully and in the right places” is akin to a smoker telling you, “Smoking lighter cigarettes in the right place at the right time makes it safe to smoke.”

Few people are aware that America’s Natural Gas Alliance has spent $80 million in a publicity campaign that includes the services of Hill and Knowlton — the public relations firm that through most of the ’50s and ’60s told America that tobacco had no verifiable links to cancer. Natural gas is clean, and cigarettes are healthy — talk about disinformation. To try to counteract this, my mother and I have started a group called Artists Against Fracking.

My father could have chosen to live anywhere. I suspect he chose to live here because being a New Yorker is not about class, race or even nationality; it’s about loving New York. Even the United States Geological Survey has said New York’s draft plan fails to protect drinking water supplies, and has also acknowledged the likely link between hydraulic fracturing and recent earthquakes in the Midwest. Surely the voice of the “sensible center” would ask to stop all hydraulic fracturing so that our water, our lives and our planet could be protected and preserved for generations to come.

Sean Lennon is a musician
.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 28, 2012, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Destroying Precious Land for Gas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/opinion/sean-lennon-destroying-precious-land-for-gas.html?src=me&ref=general

The water is going to kill us

Environmental violations at a fracking waste water disposal well near Dickinson that threatened drinking water in Stark County have prompted North Dakota’s largest civil case and the first ever criminal case against an oil and gas operator.

The company, Halek Operating ND LLC, faces up to $1.5 million in fines for injecting salt water used in hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, into the disposal site after having been told to stop because the site was not up to state standards.

The North Dakota Industrial Commission filed the civil complaint against Halek in Burleigh County District Court.

A criminal complaint filed in Stark County charges Nathan Garber, president of Executive Drilling LLC, with a Class C felony. The case alleges that Garber knowingly violated Industrial Commission rules by directing employees of another company to modify the dump site to deceive inspectors.

Executive Drilling LLC is somehow related to Halek, but officials are unclear about the connection, said Lynn Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources.

Helms said this is the most significant environmental case in North Dakota that he’s aware of.

“It’s a very serious violation and it needs to be dealt with in a very serious manner,” Helms said.

Halek attempted to drill for oil in the Lodgepole formation, but was unsuccessful, Helms said. The company then converted the oil well into a salt water disposal well.

Rules require disposal wells to have three layers of steel to protect drinking water, Helms said. In this case, there was only one layer of protection, he said.

“They’ve tripled the risk of contaminating a drinking water zone with this well,” Helms said.

If salt water had contaminated the drinking water zones, it would have been very serious, which is why officials are pursuing maximum civil and criminal penalties, Helms said.

“It takes many, many years to clean it up, if it can be done at all,” he said.

Officials will be testing at the site to check for possible contamination, Helms said. The Industrial Commission is now in control of that well and not allowing it to be used.

The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation assisted in the case and determined that Garber was the individual responsible for signing paperwork to direct another company to modify the well site to mislead inspectors.

“It was literally done in the middle of the night,” Helms said.

Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem said the willful violation of Industrial Commission rules warrant a felony charge against Garber. The maximum penalty is five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Garber is believed to be in Texas and officials will attempt to extradite him to North Dakota, Stenehjem said.

Halek Operating has 21 days to respond to the civil complaint. Attempts to reach Garber and Halek representatives for comment were unsuccessful.

During a meeting of the Industrial Commission on Tuesday, members called for aggressive enforcement of environmental rules.

“There will not be any exceptions or leniency when these things happen,” said Gov. Jack Dalrymple.

A year ago, the Industrial Commission cited Halek for improperly cleaning up an oil spill, also near Dickinson. Halek faced more than $588,000 in potential fines, but was ordered to pay less than 10 percent of that with the rest suspended, Helms said. Halek also paid a $20,000 cash bond in case future contamination showed up, Helms said.

Halek could be ordered to pay the suspended amount of the fine, $528,750, if the company has another similar violation before Nov. 4.

Helms said he does not think this new case will trigger that suspended fine because it’s a different type of violation.

However, Helms said he expects the company will end up paying a higher percentage of the fines in this new case.

“I would think that they’ll be much more severe with action on this second violation,” Helms said.

Halek Operating ND LLC is registered with the Secretary of State with a Dickinson post office box and a Twin Cities cellphone number. It’s also associated with Halek Energy Partners in Texas.

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/event/article/id/59852/

Highway Danger

This is a re-post from the NY times, but is so aptly written and highlights one the growing concerns to all in Western North Dakota

Deadliest Danger Isn’t at the Rig but on the Road

Meg Roussos for The New York Times

Crystal Roth’s husband, Timothy, an oil field worker from West Virginia, was killed in a company truck that crashed in his home state last year when the driver fell asleep.

By IAN URBINA

Published: May 14, 2012

When they were just 10 minutes from home, the driver fell asleep at the wheel. The truck veered off the highway and slammed into a sign that sheared off part of the vehicle’s side, killing Mr. Roth.

After working 17 hours straight at a natural gas well in Ohio, Timothy Roth and three other crew members climbed into their company truck around 10 o’clock one night last July and began their four-hour drive back to their drilling service company’s shop in West Virginia.

About two months before the fatal crash, Mr. Roth nearly died in a similar accident when another co-worker with the same company fell asleep at the wheel after a long shift and ran the company’s truck into a pole. In 2009, Mr. Roth’s employer  was penalized in New York, Pennsylvania and Utah for violations like “requiring or permitting” its oil field truckers to drive after working for 14 hours, the legal limit.

Over the past decade, more than 300 oil and gas workers like Mr. Roth were killed in highway crashes, the largest cause of fatalities in the industry. Many of these deaths were due in part to oil field exemptions from highway safety rules that allow truckers to work longer hours than drivers in most other industries, according to safety and health experts.

Many oil field truckers say that while these exemptions help them earn more money, they are routinely used to pressure workers into driving after shifts that are 20 hours or longer.

“Just because you are on an oil field site does not make you any less vulnerable to the effects of fatigue!” Garr Farrell, an oil service driver in Ore City, Tex.,  wrote last year to federal highway safety regulators. In his letter, Mr. Farrell complained that his managers had used the oil field exemptions to force him to wait, without anywhere to sleep, for 36 hours at one well site before he could unload his drilling supplies and get back on the highway.

Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board  saidit “strongly opposed” the oil field exemptions because they raise the risk of crashes.

This threat will grow substantially in coming years, safety advocates warn. According to federal officials, more than 200,000 new oil and gas wells will be drilled nationwide over the next decade. And the drilling technique used at more than 90 percent of these wells, known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, leads to far more trucks on the road — roughly 500 to 1,500 truck trips per well — than traditional drilling, partly because fracking requires millions of gallons of water per well.

The new drilling has been an economic boon to the country, adding millions of dollars in local tax revenues and royalty payments and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, many of them providing high pay to unskilled laborers in areas with double-digit unemployment.

But the jobs are also hazardous, with fatality rates that are seven times the national average across all industries. Nearly a third of the 648 deaths of oil field workers from 2003 through 2008 were in highway crashes, according to the most recent data analyzed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By contrast, highway crashes caused roughly a fifth of workplace fatalities across all industries in 2010.

“The growth of this industry is a big concern because it’s adding so many more trucks on the roads and its drivers don’t have to follow the same rules as others,” said Henry Jasny, a lawyer for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

Bending the Rules

In 2005, as the drilling boom accelerated, federal labor officials noticed a worrisome trend: fatalities among oil and gas workers rose 15 percent from 2003 to 2004. After investigating, the C.D.C. found that with the growth of the industry, not only were more workers dying but, more surprising, the fatality rate was increasing, meaning the relative risk was rising. Shifts grew longer, more inexperienced workers were hired and older rigs were being pressed into service, the agency concluded.

“Unless changes are made to increase worker safety, the high fatality rates described in this report are likely to continue,” the agency warned, citing the growth of the industry and its trucking exemptions.

Some worker safety experts point to other factors contributing to the industry’s fatality rate. Drug use is common among workers at some sites. Few workers are unionized, meaning they are less able to complain about safety problems without fear of being fired.

Some experts have called for increased oversight. An analysis by The New York Times of more than 50,000 inspection reports indicates that as the number of drilling rigs rose by more than 22 percent in 2011 from the prior year, the number of inspections at such work sites fell by 12 percent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/us/for-oil-workers-deadliest-danger-is-driving.html?_r=1&hp