{"id":4436,"date":"2021-01-01T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-01T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=145363"},"modified":"2021-01-01T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-01T13:30:00","slug":"this-is-why-we-dont-drink-the-water-fracking-threatens-drinking-water-on-the-fort-berthold-indian-reservation-in-north-dakota-meet-the-locals-who-are-fighting-bac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/01\/this-is-why-we-dont-drink-the-water-fracking-threatens-drinking-water-on-the-fort-berthold-indian-reservation-in-north-dakota-meet-the-locals-who-are-fighting-bac\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cThis Is Why We Don\u2019t Drink the Water\u201d \u2013 Fracking threatens drinking water on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Meet the locals who are fighting back."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Editor\u2019s Note: This article was originally
\npublished<\/a> by Ensia and is republished here under a Creative Commons
\nlicense.<\/em><\/p>\n

Lisa Finley-DeVille started drinking bottled water
\naround the same time her friend\u2019s horses began to get sick and die. A half
\ndecade ago on the Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota, Deville
\ndrove up to see her friend in the New Town area. The horses looked dehydrated
\nand brittle, just skin and bones. They\u2019re eating, but it\u2019s like they\u2019re not
\neating, her friend told her.<\/p>\n

It was down the hill, at the pond the horses drank from, where the answer lurked. She believes wastewater from nearby oil and gas production leaked there, where the horses drank it up, poisoned. \u201cI\u2019m always worried,\u201d Finley-Deville says. \u201cThis is why we don\u2019t drink the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finley-DeVille is a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation, known as the Three Affiliated Tribes in Fort Berthold. Just a half mile from her house, in the town of Mandaree, oil and gas are produced by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), an increasingly popular approach to fossil fuel extraction that involves injecting pressurized water, sand, and chemicals into the Earth to release the gas or oil within.<\/p>\n

Legal loopholes that exempt fracking from elements of the Safe Drinking Water Act and EPA hazardous waste laws are endangering surrounding communities, and putting drinking water at risk of contamination. Now, national, state, and local grassroots efforts, some led by Finley-DeVille, are calling for change.<\/p>\n

The Problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Fort Berthold Reservation, along with the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to the south, blister with oil underneath. The two areas sit within the prolific Williston Basin, a large rock unit stretched across North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and regions of Canada. From the first discovery of a natural gas well in the state in 1892 to today, western North Dakota has been home to the fossil fuel industry for more than a century. As of 2020<\/a>, the state is the second largest crude oil producer in the United States (after Texas) and accounts for 2% of the nation\u2019s natural gas reserves.<\/p>\n

Thanks largely to fracking technology, oil production in North Dakota increased fourfold since 2010, with the state producing an unprecedented 45 million barrels in 2019. Although a collapse in oil demand in 2020 curbed the boom, fracking has left its mark.<\/p>\n

Wastewater \u2014 a combination of \u201cflowback,\u201d a portion of the water used to fracture the rock to release fossil fuels that flows back to the surface, and naturally occurring \u201cproduced\u201d water that the fracking process forces to the surface \u2014 is still ever present.<\/p>\n

According to a report<\/a> published by the nonprofit environmental organization Earthworks, fracking produced 19 billion gallons of wastewater in North Dakota in 2018 alone.<\/p>\n

The risk to drinking water comes in two major ways. First, water used in the hydraulic drilling process can leak into aquifers and other groundwater supplies. Second, the wastewater that fracking produces can contaminate supplies when waste leaks from landfills that accept oil remains, when waste spill from trucks or pipelines moving it, when equipment fails, or when it leaks from unlined disposal pits.<\/p>\n

Both flowback and produced water may contain<\/a> heavy metals such as barium and lead<\/a>, hydrocarbons, naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM), and incredibly high levels of salinity. Flowback and produced wastewater can also include chemical additive formulas, with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like<\/a>
\nbenzene, ethylene glycol, methanol, and toluene. Between 2005 and 2013, the EPA identified<\/a>
\n1,084 different chemicals reported in fracking formulas.<\/p>\n

In North Dakota, wastewater is normally disposed of in storage pits or underground disposal wells, taken to treating plants<\/a> that process the waste, or in some cases spread on roads as a de-icer. But sometimes, whether in transportation or equipment malfunction, the wastewater can spill into the environment, contaminating the land and water around and beneath it.<\/p>\n

A pipeline rupture in 2014 spilled a million gallons of wastewater<\/a> on the Fort Berthold Reservation and contaminated Bear Den Bay in Lake Sakakawea, a quarter mile from where the town of Mandaree draws its drinking water. Bill Suess, the program manager for spill investigation at the North Dakota Department of Environmental Quality, says his team checked the intake system and didn\u2019t find any elevated levels of contaminants, likely due to the amount of freshwater in the lake.<\/p>\n

Avner Vengosh, a professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke University, led a study<\/a> in 2016 that found elevated levels of fracking-related contaminants in North Dakota at sites including Bear Den Bay. The researchers detected high levels of salts, ammonium, selenium, lead, and other toxics<\/a> as well as radium, a naturally occurring radioactive element found in wastewater as many as four years after original spills. The team checked the Mandaree water intake as well, says Vengosh, but did not find any elevated levels.<\/p>\n

Regulatory Issues<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a large amount of the waste from the different parts of the oil and gas cycle,\u201d says Amy Mall, a senior advocate at NRDC and consultant on the Earthworks report. \u201cThe waste can be very toxic and it also can leak or spill or otherwise get into the environment. So there are concerns about how the waste is regulated, whether it\u2019s being regulated in a way that is adequately protective to human health.\u201d<\/p>\n

One concern is an exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act, known as the Halliburton loophole<\/a>, that exempts industry from having to disclose the chemicals it uses in fracking and prevented the EPA from regulating fracking fluids. The loophole was established in an energy bill passed by the Bush\/Cheney administration in 2005 and has been in effect ever since.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of the [Safe Drinking Water Act] is to protect our drinking water, and the industry that is pumping toxic chemicals, carcinogenic chemicals, underground doesn\u2019t even have to tell us what those are,\u201d says Melissa Troutman, research and policy analyst for Earthworks.<\/p>\n

The oil and gas industry is also exempt from federal EPA hazardous waste regulations<\/a> and Superfund<\/a>
\nregulations, which exclude waste associated with the exploration, development, and production of crude oil and natural gas. Drilling fluids, produced water, and other waste are not disposed of as hazardous and are exempt from the hazardous cleanup process when it comes to spills or leaks. The industry has been exempt<\/a> from these regulations since the 1970s, when the EPA temporarily proposed that oil and gas waste was not hazardous. This ruling became permanent in 1988 when the EPA determined the cost of treating the waste would slow production.<\/p>\n

The organization FracTracker Alliance calculated<\/a>
\nhundreds of brine and crude oil spills throughout the region. More recently, a 34,000-gallon
\nwastewater pipeline spilled<\/a> north of New Town in June this year and two
\npipeline spills deposited 21,000
\ngallons of wastewater<\/a> into a Missouri River tributary in 2019. According to
\nthe North
\nDakota government\u2019s spill database<\/a>, more than 400 wastewater spills were
\nreported in 2018.<\/p>\n

Several portions of North Dakota\u2019s sandstone
\naquifers are exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA has determined
\nthe portions do not currently serve as a source of water and will not serve as
\none in the future, allowing the oil and gas industry to use the aquifer for
\nextraction and disposal of waste. There are three aquifer exceptions in the
\nFort Berthold Reservation, according to the
\nEPA Underground Injection Control Program<\/a>, all used for produced water
\ndisposal. Once used, that portion of the aquifer can never be used for drinking
\nwater in the future if needed.<\/p>\n

Citizen Action<\/strong><\/p>\n

For Finley-DeVille, solving fracking and wastewater
\ncomes down to these regulations. She is co-founder and treasurer of the Fort
\nBerthold Protectors of Water and Earth Rights, or POWER\u2014 an organization formed in 2015<\/a> to reduce the impacts
\nof the oil boom in her community. Since its start, she and her husband, Walter
\nDeVille, have worked with the nonprofit environmental organization Dakota
\nResource Council and Earthworks, among others, to campaign for more regulations
\nand more information on what contaminants are involved in fracking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a right way to do this,\u201d Finley-DeVille
\nsays. \u201cIt\u2019s creating those laws and environmental justice and enforcing it \u2026
\nmaking sure [industry] is held accountable and responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fort Berthold POWER sued<\/a>
\nthe Bureau of Land Management in 2018 after the agency rolled
\nback<\/a> the methane waste prevention rule, which is meant to reduce venting,
\nflaring, and leaking from oil and gas operations. Members of the Fort Berthold
\nPOWER also went to
\nspeak<\/a> in Washington D.C., where they presented infrared images of harmful
\nmethane emissions from well pads \u2013 a spot where multiple wells are drilled
\n \u2013 within their community. This rollback was struck
\ndown<\/a> in 2020.<\/p>\n

Currently, the organization is fighting the recent
\nrollbacks of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a 50-year-old law
\nthat requires federal agencies to evaluate the environmental impacts of their
\nactions, such as permit applications or land and water management. The new
\nrollbacks limit this review and community input. President-elect Joe Biden has
\nvowed<\/a> to reverse these rollbacks.<\/p>\n

This past summer, New York became the first state to close
\nthe hazardous-waste loophole, meaning that oil and gas waste will now be
\ntreated as other hazards. \u201cNEPA is very important and
\nsignificant,\u201d Finley-DeVille says. \u201cEverything that\u2019s under NEPA protects us as
\n[Indigenous and Native] peoples, that protects our gravesites, our historical
\nand traditional cultural sites, it protects our water \u2026 all that\u2019s in danger
\nnow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Troutman of Earthworks says the regulatory
\nloopholes must be closed to prevent further spilling, clean up current spills,
\nand address drinking water contamination. This past summer, New York became the
\nfirst
\nstate<\/a> to close the hazardous-waste loophole, meaning that oil and gas waste
\nwill now be treated as other hazards. Pennsylvania and New Mexico are looking
\nto do the same.<\/p>\n

While North Dakota has not closed these regulatory
\ngaps, local efforts such as DeVille\u2019s work have picked up steam. Just this
\nmonth, Williams County, northwest of the Fort Berthold Reservation, extended<\/a>
\na yearlong moratorium on a proposed landfill for radioactive oilfield waste by
\nsix months, with the county board of commissioners citing a desire to consider
\noptions for regulations and restrictions first.<\/p>\n

Finley-DeVille, for her part, recently took a
\nbigger step toward change as well, running for state senate in November. Though
\nshe didn\u2019t win, she is working with the Native
\nAmerican Caucus<\/a> now to get specific representation for the reservation at
\nthe North Dakota Senate and House. The quest for clean land, air, and water is
\nfar from over. \u201cThat\u2019s the reason I do what I do,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s Note: This article was originally published by Ensia and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Lisa Finley-DeVille started drinking bottled water around the same time\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":411,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/411"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4437,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4436\/revisions\/4437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}