Visiting lecturer Taylor Brorby told a large audience at Luther College Wednesday night that "North Dakota was not prepared for (the frac) oil boom" that has transformed the state in recent years.
Brorby says there are now 11,000 oil wells in the Bakken oil fields of western North Dakota. That has transformed communities near the fields, sending populations soaring and in the process bringing in problems like prostitution and drug use.
But Brorby spent most of his 50-minute lecture Wednesday night discussing the environmentally impact of frac oil mining in North Dakota. He says there have been 9,000 pipeline malfunctions in the past eight years in the Bakken oil fields and additional problems caused by transporting the oil in what Brorby called "bomb trains."
He also discussed a landfill in Glendive, Montana, where much of the waste from the frac oil industry has been taken--including 2 million tons of radioactive watse. He says such damage to his native state proves that something must be done about the Bakken oil fields and he called for civil disobedience to raise public awareness about the problems of the frac oil industry.