Press "Enter" to skip to content

North Dakota Oil Patch Increases County Costs for Dust Control

I attended the big town hall meeting on the economic impacts of North Dakota oil development held in Belle Fourche last night. Stay tuned for a full write-up later.

But one tidbit leapt to my attention at last night's presentation. Gene Veeder, executive director of the McKenzie County Job Development Authority, said that one unexpected cost of the Bakken oil boom has been dust control. Just a few years ago, McKenzie County spent nothing on dust control. Over the last three years, the county has spent around four million dollars addressing concerns about "poor visibility, damage to vegetation, and adverse health effects."

Golly, if our North Dakota neighbors would just listen to South Dakota Congresswoman Kristi Noem, they'd save millions of dollars. After all, she'll tell you dust kicked up from gravel roads is no big deal. (Never mind those silly studies saying the erionite in some North Dakota gravel can cause cancer. That's just science.)

Remember, Noem's HR 1633 does not simply "protect" farmers from imaginary EPA regulations. It exempts nuisance dust kicked from gravel roads from existing Clean Air Act rules. In other words, Noem's dust crusade would let Big Oil and her other big-money pals in extractive industries make the Plains even dustier and increase costs for counties like McKenzie.