Page 4 ■ Thursday, December 1, 2011


Town of Almont makes exception for ‘man camps’


By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press


A tiny North Dakota town will allow


a Colorado company to lodge home- builders in an old schoolhouse, even though it that has banned dormitory- style housing for oilfi eld workers. In October, the Almont City Coun- cil passed an ordinance banning the so-called man camps that house oil- fi eld workers. The action came after Terry Lorentzen of Grand Junction, Colo., purchased the town’s abandoned schoolhouse for $15,250 and started moving beds into the building, prompt- ing residents’ concerns that the facility would overwhelm resources in the town of about 100 people. City offi cials said they had wanted


the school — which closed about four years ago because of a lack of children — to be transformed into a restaurant or family apartments, and that the city would have reimbursed Lorentzen. Council member Gretchen Feland


said Nov. 25 that the city would allow Lorentzen, whose company specializes in home construction, to house up to nine workers in the 2,450-square-foot building. She said that is the most al- lowed under the local fi re code. “We’re allowing it after we had a


blueprint of his plans,” Feland said. “He has to meet all codes, including occu- pancy.”


Almont has no police force and in-


suffi cient facilities to host a large num- ber of workers, she said. The oil boom in western North Da-


kota has spurred a critical demand for housing, including in Almont, which is about 50 miles from any signifi cant oil activity at present. Lorentzen likened the situation to a


chicken-and-egg dilemma. “If they want housing, they got to


allow us a place to live,” Lorentzen said. “We’re construction people — we’re not in the man camp business. We’re not run-amoks and we aren’t going to rape and pillage.” Feland said it made no difference to


the city or its residents whether it was oil workers or construction workers oc- cupying the building. She said the issue was the number of workers. “We would have let anyone in there,”


she said. “We can’t tell people where they can and can’t live.” Lorentzen said his company is work-


ing to get the building ready for occu- pancy before winter. “I’m going to move in there, too, as soon as we get a heater in there,” he said.


BAKKEN NEWS Bakken Watch fl ip side to fracking


By LAUREN DONOVAN Bismarck Tribune


Kris Kitko of Bismarck said she gets


threatening messages every day from people who don’t like the content of the “Bakken Watch” website that she and a few others founded several months ago as an environmental response to the Bakken drilling boom. The content, with its tagline “Bakken


Watch — We’re Watching” has apparent- ly raised some anonymous hackles, and she said she gets posts like, “We’re watch- ing you,” and “We’ll bring you down.” Unfairly, she said. “It happens every day. We’re not mak-


ing a comment on people who work in the oil fi eld. They may not know the cor- rupt underside of the business.” Kitko, who often uses folk songs to


express her political views, said Bakken Watch doesn’t have dues or members, per se, but has about 100 people on an email list who get dispatches and updates on events or issues of concern related to the Bakken. In particular, Bakken Watch expresses


reservations about fracture treatment of oil wells, a process in which millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals are pressure-injected to cause formation cracks that release oil.


“I can’t prove the chemicals come from fracking, but


where did they come from?” – Kris Kitko


which the camera


Recently, Kitko posted a video in tours a Williams


County barn with dead and dying farm kittens and their owner — a woman, cry- ing, whose face or name are not shown — who claims the kittens and two cows earlier, possibly died from exposure to fracture treatment chemicals from wells nearby.


The same video gives the results of an


air quality analysis from a sample taken at that farm in September. The analysis lists 24 chemicals, including a form of benzene, methyls, sulfi des and methanes, among others. Kitko said Bakken Watch paid for an


air quality analysis by GD Air of Texas be- cause people who contact Bakken Watch claim they can’t get help anywhere else. The video made the rounds and was


sent recently to Lynn Helms, director of the Department of Mineral Resources, and several members of the Legislature.


Helms responded and said


the chemicals in the analysis are never used in fracking, though some might be found in oil well tank vapors or in natural gas if the gas fl are is interrupted. Kitko said she wonders


how Helms can be sure, since even companies that disclose the chemicals used in fracking are allowed to withhold some under trade secret provisions. “I can’t prove (the chemi-


cals) come from fracking, but where did they come from?” Kitko asked. Monte Besler, a fracking


consultant with the company FracN8tr, said he recognizes three chemicals from the anal- ysis as sometimes used in frack fl uids.


“(One is) D-Limonene, but is also in many citrus based cleaners used in the workplace and household and is consid- ered one of the “green” chemi- cals; methyl ethyl ketone, not as an active ingredient but pos- sibly as a solvent carrier in very small amounts; toluene, again as an additive solvent and car- rier. The vast majority of the chemicals listed are not used because they are very volatile and evaporate easily, likely why they are found in the air. Several are also suspected carcinogens or fl ammable, both not desirable characteristics for carriers,” Besler said. Kitko said the state was wrong to allo-


cate $1 million to legally fend off a move by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act. “We think this is a tremendous waste


of money. We’re appalled that the state would rather spend that money to keep the EPA out,” she said. “If it’s safe, what are they afraid of?” Karen Van Fossen, also of Bakken


Watch, said EPA testing in 2008 found at least one frack chemical in an aquifer in Wyoming, among cancer-causing com- pounds. “Yes, drilling in North Dakota occurs


more deeply under the earth’s surface. The problem is, no matter how deep the drilling is, it still passes through the aquifer and that may pose a risk to water quality,” she said. This kind of citizen concern is what


led Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, to be the lone critical voice when the Legis- lature pondered the $1 million alloca- tion to challenge the pending EPA frack


TOM STROMME/Tribune Kris Kitko is a musician and writer living in Bismarck.


regulations, in part because he believes the issue merited a full-blown Industrial Commission hearing for all sides, not a quick response by the Legislature at a four-day special session. He said it’s become politically vogue


to represent the federal government as “big and bad” to gain votes, when it would be more reasonable to partner with the EPA to make sure fracking is safe and orderly. “The (possible) lawsuit is an unfor-


tunate stricture to that partnership,” he said. But most importantly, there should


be room for all voices in a democracy, he said. “Some say it’s the death of our fu-


ture; some say it’s the life. Let’s not get the state of North Dakota on one point of view before we’ve even heard other views,” he said. Kitko said the potential fi nancial dev- astation caused by a possible fracking moratorium would not be as bad as the outcome she foresees if fracking contin- ues as it is. “If this is not regulated in some way, I fear that we will be seeing a devastation in North Dakota to the land, the water, the air and the farms that grow our food that we have never seen,” she said. (Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 220-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)


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