BISMARCK – An activist group called Friday for a state investigation into what they say is North Dakota’s failure to enforce state rules and regulations for the oil industry as identified in a New York Times report last weekend.

The Dakota Resource Council wants a special bipartisan legislative committee to probe the reported lack of enforcement and what it says are violations of the state’s corrupt practices laws as identified in the Times’ articles.

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DRC board chairwoman Linda Weiss of Belfield said Friday the articles “brought up a lot of things that maybe a lot of people aren’t aware of.” She said state officials’ response that North Dakota has some of toughest environmental regulations in the nation is “a joke.”

“We might have a lot of regulations, but they’re unenforced,” she said.

The DRC’s oil and gas task force met earlier this week and decided to call for an investigation. Members will now try to find state lawmakers to carry the torch, Executive Director Don Morrison said.

Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, R-Dickinson, said he doesn’t see the need for a special legislative committee to investigate. He called the Times’ report “a one-sided story” and said state agencies, lawmakers and the oil industry are already working to address issues raised in the report, including saltwater spills, natural gas flaring and the disposal of drilling waste.

“I think we are seriously looking at those things anyway,” he said.

Darrell Dorgan, head of the North Dakota Energy Industry Waste Coalition, also called Friday for a performance audit of the state Health Department because of what he said is its failure to track or deal with radioactive and toxic oil waste. He said the Times article confirmed that the state “has either lost or given control of” the waste to the industry.

“It’s likely North Dakota will be declared a ‘Superfund site’ within a decade,” Dorgan said in a news release, referring to the federal designation for an uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste site that typically requires long-term cleanup. “This didn’t have to happen, but incompetence has its costs.”

Weiss pointed to news reports this week that a company linked to the illegal dumping of hundreds of radioactive filter socks in an abandoned gas station in Noonan paid about $20,000 in fines through a deal reached with state regulators, far less than the roughly $800,000 in fines initially proposed by the state Industrial Commission.

Low levels of naturally occurring radioactivity can build up inside filter socks as they’re used to filter fluids produced during oil and gas exploration.

In a statement released through a spokesman Friday, Gov. Jack Dalrymple said the state has adopted “some of the toughest regulations in the nation to support the responsible development of oil and gas,” including 67 rule changes aimed at enhancing environmental protections.

The state added 28 staff positions during the last legislative session to boost enforcement and regulatory oversight, he noted, adding he will recommend hiring “significantly more staff” in his budget address to the Legislature on Wednesday.

Dalrymple also highlighted that the Industrial Commission, which he chairs, now requires operators of oil wells and saltwater disposal wells to use approved containers for on-site storage of filters destined for disposal sites.

“These issues are important to the people of North Dakota and they should not be used for misinformation and political posturing,” he said. “Moving forward, we will continue to address the impacts of energy development and rapid growth based on facts and sound science.”

The Health Department’s environmental health chief, Dave Glatt, said the department will release two sets of proposed rules next month related to radioactive oilfield waste.

One of the rules aims to track the waste “from cradle to grave” by requiring that its handlers be licensed and permitted by the state and also keep manifests of the waste’s volume and location as it’s moved from well sites to landfills, he said.

“We do understand that the waste needs to be tracked a little bit better,” he said.

Current state law doesn’t allow the disposal of filter socks in North Dakota, but that could change depending on the second rule that will be proposed. The Health Department hired Argonne National Laboratories to evaluate the waste and help the department determine whether it can be disposed of in the state while still protecting public health and the environment, Glatt said.

“It’s based on the science and the risk, or lack thereof,” he said.

There will be a public comment period on the proposed rules, as well as public input meetings in several cities throughout the state, Glatt said. The attorney general’s office and a legislative committee must sign off on the rules before they become final, which will likely take six months to a year, he said.





Reach Nowatzki at (701) 255-5607 or by email at mnowatzki@forumcomm.com.