Environmental Issues Associated With Fracking, in N Dakota

choi

Deborah Sontag, Where Oil and Politics Mix; In North Dakota, a rising unease over effects on the prairie. New York Times, Nov 24, 2014 (front-page top article).
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014 ... -boom-politics.html

four consecutive paragraphs:

"after more than a dozen mineral owners filed anti-flaring lawsuits, the commission moved to clamp down on a longstanding problem. Some 30 percent of the natural gas produced in the state — compared with less than 1 percent nationwide — was being treated as a byproduct of oil production and burned off.

"At a hearing in April, Dr Lyle Best, a pediatrician, said he lived downwind of tall flares that roared like jetliners and flickered light through his bedroom window.

“'Our real annoyance, however, is the understanding that these two flares have burned off over 60 million cubic feet of natural gas in the past six months and are continuously wasting enough energy to heat hundreds of homes at the same time that many people in our country are sleeping on the street, and at least one North Dakotan died of hypothermia this winter,' he said. 'This doesn’t even address the issue of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.'

"When the commission voted in July to require 'gas-capture plans' and impose production restrictions if companies did not meet them, Mr Dalrymple said, 'I hope that what we do today, we are serious about.'

My comment:
(a) In print, the article is more than two pages (including eight (8) bi photos). There is no need to read it.
(b) The first photo, in the front page, has a legend: “Dr Lyle Best lives downwind from flares that he says roar like jetliners and, what is worse in his view, waste natural gas.
(c) North Dakota Industrial Commission
www.nd.gov/ndic/
(“The Legislature created the Industrial Commission of North Dakota (the ‘Commission’) in 1919 to conduct and manage, on behalf of the State, certain utilities, industries, enterprises and business projects established by state law. The members of the Commission are the Governor, the Attorney General and the Agriculture Commissioner of the State. The Governor is the Chairman, and a quorum for the transaction of business consists of the Governor and one additional member. The Attorney General serves as general counsel”)
(d) The English, northern Irish, and French surname Best: “from Middle English, Old French beste ‘animal,’ ‘beast’ (Latin bestia) * * * It is unlikely that the name is derived from best, Old English betst, superlative of good. By far the most frequent spelling of the French surname is Beste, but it is likely that in North America this form has largely been assimilated to Best.”
Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.