Changing America does your area show any effects of change,like drilling or heavy

semi truck traffic on local roads.

 

Loosewire,

News reporting withstanding, is there a report showing thecorrelation?

 

We don't get sinkholes here in North Dakota except for where old coal mines are caving in.

Have a look around the Hazen and Buela area on Google Earth if you want to see the extent of what old coal mine cave ins does to the landscape!


Road infrastructure and related wise if anything the high increase in truck traffic has helped get our state to step up and start repair and building up roads the right way.

Initially we had a lot of road wear issues but as a local I can tell you with a fair amount of honestly that for my entire life the companies the have been building and paving our state roads have been cutting corners for years.

As our small towns go many have become new rail tank car loading sites which to be honest puts a pile of tax money people and revenue into their local townships which helps a huge amount.

 

I agree on the road quality, but I don't think it was necessarily "cutting corners". In our township, the roads supervisor' freely admits he knows nothing about building roads and the local paving company doesn't have a single engineer on staff. Ignorance is the issue here. After a truck left a 2-foot deep rut (clear through the asphalt and 'road bed' and into the clay) in a brand new road, our township council finally approved some outside engineering design funds and the paving company will hire an experienced civil engineer.

 

A road will be repaved and within weeks you will see some kind of contractor digging

trenchs or putting in new or or replacing busted pipes. The patches never get roll out

like they should. There very little inspection ,if any...never heard of inspection or seen

it being done. Any clues..I missed. GopherT , I reread your post ,you covered a lot on the

subject.

 

Google sink hole maps,you will see lots of maps. Also don't miss....google recent sink holes.

 

Loosewire... just because there are sinkhole it doesn't mean tracking was the cause.

 

I can't follow how fracking could cause sinkholes being that the process of fracturing the oil bearing formation is making it get bigger by pumping it up not smaller by draining it down.

On top of that the formations are typically thousands of feet below the ground at a depth were a void of a few tens of feet in height even if it was hundreds of feet across would never show up on the surface.

From what I know of sinkholes they are primarily caused by the ceilings of caves or other such underground natural or man made voids that are fairly close to the surface , inches to a few hundred feet below, collapsing.

 

The sinkhole thing is just more of the "anti's" propaganda. For the last three years the antifracking people tried to get a local law past that would make it illegal to manufacture anything to do with fracking or do fracking in our county. This after Vallourec steel decided to expand its pipe mill in Youngstown. Youngstown lost its steel mills to China, and now a few locals that don't know any better want to shut down a new business. They were OK with them making pipe here till they figured out it was for 'shale gas' or fracking.

 

Houston co. MN. is a hot spot for frack sand.(or could be)

Mining and hauling sand has been deemed to dangerous. A moratorium on mining has been pushed thru by the antis. In WI. too.

Not much going for us business wise. Could really use the economic boost.

Owners of limestone quarries are worried that they might be the next target.

 

Feel free to shut down all your oil and power production systems!

For a fee North Dakota will be happy to be your backdoor supply man.

 

SO to continue on with odd bits of info here and there.....

One of the biggest topics about our oil production is well gas flaring and why it doesn't just get left in the well to begin with or at least get put into pipelines to be sold for a profit or for that matter.

Well the first part is physics. Simply put the crude oil coming out of the well has the natural gas dissolved in it similar to how soda has CO2 dissolved in it.

When the crude oil comes out of the formation it is typically under several thousand PSI which puts most of the gas in a state of being a combination of being partially dissolved and partially in a supercritical fluid. Because of that when the crude oil reaches the surface and the high pressure is released the NG boils out of the crude oil just like the CO2 fizz does when pouring a glass of soda.
There is no way to take the crude oil without getting the outgassing of the natural gas.

Now for the second part politics and simple supply and demand play themselves out.
Putting in high capacity NG gas lines to other parts of the county that can make the most use of it is outrageously expensive. Thats partially to blame on politics environmentalist and the general fact that NG as is isn't worth much. To make a profitable return on investment by building such pipelines or processing plants that can make it transportable by truck or rail a very lengthy process to get any return on the investments back.

Simply put unfortunately the value of the gas is so low that just lighting it on fire is the most effective way to deal with it. It's simply not worth the present time effort financial and political investments to be worth capturing and trying to sell.

Personally if it was up to me I would be putting in dozens of small 10 - 100 MW NG burning power stations at central locations in the oil fields and sending the NG fuel energy out to the rest of the country as cheap electrical power.

 

I own 2 sinkholes.
They are in Kentucky. They have been there for at least 50 years. I know because I saw them 50 years ago. They have nothing to do with fracking. They are just limestone caves that collapsed.

 

Owners of limestone quarries are worried that they might be the next target.

Next target for what? Why? I don't understand the limestone connection.

 

I don't understand a lot of the supposed connections between a lot of things and fracking.

 

Next target for what? Why? I don't understand the limestone connection.

Sorry,
Limestone quarries and crushing operation are mostly small locally owned businesses here.

The trumped up objections to sand mining are mostly noise, traffic, and dust. Although a booth at the fair last fall showed pictures of farmland defaced by actually removing sand from the hillside.

I think we all know how long-lasting that can be. It might be a year or more before reclaimed by nature.

The worry is that broad restrictions, will hurt the crushed rock business.
Lots of roads in Houston county are still crushed rock (limestone).

Concrete here uses washed limestone products for aggregate in concrete.

 

I find it very interesting how those who gain from something are all for it and those who don't are dead set against it at all costs.

Well dead set against it until someone knocks on their door saying they can be a part of it too and start living a better life then all of a sudden their rationale behind the horror stories all seems to slip away and by gosh what ever that industry is doing now is suddenly not really all that bad after all.

Heck if the paychecks are big enough and come often enough they are suddenly found to be down right beneficial to everything and everyone around whatever it is they are doing!

 

I live right on the intersection of two of these highways.
I don't want the traffic or dust from these trucks.

I really really like my energy though.

 

Sorry,
Limestone quarries and crushing operation are mostly small locally owned businesses here.

The trumped up objections to sand mining are mostly noise, traffic, and dust. Although a booth at the fair last fall showed pictures of farmland defaced by actually removing sand from the hillside.

I think we all know how long-lasting that can be. It might be a year or more before reclaimed by nature.

The worry is that broad restrictions, will hurt the crushed rock business.
Lots of roads in Houston county are still crushed rock (limestone).

Concrete here uses washed limestone products for aggregate in concrete.

Ha, might be a good thing. 'Import' some crushed granite chips from central Minnesota and your concrete will last 10x longer. Limestone is cheap because it is close by but costly because of the short life.

 

Limestone is cheap because it is close by but costly because of the short life.

Testify!
I have seen the results of limestone aggregate in concrete. It might pass certain tests, like load bearing, but it's too easy to destroy when I need a hole in a wall. With good rocks in the middle, you have to follow cement seams to break up the concrete. With limestone, you can Brapp right through the rocks.