© AlterNet
After oil companies and state executives in North Dakota hid the news from the public that nearly 300 oil spills occured between 2011 and 2013, radioactive toxic sludge is brimming back up to the surface, bubbling forth from the ground and mixing with fresh water across the state.
In late 2013, the shale oil industry in North Dakota received national attention when a train carrying explosive "Bakken" oil derailed and exploded near the town of Cassleton on December 30. Eighteen rail cars attached to the train also spilled 400,000 gallons of crude oil--one of the biggest spills ever recorded in the United States.
The train accident, along with the hundreds of other spillages over the last two years, was symptomatic of the hydraulic fracturing fever that has gripped the North Dakota since 2006, when a petroleum geologist discovered a massive oil field producing from the Bakken rock formation deep beneath the western part of the state.
North Dakota is now the number two oil producer in the country (behind Texas), and it is producing about a million barrels of oil a day. Environmentalists say the speed of the boom has not only encouraged sloppy practices that lead to spills, but has also resulted in a proliferation of illegal chemical dumping in landfills and fracking wells.
