Letter to the Editor: Where is the ND health dept. on rig distance issue?

Talk about it

I have been reading quite a lot lately about people in western North Dakota urging the passing of House Bill 1348. This bill calls for an increase in the distance of oil wells from homes. Seems like a reasonable request to me. Aren’t kids’ and others’ health and wellbeing worth anything?

With a gazillion barrels of oil under western North Dakota, is moving over a safe distance from a residence when drilling really too much to ask of the oil companies? Where is our illustrious health department when it comes to this issue?

Our family has been battling with the state for nearly 10 years now over a tire fence in the middle of nowhere, to which there has never been a bona fide complaint. Matter of fact, we have letters of support from neighbors, county commissioners, road department, state’s attorney, and even an artist presented in court and now on our website, www.tired

outranch.com, refuting the state’s claims of the dangers associated with our fence built of tires.

But the potential danger from an uncontrollable toxic fire or worse yet, an attack by mosquitoes was just too much as we lost our case, first in front of an administrative judge, then a district judge and later five supreme court judges. We were ordered to pick all the tires up and properly dispose of the tires by the state-approved method of landfilling.

We have managed to landfill 2/3 of our fence but have now run out of money and are being threatened with fines up to $1,000 a day by the North Dakota health department. It would seem to me that with an effort such as this by the state of North Dakota to keep 15 residences of one township safe from a potential problem, a more concerted effort should be made by these same folk toward a real and ongoing problem that is taking place within our state.

The poisoning of residents in western North Dakota by mega rich oil companies! I have been trying to think of a word to describe the North Dakota health department. The first word coming to mind is hypocrisy. Of course there is the age old saying “money talks.” Maybe that’s it!!

Cory Christoffersen,

Hamar

Tags: opinion