This is gonna be a big fight between people harmed by fracking and the big drillers who obviously withheld information on damage done for years/decades.
I know in the Bakken oil field rush, land owners, mostly food producers, had no rights to prevent the damages done to their topsoil when the fucking fracking fluid was pumped out of drill sites and poured over the soil. Old homes along roads to fracking sites were often damaged due to heavy vehicles/heavy traffic literally shaking the ground to the point of damaging structures. No legal recourse for home owners!
Along with poisoning the land, and shaking homes apart, the big oil boom caused real social/cultural damage to the small rural communities. Rents went so high locals could not afford homes. People were renting the space UNDER mobile homes for $400 a month! This is dirt crawl space, not insulated, no plumbing, in North Dakota and Montana, IN WINTER! Prices at local stores went up to the point that locals could not afford to shop. Example, a bottle of 32 regular Aspirin suddenly cost $16.00! Food costs rose at nearly the same rate. Local schools had to suddenly deal with increased class sizes and those districts did not have the property tax bases to fund expansions even if they could build additional classrooms and hire teachers fast enough. In other words, the fracking boom caused serious and varied problems for rural populations while Dick Cheney's Halliburton and other fracking related corporation raked in billions.
The problems then did not get enough press. The majority of the nation did not know anything about the damage being done. Now, FINALLY, we are being treated to information that the whole process is not healthy? Wow, media has really failed the US people yet again, decades after damage was done.
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