The Bakken Oil Field in North Dakota

North Dakota has become the second largest oil producer in the country next to Texas. With the activity that is happening in the Bakken oil field in North Dakota and Montana, the damages and affect on local landowners is becoming increasingly difficult and burdensome. The process now commonly referred to as fracking has allowed oil and gas companies to extract millions upon millions of gallons of oil from eastern Montana and North Dakota. The process consists of driving millions of gallons of a concoction made of water and chemicals to "frack" the earth that releases the deposits of gas and/or oil. The affects to surface and land owners is largely unknown but concerns are rising about what effect spills and the ingredients in the fracking solution may have on the grass, water, livestock, or general environment may have. The attached MSNBC article shows insight into what some of the spills, lately in and around North Dakota, can have on grass, water, livestock, and environment when not cleaned up or reported. The oil companies are moving at incredible pace to produce oil and natural gas; the article illustrates their intent to report and clean up their mess is not the top priority, the companies' priorities are to produce oil and gas and make a profit.