In 2012, Broidy reports that workers were paid from $20 to $40 an hour, which-with overtime and additional per diem bonuses just for showing up on the job-often added up to a hefty six-figure income at the end of the year. And for a time, those who landed a job in the Bakken oil fields were well rewarded on payday. As with all booms, the big draw for those who migrated to North Dakota was economic gain-the prospect of a hefty boost in personal income. The New Wild Westīlaire Broidy’s The New Wild West provides a good introduction to the development of the boom. Blaire Broidy, Sierra Crane Murdoch, and John Sayles all paint a similar dark picture of the effects of the Bakken boom.
These problems have been fairly well documented by the national news media (and in a number of film documentaries). The fracking boom also created a raft of problems in western North Dakota: streams polluted by illegal dumping of fracking wastes local roads torn up by heavy truck traffic going to and from drilling sites shortages in housing, with many oil-field workers forced to live in temporary “man camp” settlements fashioned from trailers or shipping containers and major increases in public brawling, sexual assaults, sale of illegal drugs, and other criminal conduct. More and more wells were successfully opened up by the fracking genie-and by 2014, North Dakota had become the country’s second biggest oil producing state, trailing only Texas in volume of oil produced.Įarly business news reports on the North Dakota boom typically painted a glowing picture of its economic effects: big payments to lucky leaseholders, huge increases in oil field employment, and crowds of customers spending lots of money in the bars, restaurants, and other businesses in the Bakken area. Large sums of investor money began flowing into companies exploring the Bakken formation. It was a huge producer, and news about it and the passage of a new state tax break for oil drilling generated much excitement in the oil industry. The first well using the new technology of hydraulic fracturing was drilled in the state’s oil-rich Bakken shale formation in 2007. North Dakota was the first place to experience the U.S. John Sayles, Yellow Earth (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020), 416 pages, $28.00, hardcover. Sierra Crane Murdoch, Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder and a Woman’s Search for Justice in Indian Country (New York: Random House, 2020), 379 pages, $18.00, paperback. Blaire Broidy, The New Wild West: Black Gold, Fracking, and Life in a North Dakota Boomtown (New York: St.
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