Losing Community to Oil and Gas Development

 

“My name is Marilynn Hudson, and I live right here in Parshall, North Dakota. I’m 79 years old now. The oil development started…how many years has it been now? 2008, I think. So, we’ve been in it for about 8 years. And there’s been a tremendous change here.”

“The Mandaree area of the Fort Berthold Reservation was traditionally a grazing area. You know, land where we had a lot of cattle and ranchers. That’s the legacy of the Three Affiliated Tribes…we’ve always been very agricultural. Not that many years ago, we had thousands of acres of grassland… it was excellent land geared for cattle ranching. There used to be huge cattle ranches there, and cattle camps, and so forth. But that’s all gone today. So there has been a tremendous change. The farmers and ranchers are just about gone, too. Many of them have moved to Arizona, or Bismarck, or wherever. Their land now has been taken over by huge oil leases. They’re still trying to maintain some types of grazing units out there, but when you drive out in that area, you see what’s left of the cattle there, mixed in with the trappings of the oil industry. You can see that agriculture has no real future in this area at all.”

 

 

“We have had an outmigration of people who can now afford to buy homes in Bismarck, or in South Dakota, Arizona, or New Mexico. Most left because of the negative impacts of the oil industry on their land and their way of life. They represent people who our communities can least afford to lose – the people who drive ambulances, teach in our schools, worked in our stores and businesses, our next-door neighbors. But there are others who cannot move, or who do not wish to leave the land of their birth. So our communities are harmed in other ways, besides the visible signs and impacts of the large-scale oil industry.”

 

 

“We have had an outmigration of people who can now afford to buy homes in Bismarck, South Dakota, Arizona, or New Mexico. Most left because of the negative impacts of the oil industry on their land and their way of life. They represent people who our communities can least afford to lose – the people who drive ambulances, teach in our schools, worked in our stores and businesses, our next-door neighbors. But there are others who cannot move, or who do not wish to leave the land of their birth. So our communities are harmed in other ways, besides the visible signs and impacts of the large-scale oil industry.”