Wednesday, February 29

North Dakota fracking boom: the cost is yet to come




I came face to face with the North Dakota oil boom after about an hour of waiting at the airport in Minot for a taxi.

There is clearly a crucial shortage of willing taxi drivers and the one that eventually turned up appeared to be a few beavers short of his hunting quota as they might say up here. It must have been about minus 30 degrees Celsius but our man was wearing shorts and runners and seemed not to notice the weather at all as he got out to jimmy open the trunk of his minivan so we could load our cases of TV gear into the back
.
'You shootin' porn?' he said when he saw the camera.

We tried to explain that we'd come to North Dakota to shoot a story for Foreign Correspondent on the fracking business and the crazy oil rush that's turning the place upside down but he wasn't interested in that or anything else for that matter and refused to engage in any more small talk of any kind on the ride into town to the Best Western hotel - the only place that had any rooms.


The Dum

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