Someone must have watched a documentary.

Pat Powers

Because of the high probability of it – legislators have banded together to ban the practice in the state:

HOUSE BILL NO. 1197
Introduced by: Representatives Bordeaux and Kirschman and Senator Buhl O’Donnell

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to prohibit hydraulic fracturing.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. That the code be amended by adding a NEW SECTION to read:
The term, hydraulic fracturing, means a mechanical method of increasing the permeability of rock to increase the amount of oil and gas produced from the rock.
Section 2. That the code be amended by adding a NEW SECTION to read:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no person may engage in hydraulic fracturing in this state.

They’re going after fracking in South Dakota? Are they serious?  Don’t you have to actually have measurable levels of oil and gas production before you start getting snippy about what types of production you will allow?

It sounds more like someone saw a documentary, and thought they needed a bill. This is silly.

7 thoughts on “Someone must have watched a documentary.”

  1. I think there is actual oil and gas here, its just harder to access and therefore more expensive to access. In any case, won’t happen here for some time.

    In any case the anti-Fracking lobby are just anti-industrialization, anti-economic growth crackpots. Natural Gas, for example, was the “good/clean” fuel that environmentalists liked until there was a boom of it that we could use/export it. Then it became “bad”. Why the change? Because it really isn’t about the protecting the environment.

  2. Near as I can tell, a lot of the Niobrara Shale formation, which I assume is what we are talking about here, is under federally controlled land anyway. So what’s the point?

  3. There is oil and gas in our state. The oil from the Bakken formation in ND is developed and explored much more than ours however. Over time, ours will be further explored as the ND oil producers drill into those same formations up north which we have here which lay under the Bakken.
    There are three formations in the ND oil patch, SD has two of them (we have the Bakken but it is not the same in terms of recoverable resources).
    That said, it is extremely premature to make a judgement on fracturing inside our boarders. To my knowledge there is not a single drilled well producing or explored, that used the known hydraulic fracturing process. Our producing formation the Red River, is not “tight” like the Bakken and does not need that methodology of recovery.

  4. 10:27… If the mineral rights are owned by someone other than the surface owner, the surface rights are subservient to the minerals.

    2. Not quite 10:34.

      The rights to the minerals vis a vis the landowner are concurrent.

      The mineral rights owner has a right to remove the mineral, whether surface or subsurface, in a reasonable manner.

      The mineral rights owner can also lose those rights through abandonment.

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