Something about that map doesn't appear quite right - it shows income increasing in rural areas with urban areas stagnating. Further, it suggests that there has been much personal income increases in Standing Rock reservation and in others. This despite the continued high unemployment rate there. Perhaps there is some explanation for that.
Oil and Gas are the reasons for ND's rise in rural incomes, and with that activity comes other costs........
North Dakota recently discovered piles of garbage bags
containing radioactive waste dumped by oil drillers in abandoned buildings.
Now, the state is trying to catch up to an oil industry that produces an
estimated 27 tons of radioactive debris from wells daily.
Existing fines have apparently not been enough to deter contractors from dumping oil socks — coiled filters that strain wastewater and accumulate low levels of radiation.
“Before the Bakken oil boom we didn’t have any of these materials being generated,” the state’s Director of Waste Management Scott Radig told the
Wall Street Journal. “So it wasn’t really an issue.”
The state is in the process of drafting rules, out in June, that require oil companies to properly store the waste in leak-proof containers. Eventually, they must move these oil socks to certified dumps.
However, North Dakota has no facilities to process this level of radioactive waste. According to the Wall Street Journal, the closest facilities are hundreds of miles away in states like Idaho, Colorado, Utah, and Montana.
Even though it is illegal, contractors have taken the occasional shortcut to dump the oil socks in buildings, on the side of the road, or at landfills. And the rate of dumping incidents has been
on the rise as drilling activity has increased in the Bakken shale region, according to one North Dakota Department of Health study. Dump operators now even routinely screen garbage for radiation.
more
North Dakota Finds Itself Unprepared To Handle The Radioactive Burden Of Its Fracking Boom | ThinkProgress
Rob Port @robport 
