We’ve all heard and read about the massive protest camp that formed in North Dakota (see Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters Turn Violent; Coming Here Next?). When they finally left their illegal encampment, they left behind an ecological disaster–mountains of garbage–sticking federal taxpayers with a $1.1 million bill to clean it up. It cost the citizens of North Dakota $33 million in police, fire and safety personnel costs over the course of a year. And in the end–nothing. The pipeline is online and flowing oil even as you read this. It was all for nothing. One (of many) flashpoints in the Marcellus/Utica in recent months has been the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auctioning of federal land in Wayne National Forest (WNF) to allow Utica drilling to begin there. WNF is a patchwork of mostly private, and some federal, mineral rights ownership. The little bit of land leased by the BLM will allow drillers to form units (with adjacent private land) big enough to drill under. Once again out-of-town/paid protesters planned to descend on WNF to protest the BLM sale of land there. It was billed as the next Dakota Access Pipeline camp. These out-of-towners were going to dig in like chiggers and stay for the duration, to make their point. What actually happened? A few showed up and camped for one weekend–then left. In other words, it was an “epic fail”…
