Forced Evictions Reach New Low in Bakken Oil Fields :: The Indigenous Environmental Network | MyNewsletterBuilder

21.4.12

Forced Evictions Reach New Low in Bakken Oil Fields :: The Indigenous Environmental Network | MyNewsletterBuilder - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 18, 2012 For more information contact: Kandi Mossett Indigenous Environmental Network Native Energy & Climate Campaign Organizer 701.214.1389 iencampusclimate@igc.org Evictions, Price Gouging, Natural Gas Burn-off, Crumbling Infrastructure, and Death: The energy boom is not progress, it’s waste and extreme violations of human and environmental rights! New Town, ND – Forced evictions, of local residents from their mobile homes in the New Town area, to provide housing for predominately out-of-state oil workers has reached a new low. On Monday, April 16th, Four Native American residents of the Prairie Winds Mobile Home Park, including a 9-year old child, were forced to leave their home when landlord, Leroy Olsen, removed Heather Youngbird and Crystal Deegan’s front door. Olsen then cut the electricity and turned off the propane to the home, and told them they had to leave their home immediately. The battle for housing in North Dakota has been an on-going struggle since the onset of the oil boom in the Bakken Shale Oil Formation, which partially lies in northwestern North Dakota. The housing crisis has been growing exponentially worse, particularly within the million-acre Fort Berthold Indian Reservation; homeland of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara tribal nations. Crumbling Infrastructure and Severe Housing Shortages Tribal members, as a result of this boom, are experiencing some of the most severe consequences from the lack of proper infrastructure to support this intensive extractive industry. Infrastructure is inadequate at all levels in North Dakota- from crumbling roads and the lack of proper sewage facilities in the various man camps that have popped up across the state, to a severe shortage of adequate housing.