In Sunday evening’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver went after the state of North Dakota, or as he called it, “south of Canada.” The state has been experiencing both a boom and bust thanks to an uptick in oil drilling and fracking. Boom because it’s making people a ton of money and reduces the dependency on foreign oil. A bust because it’s literally destroying the state and killing people.

The Bakken Formation is a 200,000-square-mile “rock unit” located in the northwest portion of the state, and named after Henry Bakken who is basically the Jed Clampett of North Dakota oil drilling. The formation itself has about 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of oil according to the USGS. It’s about 25 percent more than they initially thought it was. Yes, “like Channing Tatum, North Dakota suddenly turned out to be a lot more interesting once it was covered in oil.”

Since the oil boom, the state has had several environmental disasters that has demolished farmland. Oliver showed footage of one farmer whose land had a saltwater spill, which at first doesn’t have a huge impact, but over time strips the land of all of its nutrients. In fact, there has been as much as 18 million chemicals and oil spilled onto the North Dakota land in just 8 years time. That doesn’t count 5.2 million gallons of non-toxic substances, mostly fresh water, the oil industry admits to spilling in that time, which can severely alter the ecosystem. Plus, what do they consider to be “non-toxic?”

But the worst part is not that the drilling is hurting farmers, it’s that it’s actually killing people. North Dakota’s increase in oil production kills at least one person every six weeks on average. Perhaps because the boom happened so quickly, North Dakota has so few regulations that oil companies are getting off with a slap on the wrist. Actually, most get off with less than that. It’s surprising that they even show up to court anymore.

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/12/john_oliver_lets_big_oil_have_it_north_dakota_boom_is_literally_killing_people_and_even_texas_demands_more_regulation/