http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/11/131111-north-dakota-wells-maintenance-water/

This article is all about fracking. Fracking is the process of using water to crack open bedrock to get to oil underneath. This is very popular in North Dakota because it brings lots of money to an area that hasn't had that before. The problem with that is that the water used for the initial fracking is only just the beginning. "the oil and gas play's 40,000 to 45,000 wells may need to consume roughly double that amount—as much as 10.2 billion gallons per year (28 million gallons each day)-in maintenance water to keep the oil flowing" What this means is that despite having to use a huge amount of water to open up the wells, the fracking industry is discovering that they will need to use much more water to keep the oil flowing. When water isn’t continually used salt builds up in the drilling equipment and disrupts the flow of oil. When we look at the lack of clean water to begin with this becomes a huge problem, not only for the oil business “In North Dakota, Suggs said that the future price and availability of fresh water may well determine how long wells remain economical to operate.  "If water becomes too expensive, that might potentially decrease the life of the well," he said.” but for the environment as a whole. The most obvious way to fix the problem would be to recycle the water used for the initial fracking but that is impossible. Water used for fracking can only be used for creating another well, not to keep the well operating. It gets even worse when we see that the water that is used for fracking has to be placed in storage facilities and is too dangerous to be put back into the environment. The private water industry in North Dakota would disagree however “Mortensen said the Missouri River has the potential to provide vastly more water than oil drillers would ever need.” This is a perfect example of the many energy issues in the United States, on one hand you have an industry burning one resource to create another that will destroy our environment while those making money off the first resource prevent anything from being done to conserve it. With all that we have studied about how quickly our water supplies will run out this is a pretty scary situation in North Dakota.