"An investigation into the deadly business of building oil and gas pipelines."
"Even on the best of days, the rural plains of North Dakota are a lonely and unforgiving place. Far from the majestic buttes and meandering rivers to the south, this is the flattened, semi-industrial part of the state, where "you can watch a dog run away for five days," as one local said to me. In the middle of this expanse, against a backdrop of blue sky and white clouds, a tractor sits alone, surrounded by fields of tan, dried wheat stalks. Also omnipresent is the infrastructure of oil production—oil and natural gas holding tanks connected to pipelines and nearby pump jacks, hypnotic in their steady rise and fall.
The closest town is some 12 miles away with a population of just 1,500 people. This is Tioga, the self-declared "Oil Capital of North Dakota!," its logo a giant oil derrick attached to a pipeline, with another smaller derrick in the background and a few sprigs of wheat high off in the distance.
At the wheel of the tractor is Nicholas Janesich, a 27-year-old from Grand Rapids, Minnesota. It is the oil, not the wheat, that has brought him to this out-of-the-way place. Janesich is building the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL)."
Antonia Juhasz reports for Pacific Standard September 12, 2018.
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