“The lasting change to North Dakota won’t be a physical one, but a cultural one. It’s not what happens to the land, but what happens to the culture of the people once it’s over.”

Wow, that gives me pause. They’re the words of freelance writer Chip Brown, who wrote the lengthy article “North Dakota Went Boom,” about our oil boom and its effects, in the New York Times Magazine in January.

We can reclaim the land, I guess. At least, we should make sure we have laws stiff enough so that every well pad and every road to every well pad are returned to what they looked like before Bakken. That’s surely possible. I’ve seen what the U.S. Forest Service requires on well sites on their land. They require .........