THEODORE ROOSEVELT NATIONAL PARK, N.D. – After the last hints of sunset dip behind the hills, the North Dakota horizon comes alive with flickering orange flames of a different kind – natural gas flares.
These tiny tongues of fire burn bright against the dark prairie just beyond the boundaries of Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands, where the man who later became the nation’s 26th president sought solace after his wife and mother both died unexpectedly on the same day in 1884 in his native New York.
Today, the resurgent American oil industry is tapping into this rugged landscape, so the vistas that soothed Roosevelt’s grief and helped instill his zeal for conservation now include oil rigs and flares used to burn off natural gas that comes to the surface.
Oil development is strictly forbidden within the park itself, but park officials worry the flares, lights and noise from drilling just beyond the protected area are sullying the natural spaces cherished by Roosevelt as a bespectacled young man in his mid-20s.
The park’s landscape is a showcase for the state’s varied terrain. In this “desolate, grim beauty,” Roosevelt found solitude and built a cattle ranch. Later in life, he said he would not have become president without the healing time spent in the Badlands.
Society’s footprint has drawn ever closer to the wilderness as trailer parks are established to house oil workers and tanker trucks carrying drilling chemicals and water crowd once lonely roads.
Park officials said flaring has caused significant light pollution that can spoil the state’s dark night skies.
“Luckily, (the night sky) is a resource that can be recovered. If you turn off the lights, you get the night sky back,” said Eileen Andes, the park’s chief of interpretation.
