Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Mike and Kim Sorenson with their children on their farm in Ross, N.D. The Sorensons are fighting a relative's offer to lease his land to a company that wants to build an oil drilling waste dump.
ROSS, N.D. — While three generations of the Sorenson family have made their livelihood growing wheat and other crops here, they also have learned to embrace the furious pace of North Dakota's oil exploration. After all, oil money helped the Sorensons acquire the land and continue to farm it.
But more oil means more drilling, resulting in tons of waste that is putting cropland at risk and raising doubt among farmers that these two cash crops can continue to coexist.
A private company is trying to install a landfill to dispose of solid drilling waste on a golden 160-acre wheat field across the road from Mike and Kim Sorenson's farmhouse. Although the engineers and regulators behind the project insist that it is safe for the environment, the Sorensons have voiced concern that salt from the drilling waste could seep onto their land, which would render the soil infertile and could contaminate their water, causing their property value to drop.
"I'm concerned not if it leaks, it's when it's going to leak over there," Ms. Sorenson, 42, said.
Oil companies in North Dakota disposed of more than a million tons of drilling waste last year, 15 times the amount in 2006, according to Steven J. Tillotson, the assistant director of the Division of Waste Management for the state's Health Department. Seven drilling waste landfills operate in the state, with 16 more under construction or seeking state approval.
Landowners who lease their acreage see a reward, while neighboring farmers often protest the potential harm to their pastures. Farmers here complain that state officials promote policies that help the energy sector grow rapidly with little regard for the effect on their livelihoods.
"I don't think they're very concerned about the farmer," Mr. Sorenson, 41, said.
His 36-year-old brother, Charlie, who farms with him, added, "There's just more effort put on where the bacon's coming from, I guess."
Few would argue against the benefits of the energy industry, which has made North Dakota the second-largest oil producing state in the country and helped it build a surplus of more than $1.6 billion.
"I wouldn't say that production agriculture is being forgotten because everyone understands that it always has been and always will be the backbone of the economy of North Dakota," said Dave Hynek, one of five commissioners in Mountrail County, where the landfill is being proposed. "However, the tremendous amount of money coming into the state coffers from the oil industry at the present time has overshadowed that."
Without the oil industry, Mr. Sorenson said, he might not even be farming.
His grandfather worked in the oil fields in Montana in the 1940s to earn the money to buy the land where Mr. Sorenson and his family live. In the late 1990s, Mr. Sorenson worked in the North Dakota oil fields for five years to make enough money to farm full time.
"I've worked in the oil industry," Mr. Sorenson said. "That's kind of how I got all my stuff."
The Sorensons receive royalties from oil that is produced on their land and from allowing drilling, which accounts for about 10 percent of their income, Mr. Sorenson said.
"I'm fairly neutral on the drilling," he said, though that did not lessen his concern over the possibility of a landfill across the street. "This most certainly affects me negatively."
Ms. Sorenson said she was more worried about the environmental risk of living next to a landfill, like runoff seeping into their well water, and what that could mean for their five children.
"We'd love to see our grandkids and further generations be able to be a part of this land, also," Ms. Sorenson said.
The Sorensons, who have hired a lawyer, are especially sensitive to the landfill proposal because the property owner offering to lease the land for the project is a second cousin of Mike and Charlie Sorenson. The cousin, Roger Sorenson, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
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