Request for Help -- Permit Information -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

A reader has requested information for which I cannot provide a simple answer.

We all know how to find permitting information at the NDIC website for drilling oil, gas, and salt water disposal wells, but is there a similar site for finding information for permitting pipelines, crude-by-rail terminals, storage sites, natural gas gathering and processing plants like the recently announced ONEOK projects (Garden Green, Stateline I and II), or even the diesel refineries (one projected near Trenton, and one being considered near Dickinson)? 

My hunch is that there are multiple agencies involved. I've been following the activity in the Bakken pretty closely for two years and I think if there was an easy answer to the question, I would have stumbled across it by now. I assume most of the oil- and gas-related facilities must involve the NDIC, but I've never run across

I only find this information through press releases that, in most cases, has/have been sent to me.

Perhaps the best place to start: North Dakota State Public Service Commission.  When you get to the site, look at the sidebar at the left.

The North Dakota Pipeline Authority was established in 2007.

ProgressiveRailroading.com appears to be one of the better sites for keeping on top of CBR permitting, particularly if one is willing to sign in and become a member of its social network. Even if not interested in the original question, you may find this link on railroading in the Bakken as particularly interesting.

For refineries and natural gas processing plants, I would assume contact with investor relations at the various corporations and public utilities would be a start, but there is probably a better answer. The federal government and the EPA are permitting agencies involved in the process, but not the final agencies, but perhaps the most critical.

Of course, the good news is there are only about a dozen counties in North Dakota and a request to each of the county commissions to be sent an agenda should be feasible.