Conflict Analysis: Rural Oil Drilling

I was trying to think of a conflict that affects my life but goes beyond a personal conflict to a community conflict, and I had a realization that there was a huge conflict going on right in front of me while I was at home this summer! In my hometown and the surrounding area, there is a lot of oil drilling going on. Big companies are coming in with their rigs and sending in their employees, paying people a lot of money to get the oil that lies beneath their property. This is something that the companies and workers are doing to continue making a profit and carry out their job, but it is something that is creating divisions in the local community. While some people are benefiting greatly financially from the oil drilling, others are pointing out potential negative effects. One problem with this is that often the individuals who are benefiting already have a lot of land, power, and financial resources.

The primary parties in this conflict are the oil companies, their workers, the local officials, landowners who are leasing to the oil companies, and community members concerned about environmental damage and other changes that come from the industry’s influx. On one level, this conflict is about the basic needs of control over land and recognition of each party’s individual concerns. It also comes down to a difference in values, which range from environmental protection to monetary gain to the use of nonrenewable resources. Interests include how immigrant workers are treated in a community that traditionally has had very little diversity, or for example, who benefits from changes in the local economy prompted by these new (although temporary) populations. There are also some communication issues, and some problems related to data and facts, namely, who gets access to information regarding the drilling, and if that information is distributed, then how so? For example, do local residents have a right to understand the effects that oil drilling could potentially have on the fish population in the local lake? In the absence of access to legitimate data and facts, many residents are relying on the local rumor mill, which may only exacerbate the conflict. As another example, many residents are concerned about damage to local roads from the large oilrigs driving on them constantly. There needs to be communication regarding these concerns and how they might be addressed.

This conflict can be addressed at a number of levels, although I would suggest that the relationships or subsystem level would be best. At the issues level, it is simply about can we drill and how is the environment protected, but approaching the conflict from the relationships level aims to help the companies, landowners, workers, and rural population work together in a way that is, long-term, most beneficial for all. At the subsystem level, we could look at the oil industry and the rural way of life, and at the system level we could consider laws and regulations surrounding the oil industry.