Bakken Oil - U.S. Reserve

I recieved an interesting email today that appears to be legit. It describes a large oil reserve located within the United States. It is called the Bakken formation. Apparently there are environmental and logistics issues related to the harvesting of this oil. In addition, some of the numbers are disputed. From what I gather from the links below, estimates range from 3 to 503 billion barrels of oil at this location. The primary source of the dispute apparently is related to estimates of what percentage of this oil is "recoverable". The bottom line- There is a lot of oil in the Bakken region.

USGS article: http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

USGS FAQ regarding the Bakken formation:http://www.usgs.gov/faq/Subject.asp?category_id=94

Snopes: http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/bakken.asp