Optimism, worries amid new rush to tap oil in West

A well named Jake and a controversial drilling technique are fueling a Western oil rush, raising hopes for economic revival and questions about the environment - and who's going to share in the wealth. Not many wells have been drilled yet, but just about everything else is in place for an oil boom in eastern Wyoming, northern Colorado and western Nebraska, where the Niobrara Shale and its hard-to-tap crude lay nearly two miles underground. Preliminary work is under way to map underground geological formations to figure out the best places to drill. Oil prospectors are poring over courthouse records to see who holds mineral rights so they can negotiate deals. Companies large and small are betting millions that the Niobrara holds gobs of recoverable oil like the similar - and booming - Bakken Shale field in western North Dakota. With oil money leading the way, North Dakota has coasted through the recession with 3.6 percent unemployment, lowest of any state, and a budget surplus of over $500 million. Surely everyone is excited, right? Not exactly, not with so many questions still to be answered...more