Legislators get oil education
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We’ve heard lots about the Bakken oil field and the Keystone XL pipeline. Earlier this month, I was on an informational tour for legislators. Also on the bus were representatives from Sen. Max Baucus, Sen. Jon Tester and Congressman Dennis Rehberg’s staff as well as the from the Montana Department of Transportation, cities and counties.
I’ll try to highlight some of the most interesting and troublesome things we learned. Roads in Roosevelt, Dawson and Richland Counties are in serious need of repair. But DOT District Administrator Mintz told us that he is losing workers because oil companies are paying far more than the state. Average salary for oil workers, and that includes office staff, is $60,000 to $80,000 a year.
We heard this same complaint from schools, counties and hospitals in the area. The entire Bakken area is between 10,000 to 20,000 employees short. Our first stop was Sanjet in Miles City. They need just a few hundred new employees. Montana and North Dakota winters send some workers packing, but the main problem is housing.
We visited man camps, but to be politically correct, worker housing. Camps can house hundreds of workers. The newest one planned in the Williston, N.D., area will accommodate 2,500 people.
These camps look like rows and rows of construction trailers. They have very small studio apartments, four or five in each building.
Here’s a good example of the boom and bust problem: during the last oil boom in the Sidney area, they built a high school for 1,000 students. It only has 335 students now. So the problems are elementary schools and staff.
This is where the rest of the state has to be involved. How much of the oil and gas money should stay local and how much used by the state? In North Dakota, all the money goes to the state, and they divide it up. We have some wealthy school districts with millions in the bank. They do need flexibility to move money from high schools to elementary, but their fear is the next bust.
Still, experts predict that this boom will last 20 or more years. The number of employees needed will drop somewhat. Fracking, and we did visit fracking operations, requires 13 people in each of two shifts a day. Once the fracking is completed and the pump we all call the grasshopper is installed, only one occasional observer is needed. All the wells are electronically monitored.
We met with Steve Kilbreath from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. My question was about water. The oil companies are buying water from Montanans and even from the Army Corps of Engineers out of Fort Peck.
After fracking, the then salty water is reused or injected back into an underground salt water layer, about 4,000 feet down. Will it harm our aquifers? I would like more information and some test results.
