An oil education for Montana legislators
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 Senator Baucus, Tester and Congressman
Rehberg’s staff, as well as 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 Shane Mintz told us that he is losing
workers because oil companies are paying far more than the state.
Average salary for oil workers is $60,000 to $80,000 a year, and
that includes office staff.
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, ND area will
accommodate 2,500 people.
These camps look like rows and rows of
construction trailers. There are also 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 Ft. 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.
Janna Taylor is the representative for
House District 11.