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.