Locals shouldn't foot the bill for Bakken oil drilling

The murder of a young teacher in Sidney is an unspeakable tragedy. No Montana community should ever have to live through another loss like that. But unless we take action swiftly, the problems that we’ve seen around the Bakken oil fields will likely grow.

Crime is up, the infrastructure is inadequate and public services are strained at every turn. What’s a community to do? One possibility is for these communities to immediately impose industrial impact fees on the companies profiting from the exploration that could then be used for additional law enforcement, infrastructure, emergency and public services.

In other words, every time a drilling rig is deployed, payment should be made to the local community. Given the profitability being predicted from the region’s oil resources, these impact fees will have little effect on the corporations who are drilling.

To them it’s simply a cost of doing business. Indeed, improved access to law enforcement, roads, and public services may even facilitate the efforts of these companies to attract the workers they need for their projects.

There is no doubt that these towns, most of them small, simply cannot afford to pay for the upkeep rendered necessary by the drilling that’s going on nearby. We know from the experience in North Dakota that, very quickly, roads and schools become crowded, crime increases and public services (including emergency services) of all types become overwhelmed by demand.

These are not expenses that can or should be borne by the long-term residents of these towns. Granted, they may have an oil boom going on in the backyard, but it’s simply nonsensical to presume that a small tax base can make any real dent in the demand for services the oil exploration sets off.

While impact fees are often counter-productive in communities looking to encourage growth, they are precisely the type of regulatory mechanism that should be utilized when a community is trying to manage and pay for fast expansion of the infrastructure and services necessary to support rapid growth.

Across Montana, folks are understandably looking at the recent experiences of our neighbors in North Dakota and even in our own state, and asking if drilling and exploration can happen in a way that that doesn’t leave the locals “footing the bill” or worse. That’s exactly the right question, and the faster it’s addressed the better for everyone.

Diane Smith, of Whitefish, is a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House.