Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Williston Deals With Growth From Oil Boom

Wall Street Journal:

"It's a boomtown—that's a fact of life," said Mayor Ward Koeser, "but I believe this will become a premier town in North Dakota."
His optimism rests within the vast Bakken shale formation that has put North Dakota on the nation's energy map. Since 2008, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that just 450 million of an estimated 7.4 billion barrels of oil in the Bakken and related Three Forks formations have been extracted using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and other techniques.
Other numbers justify his optimism. The Williston area's resident population stood at 29,595 in July 2013, up 10.7% from the previous year, making it the U.S.'s fastest-growing micropolitan area, defined as those with 10,000 to 49,999 people, according to U.S. Census estimates released last week. The city's operating budget hit nearly $81 million in 2013, up from about $48 million in 2010. And the city issued 1,665 building permits in 2013, compared to 610 in 2010, according to the city's office of economic development.
Beneath the frenzy, there are signs of a new normal.
The city put a moratorium on permits for the trailer-park-like man camps last year as officials push for workers to move into permanent housing and as new apartment buildings opened. Officials also have banned the camper vans that once lined the streets and jammed the lot of the local Wal-Mart,  saying they no longer can serve as de facto homes in city limits.
And a sign near the entrance to the Wal-Mart offers $17 an hour for cashiers and stock clerks, above what the retailer typically pays entry-level workers.
The oil economy totally puzzles me. $17 to work at a Walmart in the middle of BFE? 10% population growth in a year?  1,665 building permits in 2013?  This will not end well.  I don't know when it will end, but it will, and badly.

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