Wyoming town navigates an oil boom
By BENJAMIN STORROW Star-Tribune staff writer
DOUGLAS — One of the best measures of the oil boomlet here is the number of RVs parked at the Wyoming State Fairgrounds campground.
The first year the campground was open to oil field workers in 2012, 30 RVs saw out the winter months. By this summer, the RV census had grown to the point that fairground supervisors had to ask more than 100 campers to move out temporarily to make room for the annual influx of state fair participants, rodeo cowboys and entertainers.
Shortly after the livestock barns were emptied and cowboys packed up, a stampede of fifth wheels descended on the campground.
“It was like a land rush. I don’t know how else to describe it. They were rolling in here faster than we could get them placed,” State Fair Director James Goodrich recalled recently.
Compared with increasing oil production in parts of North Dakota and Texas, the boom taking place around Douglas today is modest. But in this town of 6,400 people, the growing pains are everywhere.
Oil production in the nearby Powder River Basin has more than doubled in the last five years to reach 78,000 barrels a day in early 2014.
Converse County tax collections were up 16 percent, or $2.1 million, through the first three months of the fiscal year.
A Wyoming Department of Transportation traffic counter on state Highway 59 north of Douglas recorded a 30 percent increase in annual daily traffic between 2009 and 2013.
Serious crimes such as larcenies, aggravated assaults and burglaries have increased 17 percent in the last five years, according to state statistics.
Some restaurants say they have trouble hiring and retaining servers. Hotels are booked at least a week in advance.
Rental housing is the rarest commodity of all. A paltry 14 rental units, out of 741 listed in Converse County, were recorded vacant in the first half of 2014, according to the Wyoming Community Development Authority, giving the county a vacancy rate of 1.9 percent. Only tiny Niobrara County (no vacancies) and luxurious Teton County (.3 percent) had lower rates in Wyoming.
Veterans of North Dakota’s burgeoning oil fields say Douglas doesn't compare to boomtowns such as Williston and Dickinson.
“To me, (Douglas) is still a small, quaint town,” said Dea Dunphee, a Yakima, Washington, native who traded the Bakken for the Powder River Basin earlier this year and now lives in a camper at the State Fairgrounds.
Many longtime Douglas residents see things differently.
Douglas, which straddles the North Platte River, has a long history of energy development. Some residents make the drive north to work in the Powder River Basin’s coal mines. Others head west for work at the Dave Johnston Power Plant in Glenrock.
In the past, the region’s uranium mines were a large employer and many here recall the early 1980s, when oil production was booming.
What separates today’s increase from previous ones, and Douglas from other towns on the edge of the Powder River Basin, like Gillette and Casper, is the proximity of development to people. Most Powder River Basin oil production in the past was farther north, in sparsely populated sections of prairie. Today, the suburban homes and tree-lined sidewalks on North Fourth Street quickly give way to drilling rigs towering above the plains.
David Taggart moved back to Douglas in May after 22 years in the Navy, hoping to land a job in the oil field. He looked around town for a place to rent but couldn’t find one.
So he turned to his backup plan: finding a place to park his 1986 Blue Bird Wanderlodge. That, too, proved problematic. When he first arrived at the State Fairgrounds, the campground was booked. He spent two weeks parked at his parents' before finally landing a spot at the fairgrounds.
“There’s traffic lights. It’s full of people,” Taggart said, reflecting on how Douglas has changed since his childhood in the 1980s.
Many residents appreciate the influx of newcomers, who bring more tax revenue and business. But not everyone is wild about the changes Douglas has undergone recently.
Kristi Mogen, who lives on a small farm, spent the last several years telling anyone who would listen about the negative impacts of drilling near her home. Her garden died, one calf was born with a tumor and her children suffered a series of ailments. Mogen joined a landowners group, the Powder River Basin Resource Council, in hopes of muting the impacts of drilling and emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the oil industry in the area.
Two years later, it doesn't feel like anyone is listening, she said. That's why Mogen and her husband, Pete, a coal miner, recently sold their home. They were scheduled to move to South Dakota, 125 miles from the Minnesota border and far from the nearest oil field, in early November.
"We felt like in our particular area in Douglas our quality of life was gone. Our friends are gone. The clean air is gone. The wildlife is decreasing. The crime rate has gone up," Mogen said the week before she was to leave. "The most disgusting thing in this situation is the Wyoming government is not only hindering the protection of Wyoming residents, it is assisting these oil companies."
These days, Douglas moves like an ocean tide. Workers ebb out of town in the morning and flow back in the evening.
Between 5 and 7 a.m., oil field workers jam the cluster of gas stations near the intersection of West Yellowstone Highway and Highway 59.
“Some days the line goes clear to the back wall,” said Chele Niles, a clerk at the ConocoPhillips gas station off the intersection, as she busily scanned breakfast sandwiches and energy drinks early one October morning.
In the evening, a stream of headlights snakes down Highway 59 toward town, in a scene more reminiscent of rush hour on the Colorado Front Range than a weekday commute on a rural Wyoming byway.
Last fiscal year, Converse County spent nearly $6.7 million on major road projects. This year that number will rise to almost $26 million, an increase aided by a jump in county tax revenues. The Wyoming Department of Transportation recently unveiled plans for $22 million in upgrades to Highway 59, which bears much of the oil field traffic.
“To me, it’s freighting driving down Highway 59,” said Belinda Durst, a waitress at Clementine’s Cattle Co., a Douglas eatery.
Durst grew up in Douglas and moved away before returning home 11 years ago. The traffic isn’t the only thing busier about Douglas in her view. Many mornings, pipeline workers come into Clementine’s for a beer after finishing their nighttime shifts, she said.
Finding servers has proved a challenge, however. She said young people are reluctant to take service jobs, especially with the abundance of well-paying oil field work.
Local schools face a different type of obstacle. Student numbers are little changed since the drilling started around 2012, a testament to the transitory lifestyle of oil field hands. Again, housing is the issue. Job candidates often struggle to find a place to live, said Dan Espeland, the superintendent of Converse County School District 1.
In some instances, the district has made job offers only to have candidates turn down the position after failing to find a home, Espeland said.
He recalled the story of one recently hired teacher. She initially laughed at a friend for taking a job in Lewiston, Montana. Teachers in Lewiston receive a starting salary of $32,000. In Douglas, teachers start at $43,000. But renting a two-bedroom home in Lewiston costs around $500, he said. The WCDA put the average home rental in Converse County at $1,142 during the first half of the year.
“Our advantage we’ve enjoyed many years in Wyoming over our surrounding states is quickly eroding,” Espeland said.
The district is appealing to the Legislature to raise salaries in hopes of covering the increased housing costs.
Underlining the recent growth are doubts over when it will all end. Oil prices have fallen precipitously in the last several months, with the price of West Texas Intermediate dropping from around $100 in June to near $80 in October. Wyoming sweet crude, the variety being pumped out of the Powder River Basin, is trading even lower, hovering around $70 a barrel in early November.
It remains to be seen whether the decline in price will affect drilling.
Executives at Chesapeake Energy, EOG Resources and Anadarko Petroleum all expressed optimism in their respective operations in the Powder River Basin during conference calls announcing their third quarter earnings in November.
Chesapeake officials were particularly bullish, noting they planned to ramp up production in the basin in the last months of 2014.
But all acknowledged the impact of falling prices on future drilling and indicated they were evaluating their operations worldwide to identify which plays remain profitable with oil selling at reduced levels.
Taggart, the Navy vet who recently moved home, signed on to work with an oil services company. He plans on working in the oil field as long as there are jobs to be done. But he also remembers the crash that followed the boom of the 1980s.
“It’ll happen. It always goes in cycles,” Taggart said. “I just wonder how long.”
At the State Fairgrounds, James Goodrich is planning on seeing between 50 and 75 RVs this winter.
The campground, located across from a riding rink, was constructed in 1981 to accommodate that year’s national high school rodeo finals, along with fairgoers and visitors attending the occasional event held at other points throughout the year.
A major renovation in 2010 included new sewer and electric lines. Since the drilling began, the fairgrounds has also hired two part-time employees to help with the long-term campers: one to clean, another to manage reservations. (Monthly rent is $500.)
Still, the fairgrounds is ill suited to serve as a long-term home for anyone, oil workers or otherwise, Goodrich said. He recently penned a public letter expressing the fair’s support for any private RV parks seeking to open in Douglas. Fair officials try to refer requests to private campgrounds when possible, he said. But, he added ruefully, “it’s hard to refer when they’re full.”
Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/wyoming-town-navigates-an-oil-boom/article_68e7875d-65d1-51a5-892b-ca3e0cf71115.html#ixzz3KaZJfwRN
By BENJAMIN STORROW Star-Tribune staff writer
DOUGLAS — One of the best measures of the oil boomlet here is the number of RVs parked at the Wyoming State Fairgrounds campground.
The first year the campground was open to oil field workers in 2012, 30 RVs saw out the winter months. By this summer, the RV census had grown to the point that fairground supervisors had to ask more than 100 campers to move out temporarily to make room for the annual influx of state fair participants, rodeo cowboys and entertainers.
Shortly after the livestock barns were emptied and cowboys packed up, a stampede of fifth wheels descended on the campground.
“It was like a land rush. I don’t know how else to describe it. They were rolling in here faster than we could get them placed,” State Fair Director James Goodrich recalled recently.
Compared with increasing oil production in parts of North Dakota and Texas, the boom taking place around Douglas today is modest. But in this town of 6,400 people, the growing pains are everywhere.
Oil production in the nearby Powder River Basin has more than doubled in the last five years to reach 78,000 barrels a day in early 2014.
Converse County tax collections were up 16 percent, or $2.1 million, through the first three months of the fiscal year.
A Wyoming Department of Transportation traffic counter on state Highway 59 north of Douglas recorded a 30 percent increase in annual daily traffic between 2009 and 2013.
Serious crimes such as larcenies, aggravated assaults and burglaries have increased 17 percent in the last five years, according to state statistics.
Some restaurants say they have trouble hiring and retaining servers. Hotels are booked at least a week in advance.
Rental housing is the rarest commodity of all. A paltry 14 rental units, out of 741 listed in Converse County, were recorded vacant in the first half of 2014, according to the Wyoming Community Development Authority, giving the county a vacancy rate of 1.9 percent. Only tiny Niobrara County (no vacancies) and luxurious Teton County (.3 percent) had lower rates in Wyoming.
Veterans of North Dakota’s burgeoning oil fields say Douglas doesn't compare to boomtowns such as Williston and Dickinson.
“To me, (Douglas) is still a small, quaint town,” said Dea Dunphee, a Yakima, Washington, native who traded the Bakken for the Powder River Basin earlier this year and now lives in a camper at the State Fairgrounds.
Many longtime Douglas residents see things differently.
Douglas, which straddles the North Platte River, has a long history of energy development. Some residents make the drive north to work in the Powder River Basin’s coal mines. Others head west for work at the Dave Johnston Power Plant in Glenrock.
In the past, the region’s uranium mines were a large employer and many here recall the early 1980s, when oil production was booming.
What separates today’s increase from previous ones, and Douglas from other towns on the edge of the Powder River Basin, like Gillette and Casper, is the proximity of development to people. Most Powder River Basin oil production in the past was farther north, in sparsely populated sections of prairie. Today, the suburban homes and tree-lined sidewalks on North Fourth Street quickly give way to drilling rigs towering above the plains.
David Taggart moved back to Douglas in May after 22 years in the Navy, hoping to land a job in the oil field. He looked around town for a place to rent but couldn’t find one.
So he turned to his backup plan: finding a place to park his 1986 Blue Bird Wanderlodge. That, too, proved problematic. When he first arrived at the State Fairgrounds, the campground was booked. He spent two weeks parked at his parents' before finally landing a spot at the fairgrounds.
“There’s traffic lights. It’s full of people,” Taggart said, reflecting on how Douglas has changed since his childhood in the 1980s.
Many residents appreciate the influx of newcomers, who bring more tax revenue and business. But not everyone is wild about the changes Douglas has undergone recently.
Kristi Mogen, who lives on a small farm, spent the last several years telling anyone who would listen about the negative impacts of drilling near her home. Her garden died, one calf was born with a tumor and her children suffered a series of ailments. Mogen joined a landowners group, the Powder River Basin Resource Council, in hopes of muting the impacts of drilling and emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the oil industry in the area.
Two years later, it doesn't feel like anyone is listening, she said. That's why Mogen and her husband, Pete, a coal miner, recently sold their home. They were scheduled to move to South Dakota, 125 miles from the Minnesota border and far from the nearest oil field, in early November.
"We felt like in our particular area in Douglas our quality of life was gone. Our friends are gone. The clean air is gone. The wildlife is decreasing. The crime rate has gone up," Mogen said the week before she was to leave. "The most disgusting thing in this situation is the Wyoming government is not only hindering the protection of Wyoming residents, it is assisting these oil companies."
These days, Douglas moves like an ocean tide. Workers ebb out of town in the morning and flow back in the evening.
Between 5 and 7 a.m., oil field workers jam the cluster of gas stations near the intersection of West Yellowstone Highway and Highway 59.
“Some days the line goes clear to the back wall,” said Chele Niles, a clerk at the ConocoPhillips gas station off the intersection, as she busily scanned breakfast sandwiches and energy drinks early one October morning.
In the evening, a stream of headlights snakes down Highway 59 toward town, in a scene more reminiscent of rush hour on the Colorado Front Range than a weekday commute on a rural Wyoming byway.
Last fiscal year, Converse County spent nearly $6.7 million on major road projects. This year that number will rise to almost $26 million, an increase aided by a jump in county tax revenues. The Wyoming Department of Transportation recently unveiled plans for $22 million in upgrades to Highway 59, which bears much of the oil field traffic.
“To me, it’s freighting driving down Highway 59,” said Belinda Durst, a waitress at Clementine’s Cattle Co., a Douglas eatery.
Durst grew up in Douglas and moved away before returning home 11 years ago. The traffic isn’t the only thing busier about Douglas in her view. Many mornings, pipeline workers come into Clementine’s for a beer after finishing their nighttime shifts, she said.
Finding servers has proved a challenge, however. She said young people are reluctant to take service jobs, especially with the abundance of well-paying oil field work.
Local schools face a different type of obstacle. Student numbers are little changed since the drilling started around 2012, a testament to the transitory lifestyle of oil field hands. Again, housing is the issue. Job candidates often struggle to find a place to live, said Dan Espeland, the superintendent of Converse County School District 1.
In some instances, the district has made job offers only to have candidates turn down the position after failing to find a home, Espeland said.
He recalled the story of one recently hired teacher. She initially laughed at a friend for taking a job in Lewiston, Montana. Teachers in Lewiston receive a starting salary of $32,000. In Douglas, teachers start at $43,000. But renting a two-bedroom home in Lewiston costs around $500, he said. The WCDA put the average home rental in Converse County at $1,142 during the first half of the year.
“Our advantage we’ve enjoyed many years in Wyoming over our surrounding states is quickly eroding,” Espeland said.
The district is appealing to the Legislature to raise salaries in hopes of covering the increased housing costs.
Underlining the recent growth are doubts over when it will all end. Oil prices have fallen precipitously in the last several months, with the price of West Texas Intermediate dropping from around $100 in June to near $80 in October. Wyoming sweet crude, the variety being pumped out of the Powder River Basin, is trading even lower, hovering around $70 a barrel in early November.
It remains to be seen whether the decline in price will affect drilling.
Executives at Chesapeake Energy, EOG Resources and Anadarko Petroleum all expressed optimism in their respective operations in the Powder River Basin during conference calls announcing their third quarter earnings in November.
Chesapeake officials were particularly bullish, noting they planned to ramp up production in the basin in the last months of 2014.
But all acknowledged the impact of falling prices on future drilling and indicated they were evaluating their operations worldwide to identify which plays remain profitable with oil selling at reduced levels.
Taggart, the Navy vet who recently moved home, signed on to work with an oil services company. He plans on working in the oil field as long as there are jobs to be done. But he also remembers the crash that followed the boom of the 1980s.
“It’ll happen. It always goes in cycles,” Taggart said. “I just wonder how long.”
At the State Fairgrounds, James Goodrich is planning on seeing between 50 and 75 RVs this winter.
The campground, located across from a riding rink, was constructed in 1981 to accommodate that year’s national high school rodeo finals, along with fairgoers and visitors attending the occasional event held at other points throughout the year.
A major renovation in 2010 included new sewer and electric lines. Since the drilling began, the fairgrounds has also hired two part-time employees to help with the long-term campers: one to clean, another to manage reservations. (Monthly rent is $500.)
Still, the fairgrounds is ill suited to serve as a long-term home for anyone, oil workers or otherwise, Goodrich said. He recently penned a public letter expressing the fair’s support for any private RV parks seeking to open in Douglas. Fair officials try to refer requests to private campgrounds when possible, he said. But, he added ruefully, “it’s hard to refer when they’re full.”
Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/wyoming-town-navigates-an-oil-boom/article_68e7875d-65d1-51a5-892b-ca3e0cf71115.html#ixzz3KaZJfwRN