bakken oil boom brings growing pains to small montana town - outdoor led signs for sale

On the edge of a farmer's wheat field outside the prairie town of Burnville, Montana, Justin and Mandy Tobert's 36-
The campers rented a lot.
For more than 20 months, the tobbert and their six children, aged between 5 and 12, and Justin's adult cousin, have lived in a camping car.
In the evening, the messy pillows and cushions on the floor act as the space to sleep.
In August, the campers cooked when the temperature was close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
On January, the temperature dropped-
20 degrees Fahrenheit, freeze the pipes and leave the family without water for a few days.
The hardest part]is]
"In the winter, when they can't go out and play," Mandy Tobert said of her children.
"It's not like a house they can run around.
"Toll roads are far from poor people.
Justin worked as an oil pipeline welder at the Bakken field, earning more than $200,000 a year.
There are two families in this family.
A storyteller with in-
Ground pool in Tulsa, Homer.
They drove a $50,000 four-wheel drive. wheel-drive van.
The taurberts moved here in 2012 as part of a massive migration of workers chasing wealth in the Bakken shale, where the drilling technology revolution led by fracking will produce American oilyear high.
Like many oil-rich families, the taurberts leave home to look for a brighter future.
They chose to live in the countryside of Montana to avoid the hustle and bustle of the oil summit center in North Dakota, 30 miles away.
But the explosive growth that prevented them from leaving Williston is spreading to border towns in Montana, such as banenville, causing severe housing shortages and growing pains.
While there is only a small percentage of Bakken wells in Montana and oil production peaked in 2006, the nearby oil industry development and the influx of workers paralyzed the town's water supply system and destroyed roads, it also introduced drugs and violent crimes unheard of by generations of farmers and ranchers.
100 in Roosevelt County-year-
Old prisons have become overcrowded as population growth and crime rates rise.
From left to right, Mark Pacovski, Sheri Pacovski, Bernie Pope and Paula Warren meet at the Welcome Station Cafe©.
When she found out that it had become an adult massage parlor, Xie Li pacovsky said she used a tractor to push a camper off her property.
The "for sale" logo is dotted with views near Burnville, Montana.
The explosive growth from the North Dakota oil boom has spread to border towns in Montana, such as bainavel.
Ken Norgaard, head of highways at Roosevelt County, said: "If you want this oil, please be careful about what you want because you know life is over . ", A vast and sparsely populated county of undulating farmland, including Bain Ville. NG STAFF.
Source: Norgaard said the work of the North Dakota Geological Survey, USGSPHOTOGRAPH of the American Geographic Society, and National Geographic county was once due to its solid welfare and retirement plan
Now he has difficulty finding workers.
Norgaard promoted a job as a road grader at Wyoming Ming.
Six months later, he received two applications.
In oil fields, truck drivers earn more than twice as much as $17. an-
Norgaard says hourly county jobs are paid.
The oil industry is also destroying gravel roads that the county originally built for the earliest cars and small farm equipment.
Heavy trucks that transport hundreds of gallons of fracking water have turned rural roads into washboards.
When it rains, the gravel will be washed away and the school bus will be strung together.
"I have a lot of equipment,
What I need is manpower . "
"I need to raise my salary to the level I can compete with the oil market. "TheK-
The bunnville school also faces similar challenges.
The influx of oil workers pushed up rents.
Mobile home prices have fallen to more than $2,500 a month.
Teachers who pay $33,000 cannot afford housing.
At the same time, the number of student registrations has more than doubled since 2009 to 165.
"We have to be creative," said Renee Rasmussen, the principal who graduated from the school in 1973, who is one of ten classes.
Rasmussen said that in the past few years, the school has bought 13 houses for many teachers.
Before the oil boom, schools were concerned about the dangers of the door.
Now the classroom is packed with people, and the girls line up to use one of the three bathroom stalls in the primary school bathroom.
One afternoon in January, Rasmussen was faced with a more pressing crisis, and he found a way to get the children home from school.
Even after raising his salary to $24 an hour, Rasmussen is struggling to hire a school bus driver.
She recruited the school's lunch chef and the doorman to drive the bus.
But on that day,of-
Ramsson was in a hurry to look for a driver outside.
Rasmussen believes that despite these problems, the development of schools and banenville has improved.
But she worries that the taste of the small town of bainneville may change, where oil millionaires dress like poor farmers and sometimes forget to cash their oil checks.
"The biggest crisis is this," Rasmussen said . "
"How can we allow growth to happen and welcome the people here while maintaining our true colors?
"North Dakota's oil production has grown so fast that most of the gas produced by oil is burned as a by-product. product.
Industry and officials are working to build infrastructure to mine natural gas.
Justin tobbert kisses his sevenyear-
The old son, Josiah, came home late from work. he was an oil pipe welder.
The leftmost Mandy Tobert and her husband, as well as six children from Tulsa, Oakland, moved to Bain ville so that her husband could work in Bakken
The growing troubles of Parkville may get worse.
In May, the U. S. Geological Survey doubled its estimate of 2008 of the oil resources of Bakken and the Sancha formation below Bakken.
In early 2013, Procore Group Inc.
Bain Ville, Alberta, Canada, has built a rail facility to unload the sand used during the hydraulic fracturing process, which will be transported by truck to the well opposite Bakken.
A huge "human camp" was also built to accommodate 350 oil workers, which required the town to double the area of the sewer lagoon.
The expansion was paid by Procore.
Dennis portera, the mayor of Bain Ville, said there are plans for hotels, gas stations and additional residences.
Portra said that since 2010, the population of bainneville has doubled to about 450 people, and may double again in the next few years.
Portra is a supporter of the growth of the oil industry.
Prosperity provided work for his three adult children.
But on 2013, Montana Governor Steve Bullock vetoed a bill that would provide $35 million to municipalities struggling with the oil and gas industry.
Towns like Bainville in Montana are suffering from prosperity, while other towns are becoming rich, Portra said.
Most of Bakken wells and taxes are in North Dakota.
Drilling oil in Montana accounts for 50% of the state's taxes.
The state's counties and schools receive most of the rest.
There is only one town --
Ten percent
"When we send millions of dollars to the general fund, why go back to the local taxpayer to fund schools, roads, water and police? " Portra asked.
Block's deputy chief of staff, Kevin O'Brien, said the governor supported increased funding for the town of Bakken, but said the governor vetoed a bill that helped balance the state's budget.
"The governor felt their pain very closely," O'Brien said . ".
Laura Ward pushed a crowded shopping cart at Wal-Mart in Williston, North Dakota, which is the center of the oil rush.
The town is 30 miles from Bain Ville.
It has been difficult to find teachers and school bus drivers at Bain Ville's school. Wage competition in the oil industry is fierce and housing supply is short.
Deputy director ANVIS Bauer is sitting on the side of Highway 2 in berenville.
The ball often patrolled the eastern edge of the county alone, an hour from the nearest reserve deputy.
None of the changes in baienville have made locals nervous like the increase in crime.
On 2012, two Colorado men looking for a job in the field killed a popular math teacher near Sidney, Montana, and buried her body in Williston.
Soon after, Roosevelt County bought a new filing cabinet to store hidden rush
Weapons applications.
The most recent evening, when the Roosevelt County sheriff's deputy, Avis ball, patrolled near Bain Ville, she pointed out that there was a simple intersection next to the highway.
In 2012, she found Brian Doyle, 49, here. year-
Oil workers in Florida, dead, partially buried in snow.
Doyle was knocked down and abandoned by his friend, who was later convicted of manslaughter.
"He has been lying in the snow for a week," said Bauer, who patrolled the eastern part of the county alone, usually an hour from the nearest Reserve deputy at the far end of the county.
Earlier this year, Bauer said four people in Williston almost killed a man, put him in the trunk of a car and sent him to a field in Roosevelt County.
"When I started working, I was picking up the dog barking," said Ball, who joined the department in 2011 . ".
"It has taken off since then.
"The FBI has warned that Mexican drug cartels are trafficking drugs to the region, targeting large salaries for most young people working in Bakken.
According to Sheriff Crawford, the number of felony drug arrests in Roosevelt County increased from four in 2008 to 28 in 2012.
Crawford said meth is the biggest drug problem facing the county, followed by illegal painkillers.
But the bigger problem, he says, is the increase in alcohol.
Fight.
From 2008 to 2012, the number of arrests in the attacks almost doubled to 173.
"Historically, we know who our troublemakers are," Crawford said . ".
"Now that the oil field has hit, we can't keep up with it.
We don't know who these people are.
"Spike taxes 100 of people in this county. year-
Crawford said the old prison held up to 40 people, more than twice the number of people held before the boom.
Overcrowding in prisons has caused the American Civil Liberties Union to put pressure on Crawford to limit prison capacity to 17.
On the most recent afternoon there was only one prisoner in the area, and the others were from far away Florida.
Crawford says the county is planning a new 40-
If the oil boom continues, 60 beds can be expanded.
But Crawford faces more pressing problems.
In April, Ball's landlord sold the house she lived with her four children.
She had to leave before May ended, but Bauer, a single mother, couldn't find a house she could afford.
Instead, she moved into the motel room, which she hoped was temporary.
Her child had been living with friends until Bauer found another home.
But Ball suspects she can find a house that can be rented with her deputy salary, saying the deputy salary is less than $22 an hour.
"I'm not ready to leave my job here," Bauer said . ".
"I did not achieve my goal.
But if we had no place to live, we would have been stuck in a corner.
Deputy Sheriff Avis ball, standing next to the intersection, found 49-year-old Brian Doyle dead on the edge of Highway 2 in Bain Ville.
Doyle was knocked down and abandoned.
Despite the shift in oil development in the region, much of the landscape near Bernville remains the open ground through narrow roads and railways.
Many of the changes that have frustrated locals have not become crime statistics.
One morning at the welcome station, two people
At the gas station and convenience store in berenville, a group of locals sit at the round table and drink coffee, talk about hunters invading their land, and at night drunks wander the streets and touch thieves.
"You used to drive to town, put the key in, and put the rifle in the back window.
You can't do that anymore, "said Dan Lambert, a town sewer worker.
The town's senior emergency technician, Sheri pacovsky, said a woman who asked to park her camper car on the pakovsky property later opened an adult massage parlor with it
When the woman refused to leave, pacovsky pushed her car off the property with her John Deere tractor.
"We are verynaive," said pacovsky . "
"We didn't expect this to happen anywhere else.
"If prosperity extends the patience of many locals, it is a gospel for the present --
Millionaire farmers and ranchers with oil-mining sites, as well as the latest well workers in berenville.
In August, it was possible for Tony and Tanya Tippet to lose their house in Georgia due to tax arrears, when Tony's brother called from the area with a story of hard work and high salary
Although Tony's brother lives in a sleeping bag near a truck stop in Weston, Tony and Tanya decided to join him.
Tony now earns $2,000 a week after working for an oil well service company.
Tanya works behind the counter at the welcome station.
Like many families here, the tippet family lives in a camping car.
They shared with Tony's brother and a bulldog and paid $800 a month to park at the camp.
Tony said he planned to stay in Bain-Ville for five years, "it depends on how much cold we can put up.
"Since there is not enough pipeline capacity to handle the oil produced from the Bakken shale, most of the oil is transported by rail.
The ranchers of Bainville and farmers Kirk Panasuk, along with other long-time residents, watched the region experience the growing pains of the oil boom.
Tony went to Williston by bus, but he said he would never move his family there.
Like the locals, Tony likes the atmosphere of the small town of Bain, even if the influx of workers means he has to live in a camper.
When he talked about Willis, he said, "it's rough over there . "
As for the toll roads, they are not sure if they will move back to Tulsa.
As long as the work goes well, they plan to stay in Bain Ville.
After an ice-sealed pipe and the winter of six children in a camper car, the Tolbert moved into a house in apilam and bought it for their children
Justin tobbert renovated 1,000. square-
Owned by a local elite car driver, the Foot house used to be a small office building in exchange for months.
Mandy tobbert says her children miss sleeping together in a room, but they sometimes visit old camper cars that are not vacant for a long time.
Justin's friend, who is also a welder from Tulsa, recently moved in with his wife and four children.
Like toll stations, they plan to stay if oil work continues.
This story is part of a special series to explore energy issues.
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