Grimstad was less than half of 1 percent;
⢠The success rate for drilling of the hydraulic fracturing oil wells was over 99 percent;
⢠The power companies couldnât keep up with getting electricity to the oil wells and were more than eight hundred behind, which meant generators had to be installed on site;
⢠Per capita, Bakken County was first in the nation in building permits, Carhartt clothing sales, and the sale of Corvettes;
⢠The single bustling Walmart paid new employees $18 an hour plus benefits plus employee housingâas did practically every new business going up in town. New fast-food employees, retail clerks, and even newspaper carriers were being given signing bonuses;
⢠Once with the oldest demographics at sixty-plus, Bakken County now had the youngest population in the state;
⢠The county which five years before consisted primarily of Norwegian and German descendants now had residents from all fifty states and dozens of countries, and the previously 95 percent white population was now wildly diverse.
⢠The average salary in Bakken County was $80,000. Blue-collar oil field workers, drillers, oil service hitshots, and some truckers pulled in well past double that.
Then he outlined many of the negatives.
⢠Housing was a severe problem. Existing rooms rented for $1,000 each per month and the average two-bedroom house rented for $3,500 per month;
⢠Locals who didnât own their homes when the boom hit were being evicted for high-paying oil field employees;
⢠There was no homeless shelter, not a single psychiatrist, and plenty of stress;
⢠Horses on farms and ranches in the county were dying of dust inhalation kicked up by the sudden army of big trucks on unpaved county roads;
⢠All local business owners now had to become landlords as well or they couldnât retain employees. Every new business was accompanied by a nearby apartment building;
⢠Although most of the new workers were men, there were enough women and families to impact the schools, meaning not enough teachers or rooms, schoolkids living in RVs, and transients hanging around the playgrounds;
⢠Prostitution, drug abuse, and violent crime had all spiked in relation to the increase in population.
Cassie sat back and simply took it in. She was astounded and couldnât decide if she was in the middle of an economic miracle or a disaster.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
WHILE HE talked, Kirkbride took a muddy side road and parked at the top of the highest hill on the north edge of town. The view, Cassie thought, was astonishing.
As far as she could see out onto the dark prairie were natural gas flares, twinkling lights from man camps, pipe yards, pumping units, truck yards, and heavy equipment operations.
âAt night you can see it from space,â Sheriff Kirkbride said. âIâm not kidding. There are satellite photos where if you didnât know better youâd say itâs bigger and brighter than Chicago or Minneapolis.â
She said, âWhat about the stuff you always hear about with frackingâearthquakes, drinking water that catches on fire, that kind of thing?â
âHasnât happened,â Kirkbride said. âThatâs not to say that someday one of these companies might get sloppy and screw up. But so far, nada.â
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
WHEN THEY headed back into town, Kirkbride said, âLike every job youâll ever take in law enforcement, youâve always got to remember that most of the people we serve are just good folks. All they want to do is make a good living and take care of their families. They pay our salaries. A big number of the new residents were unemployed for years somewhere else and now theyâve got a second chance at creating a prosperous life.
âOf course,â he said, âwe rarely deal with those people. We see the pimps, the drug dealers, the whores, and the scum
⢠The success rate for drilling of the hydraulic fracturing oil wells was over 99 percent;
⢠The power companies couldnât keep up with getting electricity to the oil wells and were more than eight hundred behind, which meant generators had to be installed on site;
⢠Per capita, Bakken County was first in the nation in building permits, Carhartt clothing sales, and the sale of Corvettes;
⢠The single bustling Walmart paid new employees $18 an hour plus benefits plus employee housingâas did practically every new business going up in town. New fast-food employees, retail clerks, and even newspaper carriers were being given signing bonuses;
⢠Once with the oldest demographics at sixty-plus, Bakken County now had the youngest population in the state;
⢠The county which five years before consisted primarily of Norwegian and German descendants now had residents from all fifty states and dozens of countries, and the previously 95 percent white population was now wildly diverse.
⢠The average salary in Bakken County was $80,000. Blue-collar oil field workers, drillers, oil service hitshots, and some truckers pulled in well past double that.
Then he outlined many of the negatives.
⢠Housing was a severe problem. Existing rooms rented for $1,000 each per month and the average two-bedroom house rented for $3,500 per month;
⢠Locals who didnât own their homes when the boom hit were being evicted for high-paying oil field employees;
⢠There was no homeless shelter, not a single psychiatrist, and plenty of stress;
⢠Horses on farms and ranches in the county were dying of dust inhalation kicked up by the sudden army of big trucks on unpaved county roads;
⢠All local business owners now had to become landlords as well or they couldnât retain employees. Every new business was accompanied by a nearby apartment building;
⢠Although most of the new workers were men, there were enough women and families to impact the schools, meaning not enough teachers or rooms, schoolkids living in RVs, and transients hanging around the playgrounds;
⢠Prostitution, drug abuse, and violent crime had all spiked in relation to the increase in population.
Cassie sat back and simply took it in. She was astounded and couldnât decide if she was in the middle of an economic miracle or a disaster.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
WHILE HE talked, Kirkbride took a muddy side road and parked at the top of the highest hill on the north edge of town. The view, Cassie thought, was astonishing.
As far as she could see out onto the dark prairie were natural gas flares, twinkling lights from man camps, pipe yards, pumping units, truck yards, and heavy equipment operations.
âAt night you can see it from space,â Sheriff Kirkbride said. âIâm not kidding. There are satellite photos where if you didnât know better youâd say itâs bigger and brighter than Chicago or Minneapolis.â
She said, âWhat about the stuff you always hear about with frackingâearthquakes, drinking water that catches on fire, that kind of thing?â
âHasnât happened,â Kirkbride said. âThatâs not to say that someday one of these companies might get sloppy and screw up. But so far, nada.â
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
WHEN THEY headed back into town, Kirkbride said, âLike every job youâll ever take in law enforcement, youâve always got to remember that most of the people we serve are just good folks. All they want to do is make a good living and take care of their families. They pay our salaries. A big number of the new residents were unemployed for years somewhere else and now theyâve got a second chance at creating a prosperous life.
âOf course,â he said, âwe rarely deal with those people. We see the pimps, the drug dealers, the whores, and the scum
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