Life in the North Dakota oil patch
September 29, 2014 9:28 AM Subscribe
An eight-year oil boom in North Dakota has drawn thousands of investors, laborers, and fortune-seekers. But from behind the counter of a local truck stop, it’s unclear just how much anyone is winning.
I expect the most controversial thing about this here will be how the self-proclaimed socialist turns out to be a real dick.
posted by Naberius at 10:19 AM on September 29, 2014
posted by Naberius at 10:19 AM on September 29, 2014
Maybe the yoga instructors are losing.
posted by oceanjesse at 10:24 AM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by oceanjesse at 10:24 AM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
I want her to spend a month at any truck stop anywhere in the midwest and not find people with stories quite similar.
posted by jillithd at 11:10 AM on September 29, 2014
posted by jillithd at 11:10 AM on September 29, 2014
I do a lot of work in ND. And these types of stories sadden me, because the writer comes with a specific story in mind, "finds it," and leaves. Even in this article there's a nugget to be found if she'd bothered to look beyond her own pre-mindset, and that's this:
The petroleum industry is the last and only major- and I do mean major - industry where someone with a high school education has a more than decent chance of finding a job, and not just a job but a career, one where they can make a good living and get promoted, even become management. Vo-tech education and college is not for everyone, and not everyone can get to college even if it were for them. (And I've met more than a few people in ND who have gone to college, but are there to pay off student loans or houses that are underwater.)
Personally I'm definitely not against anti-fracking campaigns or pro-alternative fuel movements, but what I observe as effect of these kind of movements is that there's a whole class of people who feel that environmental movements like that aren't pro-environment, they're anti-THEM. They feel those campaigns are against a whole kind of employment and lifestyle, a lifestyle which allows people like them to have good jobs, provide for their families (it is primarily men, after all), and a chance to get ahead in life. So when someone protests fracking on the outskirts of their town, these guys don't see that person as someone worried about their water supply, they see that person as someone who is against their one shot to have a decent job and make a good living. What's worse is that these are dangerous, dirty, live-far-away-from-home kind of jobs so these people feel they are already making a sacrifice. There's a great deal of complexity beyond that, but the end result is it's immediately polarizing in an already polarized country.*
Since ND is microcosm of that industry, article like this are easy but tend to be written by someone who swoop in and leave without taking the time to understand the mindset and culture, and miss so much of what could be written. I've enjoyed the articles written from the perspectives of people who live there and are enduring/enjoying the boom (or both) but know the bust is coming. Occasionally there's a story from someone who was there and couldn't take it but can't admit it, so they don't offer what a true idea of what it does take to make it.
Realizing it's idealistic, I sometimes wish there was a little bit more depth to these kinds of things, just to "cross the aisle" a little bit and enhance people's understanding of each other. If only because the Brooklyn "hipster" who wishes to "make things" and the ND "roughneck" who feels they have "their finger on our economy's pulse" might have a little bit more in common than they realize, and it's not that they dress the same way.
[Note: I'm not saying those POVs are rational or not rooted in some lousy aspects of American culture; nor do they don't reflect my own as I have my own opinion on this.]
posted by barchan at 11:14 AM on September 29, 2014 [23 favorites]
The petroleum industry is the last and only major- and I do mean major - industry where someone with a high school education has a more than decent chance of finding a job, and not just a job but a career, one where they can make a good living and get promoted, even become management. Vo-tech education and college is not for everyone, and not everyone can get to college even if it were for them. (And I've met more than a few people in ND who have gone to college, but are there to pay off student loans or houses that are underwater.)
Personally I'm definitely not against anti-fracking campaigns or pro-alternative fuel movements, but what I observe as effect of these kind of movements is that there's a whole class of people who feel that environmental movements like that aren't pro-environment, they're anti-THEM. They feel those campaigns are against a whole kind of employment and lifestyle, a lifestyle which allows people like them to have good jobs, provide for their families (it is primarily men, after all), and a chance to get ahead in life. So when someone protests fracking on the outskirts of their town, these guys don't see that person as someone worried about their water supply, they see that person as someone who is against their one shot to have a decent job and make a good living. What's worse is that these are dangerous, dirty, live-far-away-from-home kind of jobs so these people feel they are already making a sacrifice. There's a great deal of complexity beyond that, but the end result is it's immediately polarizing in an already polarized country.*
Since ND is microcosm of that industry, article like this are easy but tend to be written by someone who swoop in and leave without taking the time to understand the mindset and culture, and miss so much of what could be written. I've enjoyed the articles written from the perspectives of people who live there and are enduring/enjoying the boom (or both) but know the bust is coming. Occasionally there's a story from someone who was there and couldn't take it but can't admit it, so they don't offer what a true idea of what it does take to make it.
Realizing it's idealistic, I sometimes wish there was a little bit more depth to these kinds of things, just to "cross the aisle" a little bit and enhance people's understanding of each other. If only because the Brooklyn "hipster" who wishes to "make things" and the ND "roughneck" who feels they have "their finger on our economy's pulse" might have a little bit more in common than they realize, and it's not that they dress the same way.
[Note: I'm not saying those POVs are rational or not rooted in some lousy aspects of American culture; nor do they don't reflect my own as I have my own opinion on this.]
posted by barchan at 11:14 AM on September 29, 2014 [23 favorites]
The North Dakota oil story makes me sad. Because yeah, there are a lot of losers.
First and foremost among those losers are the farmers and other regular folks who are stuck in the Williston-Bismarck corridor and don't have oil on their land. Can you imagine growing up, isolated out there in the howling winds, and suddenly thousands upon thousands of strangers show up in a rush, trampling your land and destroying the community you grew up with? Because that's what happened.
I knew people who grew up in Williston and I knew Grand Forks boys who went to work in the patch and none of those stories are pretty.
Also among the losers, though less publicly? Higher education in the state. There's a reason I left a job in higher ed in an oil-producing state to work in higher ed in an oil-refining state--and that reason is money. The moral of the Resource Curse is that even developed countries are not immune. I wish more Americans were paying attention.
posted by librarylis at 11:31 AM on September 29, 2014 [12 favorites]
First and foremost among those losers are the farmers and other regular folks who are stuck in the Williston-Bismarck corridor and don't have oil on their land. Can you imagine growing up, isolated out there in the howling winds, and suddenly thousands upon thousands of strangers show up in a rush, trampling your land and destroying the community you grew up with? Because that's what happened.
I knew people who grew up in Williston and I knew Grand Forks boys who went to work in the patch and none of those stories are pretty.
Also among the losers, though less publicly? Higher education in the state. There's a reason I left a job in higher ed in an oil-producing state to work in higher ed in an oil-refining state--and that reason is money. The moral of the Resource Curse is that even developed countries are not immune. I wish more Americans were paying attention.
posted by librarylis at 11:31 AM on September 29, 2014 [12 favorites]
Oh, how I hear you librarylis. I grew up in Wyoming and have been through several boom/busts cycles, the effects of which are just heart sickening. Because it's so lucrative, why bother developing other professional opportunities? Yeah, why bother taking lessons from all the other boom/busts that have happened all over the nation for 200 years? So there are these huge brain drains. And, because it's such a male dominated field, often the only opportunities for women are the more poorly paid, service oriented jobs, which are the first to go in the bust.
It's not just higher education that takes a toll in states with a lot of oil royalties - it's all education. Because when you drive the funding of education and other forms of government with oil revenue, when the bust comes, as it inevitably does, there goes your funding of education. And government jobs. So suddenly, not only do you lose the oil jobs, you lose the only other main form of professional employment, so state revenue goes down even more, and it's this vicious, vicious cycle.
posted by barchan at 11:44 AM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
It's not just higher education that takes a toll in states with a lot of oil royalties - it's all education. Because when you drive the funding of education and other forms of government with oil revenue, when the bust comes, as it inevitably does, there goes your funding of education. And government jobs. So suddenly, not only do you lose the oil jobs, you lose the only other main form of professional employment, so state revenue goes down even more, and it's this vicious, vicious cycle.
posted by barchan at 11:44 AM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
I really thought that was building up to the boys from Oregon committing some terrible crime.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 12:08 PM on September 29, 2014
posted by sevenyearlurk at 12:08 PM on September 29, 2014
They were paid by the quantity of water they delivered, rather than the hours they worked, and had every incentive to load up the truck heavier than a stampede of corn-fed hogs. That was the only way they could make money on a three-hour turnaround between the water depot and fracking site.
And of course whoever employes then knows this and doesn't care.
As for the guys who think we need to respect them because they "sacrifice" so everyone else can drive cars? Oh, please, dude. You're not doing anything for my sake, and I wouldn't want you to do this even if you were.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:22 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
And of course whoever employes then knows this and doesn't care.
As for the guys who think we need to respect them because they "sacrifice" so everyone else can drive cars? Oh, please, dude. You're not doing anything for my sake, and I wouldn't want you to do this even if you were.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:22 PM on September 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't understand the argument that oil money is somehow BAD for ND. It sounds like things like education are just underfunded: sure, they could be funded with oil revenue and they're not (or not enough), but it's not like they're getting less funding because of it. If governments/universities/schools are setting their budgets based on boom peaks and ignoring the bust valleys, that's just bad planning, not a convincing criticism of the oil money.
posted by mikewebkist at 12:37 PM on September 29, 2014
posted by mikewebkist at 12:37 PM on September 29, 2014
A lot of that oil money is flowing out of the state to the children of the landowners, or their grandchildren. The farming on my grandparents' land is now hired out to non-landowning subcontractors, and the profits from the mineral rights flows to the descendents in states across the nation, the rentiers. The feudal aspect of it is one of the many things that agonizes me, as does fracking concerns and waste water disposal worries and the cultural and physical transformation of the state, a state where all of my family comes from but where I only visited in summers to spend time visiting relatives and wandering around the farms. My Russian grandpa was convinced back in the 1950s that there was oil under his land, but neither of my grandfathers lived to see the Bakken formation successfully exploited. They worked hard on their farms, as did their kids, all their lives. Now the oil is buying homes in Arizona. Anyway.
posted by Auden at 1:00 PM on September 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Auden at 1:00 PM on September 29, 2014 [4 favorites]
As for the guys who think we need to respect them because they "sacrifice" so everyone else can drive cars? Oh, please, dude. You're not doing anything for my sake, and I wouldn't want you to do this even if you were.
Yeah? You use no petroleum products? No electricity from oil or natural gas? You could certainly argue on the "sacrifice" bit but come on.
The petroleum industry is the last and only major- and I do mean major - industry where someone with a high school education has a more than decent chance of finding a job, and not just a job but a career, one where they can make a good living and get promoted, even become management. Vo-tech education and college is not for everyone, and not everyone can get to college even if it were for them. (And I've met more than a few people in ND who have gone to college, but are there to pay off student loans or houses that are underwater.)
I said something like this just the other day.
posted by atoxyl at 5:33 PM on September 29, 2014
Yeah? You use no petroleum products? No electricity from oil or natural gas? You could certainly argue on the "sacrifice" bit but come on.
The petroleum industry is the last and only major- and I do mean major - industry where someone with a high school education has a more than decent chance of finding a job, and not just a job but a career, one where they can make a good living and get promoted, even become management. Vo-tech education and college is not for everyone, and not everyone can get to college even if it were for them. (And I've met more than a few people in ND who have gone to college, but are there to pay off student loans or houses that are underwater.)
I said something like this just the other day.
posted by atoxyl at 5:33 PM on September 29, 2014
The Washington Post did a story on this yesterday.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:50 PM on September 29, 2014
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:50 PM on September 29, 2014
I don't understand the argument that oil money is somehow BAD for ND.
There's a lot of investment based around the assumption that the boom will continue to boom even though the state already learned that lesson in the late 70s / early 80s. The majority of the oil money has gone to building public and private infrastructure to support the boom without much reinvestment in long term stability and growth. Cities like Dickinson and Williston have seen 20-25% population growth in 5 years with their service sector more than doubling. What's going to happen when the oils dries up or the boom turns to bust? It's going to look like Detroit on the High Plains.
posted by nathan_teske at 5:57 PM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
There's a lot of investment based around the assumption that the boom will continue to boom even though the state already learned that lesson in the late 70s / early 80s. The majority of the oil money has gone to building public and private infrastructure to support the boom without much reinvestment in long term stability and growth. Cities like Dickinson and Williston have seen 20-25% population growth in 5 years with their service sector more than doubling. What's going to happen when the oils dries up or the boom turns to bust? It's going to look like Detroit on the High Plains.
posted by nathan_teske at 5:57 PM on September 29, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yeah? You use no petroleum products? No electricity from oil or natural gas? You could certainly argue on the "sacrifice" bit but come on.
No, the bit I am arguing is that they are "doing it for me," which is self-serving bullshit. They are doing it for the money, plain and simple.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:38 PM on September 29, 2014
No, the bit I am arguing is that they are "doing it for me," which is self-serving bullshit. They are doing it for the money, plain and simple.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 8:38 PM on September 29, 2014
He told me what other oil workers had said to him: “You motherfuckers, you kill our soldiers over there and then you come here.” They mistook him for an Iraqi. His response: “Excuse me, ignorant backwoods redneck motherfucker, have you ever been outside of your country?”
He continued his rant. “Ask [an oil worker] what book he read the last time, what was it?” Ali demanded. “Does he know anything about Tolstoy? Or Dostoevsky?”
Oh, man, I love this guy.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:14 AM on September 30, 2014
He continued his rant. “Ask [an oil worker] what book he read the last time, what was it?” Ali demanded. “Does he know anything about Tolstoy? Or Dostoevsky?”
Oh, man, I love this guy.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:14 AM on September 30, 2014
Another loser, potentially? Pastor Jay Reinke, formerly a Lutheran pastor in Williston, now subject of a new documentary and this new Daily Beast article. The documentary looks to be quite interesting as it details the story that pits the pastor against the rest of the town and his congregation (spoiler: he loses).
posted by librarylis at 12:32 PM on October 8, 2014
posted by librarylis at 12:32 PM on October 8, 2014
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It seems like there were a bunch of people who "won" in the story. I don't see where the "it's unclear just how much anyone is winning" comes from.
posted by mikewebkist at 9:50 AM on September 29, 2014 [2 favorites]