This experience has been rather remarkable, and I'm only two days in to the trip.  We covered a lot of miles today, and not all of it was related to the oil and gas business. I started the day with a run, at a misty 43 degrees, after a high of 85 yesterday.  This is not relevant, other than to saw I was a bit cold this morning.  

 Target Logistics Dunn County Lodge

A few visits of interest today: First:  Target Logistics Dunn County Lodge, which is a crew camp site.  These are often know as "man camps." They prefer "workforce housing." I'll stick with crew camps. 

It was was an impressive site for quickly built housing. The facility provides housing that does not take away from the local community, and deals with parking, water, and utility issues, as well as other resource issues.  The site has about 600 beds, and costs about $8-$10 million to build. They plan about a 20-month payoff for the build, which they met. Impressive. 

Prices are geared to be market competitive. The average is about $120 per night, which includes all food and utilities, though companies negotiate their own deals.  The people who work in the area tend to be transient — two weeks on two weeks off. People who do hydraulic fracturing tend to do two weeks on, on week off.  Construction people do four weeks on, two weeks off. The people who service the facility (and are also not locals, because the market is tight) work six weeks on two weeks off, and they pay their own travel.  

There are mostly men on the site, but women are there.  They have their own rooms or share rooms with other women with a "jill and jill" bathroom share. People generally work within 45 miles or they find other facilities.  The site is zero tolerance — no alcohol, no firearms, no visitors. The have on-site workout facilities, laundry, and food service.  It's clean, well organized, and safe.  It's the Cadillac of temporary housing.  And I'd try very hard not to ever, ever live there.  While I admit, it's better than some of my college housing, it lacks the sense of free will I had then. 

Bakken Oil Express

Next was a trip to Bakken Oil Express, an oil shipping facility.  It was impressive in its organization and its operation.  It was big, with oil tanks, a rail yard, and lots of trucks.  Oil there moves by unit train, which is 104 cars.  The site has several tanks, and they can store 640k gallons of oil.  Tanks are generally 90k or 105k gallons.  An average truck brings 225 barrels of oil. It takes 17 to 18 hours to load a train, and the site loads about 1.5 trains per day. That is about 685 gallons per car. 

A diesel refinery is supposed to come on line on the site to serve the region, which is expected in December.  The site has about 75 employees, with salaries at $27/hour and up.

The site is  working to upgrade safety, including fire suppression, which it doesn't have now. They are building foaming pipes to help if they have a problem. Right now, the plan in case of fire is to ship out what's possible, and let it burn out. 

Theodore Roosevelt National Park 

This is a park you should see. I think I'd say that of all national parks, but I love this one.  The park is facing several challenges.  This includes protecting the "sound scape and sense of solitude," that made Teddy Roosevelt love the place so much. This is a challenge for a park that has major highways running through it and major mineral operations being sought in the nearby land parcels.

The park has done well working with companies, who have responded well to requests to keep noise and other issues away from the park when issues have been raised.  Bakken flaring (or natural gas) has been an issue, too, and the park is working to preserve the night sky.  The area has had (and continues to have ) amazing view of the stars and the night sky, and flaring can cause haze and horizon light that makes the sky less amazing.  They are working on it.  

There is no drilling in the park, but drilling near has impacts, too.  So far, industry, the park, and the community have done well to minimize impacts.  

Tomorrow, we visit more communities, which are widely known to have had even larger impacts than what I have seen so far. The oil boom has been good for the region in many ways, but it's been hard, too.  We're about to get a sense of how hard.