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Duke's HCD Column – 9-2-2011
I’ve been hearing a lot of pretty amazing stories about western North Dakota and the impact oil is going to have on it. A guy came into my office and said he heard there are going to be 2 million people in North Dakota because of oil. Another story I heard talked about new oil being found in another part of the state. The list goes on. No matter the stories or how wild they may sound one thing is for sure. Oil is already having a tremendous economic impact in the west. Hazen and Mercer county border the “boom” and in fact I guess there is even a well pumping Mercer County oil. How far it will come east is anybody’s guess but there again, I have heard from some fairly reliable sources that its coming our way. In the newspapers we generally hear about the economics of oil in terms of wages, jobs, income to the state and trying to keep infrastructure such as roads held together. We hear of the haves and we hear of the have nots. We hear of the high volumes of water being used and the huge amount of oil being extracted. We hear about concerns about environment and we hear about the potential for a new and brighter outlook for our state and its communities. What oil means to me is -- opportunity. Communities that have the time to prepare for a potential onslaught of people should prosper well. New and existing businesses have the same opportunity. If anyone remembers the first oil boom there are plenty of lessons to be learned. But things have changed a lot since then too. Communities are like they were 50 years ago and neither are the people. One thing is for sure – the impact this time around is much greater – both good and bad. The HCD office has steadfastly kept a focus on some of the needs of the community that have long held true by virtue of community discussion, surveys and strategic planning. If we get the things done we set as priorities through a process of discussion and resolve then we are doing our job. If we don’t get the job done it will happen anyway – but not here. I’ve mentioned before that our office is a willing partner in facilitating and helping funding projects. There are other entities that will be called on to do their part too. The best project is only held up by the weakest link in the chain of support. I’ll do my best to make sure HCD does its part. The rest of the chain needs to pick up the slack. Let’s hope that happens.
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