Eastside oil boom evokes deja vu

Question: Where do you go to get a hotel continental breakfast that starts at 4 a.m. and a single-serving size box of animal crackers costs $2.89 at the quick stop?

Answer: Sidney, Mont., or anywhere in Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota these days.

We just returned from our annual sausage sojourn in Sidney, where we feed the masses bratwurst and other meat delights at the Richland County Fair. It had been 30 years since we had experienced the last oil boom in the Williston Basin, and the frenzy seemed all too familiar.

Three new name-brand hotels are being built because the older motels in Sidney are all leased out long-term to oilfield workers. We were lucky to get a room this year, but the price had more than doubled. New restaurants are coming up, too, because the existing eateries are packed and you wait an hour or better to get your food.

Help-wanted signs are everywhere, and just like 30 years ago, oilfield workers are being hired pretty much on the spot. My husband got his first oilfield job 32 years ago while sipping a beer in a Sidney tavern.

There are no apartments or houses for rent.

We heard stories about people renting out their garages for $600 a month so that oilfield workers can at least have a roof over their heads. These garages, by the way, normally don’t have running water or a bathroom.

The new buzzword in the area is “man camp” — makeshift settlements of workers that have sprung up in many locations near the drilling activity. Advertising has tapped into the plight of these oilfield-bound workers: “Tired of the man-camp scene? Buy this three-bedroom rambler for only....”

The oilfield truck traffic through downtown Sidney is insane, and at the moment the city is in the middle of a streetscape project, so all the traffic lights were turned off. Lucky for us we know all the side streets and shortcuts.

The boom translated into a record crowd at the county fair. Even nagging rain most of the day on Friday didn’t keep the bratwurst-addicted crowd away. They simply stood in the rain with umbrellas or sturdy cowboy hats.

On Saturday, the last day of the fair, the weather was perfect and the attendance was nothing short of phenomenal. We had two lines at the sausage stand, 15 to 20 people deep, from the time we opened at 11:30 a.m. until 1 a.m. the next morning. We sold our last take-home box of sausage at 3 a.m.

After it was all over we looked at each other and couldn’t believe we’d survived the onslaught.

Sidney is a town that’s accustomed to the boom-and-bust cycle of oil activity. We well remember how drilling activity abruptly fell off in the early ‘80s just as the infrastructure and housing needs had finally caught up to the town.

There’s speculation that this oil boom will last longer because companies are using better technology to draw oil from the Bakken formation. A 2008 U.S. Geological Survey report estimated 3 billion to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil.

Living in a boom town is both a challenge and a blessing. The robust economy means money for all kinds of improvements for the city, schools and businesses. But the long lines, the waiting for service and the intrusion of all those extra people can be exhausting for the locals who got along just fine before the boom. One acquaintance I met by chance in downtown Sidney confided, “I just want them to all go away.”

Given a choice, though, between booming economy or the double-digit unemployment rate in Western Montana, I’m guessing most would welcome the jobs and money that oil activity brings.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.