[Magdalen] Windy, waiting Williston

[Eleanor Braun]

Williston appears to be in oil country.  There had been a big boom, then
things slacked off as oil prices plummeted.  Now that they are going back
up again, there are renewed prospects for a boom in employment.

"According to [former mayor] Helms he’s projecting Williston will support
40,000 permanent oil jobs. This will  put the town's population over
80,000. Right now estimates are Williston has about 30,000 residents. It’s
time to make room for an in-flux of 50,000 workers. We are going to see
Williston explode in population growth."

http://www.oilfieldjobfinder.com/oil-boom-headed-for-north-dakota/

Eleanor


On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 8:22 PM, ROGER STOKES <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com
> wrote:

> Given the winds I experienced in Williston, and which stayed with me
> across North Dakota, why have I seen only one solitary wind turbine in the
> state?  Williston gives every impression of a city whose growth has been
> halted unexpectedly, and probably awaits a significant rise in oil prices
> to restart its development.  As someone observed to me in Billings its
> economy has crashed, as I had read earlier in a newspaper.
>
> Turning out of the road where my hotel was I discovered the next junction
> I had to take was 333 miles later as I was on US-2.  To start off there
> were "nodding donkeys" pumping oil into storage tanks, and the occasional
> flare of natural gas.  A few tanks indicated where gas was being collected
> but more traditional silos were not to be seen for some way.  The only
> constant along a virtually deserted highway, between a very few towns, was
> the wind.
> My GPS indicated numerous roads to either side labelled as xth Avenue or
> Street, often in the hundreds, but frequently there was no visible sign of
> development and many were unpaved - if you could discern them at all  This
> is country ripe for development if anybody can get the figures to make it
> worthwhile.
> Roger
>