Oil Refugees

By Charlie Barber
Contributing Writer

“The attitude of extractive industry [is] get in, get rich, get out.”      - Patricia Limerick

“...humans have a well established capacity to meet facts of life with disbelief.  In a region where human interdependence has been self-evident, Westerners have woven a net of denial. That net, it is clear in our times, can entrap as well as support.”   
                          - Patricia Limerick

“I’m Just a Poor Wayfaring Stranger”              - “White Spiritual”

He walked slowly alongside the main street of Williston.

No money. No food. No place to sleep. He had a backpack on.

He had come from Pennsylvania, where they had no work for a skilled carpenter on the back side of thirty.

We’ll call him “Fred.”

Fred didn’t really understand the economic forces that had put him out of work. If he had an inkling, he didn’t let on. He felt too powerless.

He needed a job, and northwest North Dakota had some, though not much else.

She was driving slowly along the same street when she spotted him.

She was a long time resident of Williston, preparing to sell her house and move to Bismarck, in despair at what had been done to Williston in just a few short years.

The oil companies and their “man camps” were ruining her little pristine prairie town in their latest “boom.”

We’ll call her “Marge.”

The first oil boom had been in the 1950’s and Marge and her husband had seen it go bust, just like the second one a few years later. But he was gone now, and her basement, like so many others in her neighborhood, was flooded from a sewer and water system that couldn’t cope with demands put on it by the new boom, and an angry Mother Nature.

Marge didn’t understand the politics and corporate maneuvering that were making her a refugee.  The Town of Williston and Williams County had all of the real and immediate burdens of infrastructure, and might reasonably have expected help from the State of North Dakota, with its billion dollar surplus, due mostly to oil revenues.

But the oil money had gone to Bismarck and had not come back by 2011 in any way that actually benefited the long time residents. The ten year Governor, who could and should have done something long before 2010, was now practicing politics in Washington, D.C., not Williston, North Dakota.

Marge could have told the Governor/Senator what the real needs of Williston, Stanley, and Watford City were years ago, but he wouldn’t have listened. She was just an ordinary citizen, not an oil or bank executive, or TV cameraman. Besides, she and her fellow citizens had loyally voted for his Party. There was no need to take them seriously.

But however little Marge understood about politics, she was a shrewd judge of individual character. Marge had a sixth sense about every day people, a good heart, and she needed an able assistant for the contractor that was trying to get her home in shape to sell.

Marge stopped her car and spoke to Fred:

Marge:  Hi there! Are you looking for work?

Fred: Yes.

Marge: I might have some for you. Why aren’t you out on the oil fields?

Fred:  I’m a little inexperienced for that. My skills are as a carpenter.

Marge: That’s good luck for me. Do you have a place to sleep?

Fred: No. I was just looking for an empty building somewhere.

Marge: There aren’t any empty buildings left in Williston anymore. Have you eaten lately?

Fred: No.

Marge: Listen! I need someone to help my contractor get my house ready to sell. He’s a good contractor, but the flooding and his other work are too much for one man. He needs help. Can I hire you?

Fred:  Sure.

Marge: What’s your name?

Fred: Fred.

Marge: OK Fred. Here’s the cell phone number for my contractor. Also, here’s 200 dollars. Get yourself some food and a track phone, and whatever else you need, and then get in touch with him.  If you are a drunk or a druggie, I’ll “sic God on you.”

Fred:  Don’t worry. I just need the work. Thank you very much.

This true story of “Marge and Fred” was told to me last week by my friend “Real Live Lena” [see HPR, May 5, 2011].

Real Live Lena mentioned that soon after “Marge” pulled over to hire “Fred,” she put her house on the market and it sold in a few days, water and all.

The new owners wanted to use their own people so her contractor moved on—with his new assistant, “Fred” from Pennsylvania, gratefully and usefully working on other building projects.

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