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Ranchers.net

Montana’s proximity to North Dakota has put many towns and cities in the odd position of being affected by energy development without reaping the benefits of an increased tax base. Towns along roads that lead to North Dakota serve as pit stops for oilfield workers. Their hotels are full; construction is constant. But without the tax revenue, many roads are crumbling from the increased traffic.

In Baker, housing prices have skyrocketed as oil workers increasingly seek housing outside of North Dakota’s tight market.

“A four-bedroom costs $4,500 a month now,” says Julie Parent, a resident of Baker. “It’s making it to where if you don’t have someone in your family in the oil industry, you can’t afford to live here.”

And it’s true as far away as cities like Glasgow, Montana, which is about 150 miles from the center of North Dakota’s boom but still houses many of its workers and is seeing more trucks pass through its downtown every day.


“Right now we’re basically struggling with having the impacts from being so close to the Bakken without any of the revenue,” says Betty Stone, the owner of the Cottonwood Inn in Glasgow and the head of Two Rivers Economic Growth. “It’s taxing our infrastructure.”

But unlike the Bakken development, which is mainly enriching North Dakota, the Keystone could bring more of the same kind of growth to places like Glasgow and Baker while also increasing tax revenue, an appealing idea for many in the state.

Estimates vary as to how many jobs Keystone could create. The U.S. State Department, which would have to issue the cross-border permit for the pipeline, estimates that only 50 or fewer people will be required to maintain it. But during the construction, the pipeline could bring thousands of temporary but high-paying jobs to towns like Glasgow.

The pipeline would also boost tax revenue through each county it passes. In Valley County, where Glasgow is located, the pipeline’s first year of operation is expected to generate $7.35 million in taxes, nearly half the county’s current property tax revenue. In Fallon County, where Baker is located, the pipeline will bring $4.5 million to the county’s coffers, or 64 percent of its current property tax revenue, according to the State Department. Baker could also get some energy infrastructure of its own. TransCanada has agreed to build an “on-ramp” in Baker, to feed up to 100,000 barrels of oil from the Bakken into the pipeline.

That potential windfall has made the pipeline so attractive across the state that many towns started planning for its arrival, thinking those pipes sitting in North Dakota would be in the ground by now.

In Glasgow, Betty Stone added dozens of rooms to her hotel in anticipation of the pipeline workers. She says business is fine anyway, thanks to the trains that pass through Glasgow as well as construction on a major dam project.

Down the street, Glasgow schools superintendent Bob Connors also lamented the pipeline’s delays. Glasgow’s old elementary school is dilapidated and small, and Connors hoped the Keystone would help pay for a new one. The new school’s construction began anyway, but now taxpayers are bearing the expense.


Perhaps equally important for Glasgow was a new Astroturf field for the high school’s football team. Football is a way of life in these parts of Montana. Nearly every store has a Glasgow Scotties flag in the window. And the grass on the team’s current field is often hard or dead, thanks to upper Montana’s frigid winter temperatures.

“We have a 150-degree temperature variation here, so we need a type of facility that can handle that weather,” Connors says.

But without the Keystone, Connors had to ditch the field improvements and several other upgrade projects for now. Still, Connors says he’s hopeful the Keystone will be built eventually and his schools will get the upgrades they need.

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