A new report tracks the amount of oil and gas drilling that’s gone on over the past 10 years in different counties across the Rocky Mountains.
Julia Haggerty, one of the authors of the report, says the pace and scale of drilling has a profound effect on local communities – not only during the height of a boom, but in the time right before and after. Haggerty says more research needs to be done on how counties rebound after a bust.
“Committing ourselves to understanding what happens in these places afterwards is a really critical part of our commitment to making sure that energy development is profitable in the long term for impacted communities,” she said.
Haggerty says rural communities often struggle to pay for infrastructure upgrades necessary to accommodate surges in drilling.