KERSEY – For years, there hasn’t been much new in Kersey.
It’s a small agricultural Weld County town just east of Greeley with a population around 1,500 people – the kind of place where the local diner has Paul Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer” speech printed on its menus.
But, just like a number of small Weld County communities along Northern Colorado’s Front Range, Kersey is experiencing recent growth because of the oil and gas industry.
“The oil-and-gas industry is a big, big part of a lot of things happening in Northern Colorado, and it’s helping out a lot of these smaller towns,” said Brett Bloom, Kersey’s town administrator. He said about 750 oil wells are drilling just outside of the town.
“Kersey has been at idle for a long long time, and we’re finally starting to see a little commercial business coming to town and helping out the taxpayers,” he added.
And Kersey is not alone.
Fifteen miles northwest of Kersey and east of Windsor, the town of Eaton – with a population just under 5,000 – also has seen an economic surge courtesy of oil and gas. It’s even getting its own Cobblestone Hotel that will be comparable in size to the one being built in Kersey.
“We haven’t had a hotel at all in decades, so, of course, our market area has grown quite a bit,” Eaton Town Manager Gary Carsten said.
He, too, says the oil-and-gas activity has brought growth to the farming community. While he doesn’t have an exact estimate of the number of wells drilled nearby, he said rigs are popping up regularly east of town.
“I mean, we’re right in the middle of it,” he said. “We’re probably the closest town of any size to all that activity out there (in the oil fields).”
Lisa Pennau, a hotel market feasibility analyst for Core Distinction Group, conducted feasibility studies on both Eaton and Kersey for Cobblestone Hotels, which she said focuses more on smaller communities.
According to Pennau, she mainly conducts surveys in towns to identify if they have any demand for a hotel and if they could support one.
Traffic pattern data is a major factor in the decision, but a focus on major employers and future growth is important, as well, she said.
“You could say the word ‘bolstering;’ you could say the word ‘supporting.’ But it’s not just what your production levels are. It’s what it is these skilled (oil and gas) workers are bringing into these cities and towns,” Doug Flanders, the director of policy and external affairs for Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said on the role the oil and gas industry plays in communities.
“What does it do for the restaurants, the mom-and-pop shops along Main Street?” he said. “What does it mean when you have people coming into that locale and supporting those folks’ businesses?”
“You definitely see a positive economic impact within those smaller rural towns,” he added.
According to an assessment of the oil and gas industry by the University of Colorado-Boulder, the industry recorded $9.3 billion in production value and accounted for 29,300 drilling, extraction and support jobs in Colorado in 2012.
It also contributed public revenues totaling almost $1.6 billion – $1 billion of that being directly derived from severance taxes, public leases, public royalties and property taxes, the assessment said.
With the increased activity, however, there also come concerns.
On April 17, the Colorado House of Representatives passed a bill that would direct the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to analyze the health and quality-of-life impacts of oil and gas production along Colorado’s Front Range, according to a news release.
The bill would require the CDPHE to conduct the analysis by Jan. 1, 2017, in six counties – Weld and Larimer included – that have seen increased oil and gas production in recent years. The bill also mandates the agency provide the General Assembly with annual updates.