Eye on Energy: Water Needs - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Eye on Energy: Water Needs

Nobody is drilling for oil in east Minot...but that doesn't mean there isn't any energy activity.

Quite the opposite actually.

And now, the city of Minot is making upgrades to better handle the business boom that oil has brought.

Perry Olson has more on that in our Eye on Energy today.

(Perry Olson - KX News) "Minot's Energy Park on the east side of town has exploded the last few years, and with more expansion expected in the coming years, getting the infrastructure out here was very key..."

(Jerry Chavez - MADC President) "We are helping prepare, strategically your foundation so you can operate and make money."

Jerry Chavez knows what a well prepared piece of land can lure -- companies like Haliburton and other energy giants have come to Minot and call the Energy Park home...and more may be coming. But to keep adding, better infrastructure is needed -- and it is coming. The Minot Area Development Corporation is using 3.8 million dollars in MAGIC Fund money to expand city water supply east.

(Jerry Chavez - MADC President) "We are enhancing infrastructure that will allow businesses to grow. It is a strategy that Minot has employed since about 2006."

MADC had in the past given grants to companies...now, more often than not, MAGIC dollars are spent to upgrade sites -- making Minot more attractive to job creating businesses that are flourishing in the region.

(Jerry Chavez - MADC President) "We will tend to put those dollars into infrastructure. Rail, water, sewer...here it is preparing and it is Minot investing in the business community."

This latest nearly four million dollar investment is in the engineering stage now. By spring, work should begin...and the city will take the lead on the sanitary sewer portion of the upgrades...bringing more land into play for energy companies ready to arrive. With your Eye on Energy, Perry Olson, KX News.

The upgrades will help lead to further development at the Port of North Dakota that has plans to grow to upwards of 32-hundred acres.

But it isn't just business -- the infrastructure upgrades will serve many residential areas in northeast Minot as well.

Some that are already built...and others that are planned.