Monday, June 25, 2012

Vern Whitten Photography -- May/June 2012 -- Oil Patch -- Williston Basin

Link here to some really nice photographs of the oil patch in western North Dakota taken by Vern Whitten Photography.

I enjoy them all.

The photograph of the industrial park on US Highway 2 west of Williston taken in May, 2012, is really quite amazing.  Williston is about three inches off the left side of the photo. One year ago this was all farmland or prairie. There was a small electrical substation and a truck scale but that was about it.

Note the "newness" of the industrial park. A year from now it will be completely filled in. The photograph is looking southeast toward the river. The major "T" intersection is the US Highway 85 (a two-lane road for the most part) intersecting with US Highway 2 at the "4-mile corner" west of Williston. You can just make out a frontage road on the south side of US 2 running from right to left (or left to right). It looks like they may be able to make that "T" intersection into a four-way intersection, the north road currently not completed. The original plans called for the "Truck Reliever Route," or the "truck bypass" to turn north just to the west of the industrial park, just outside the photograph on the right side (at least that's how I interpreted the original plan).

The more established industrial park where the huge BHI complex is located is to the east (off the photo to the left).

US Highway 2 is now a four-lane, divided highway, across the entire state of North Dakota. That was completed shortly before the current boom in North Dakota. The highway is similarly widened for ten to twenty miles west into Montana (I'm sure someone from Montana will give me a better distance). I know it was being upgraded/widened at least to Bainville, MT, before I departed the area last autumn.

Contact information for Vern Whitten Photography:
whittenaerials@aol.com
www.vernwhittenphotography.com
(701) 261-7658

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