Pros and cons to the Eagle Ford Shale

SAN ANTONIO – Alice and Jim Wells County may not be directly in the oil footprint of the Eagle Ford Shale, but the city and county sure feel the effects of the new found Texas gold.
While the Shale sits north and west of the Hub City, Alice is not alone in the problems of lack of housing and workforce. A couple of things that do favor Alice is its infrastructure, experience with oil companies and a local government that understands the needs of these companies.
“We have some great opportunities as we need to shift roles of self reliance. We have to learn from the past and get it right,” San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro said during the Eagle Ford Consortium. “This is a true blessing for South Texas and the state of Texas.”
Mayor Castro said the Eagle Ford Shale is about job creation, self reliance and economic development.
“This is about all communities working together as we take advantage of the Eagle Ford Shale,” he said.
Dr. Federico Zaragoza, Vice Chancellor of Economic and Workforce Development at Alamo Colleges said the Eagle Ford Shale presents challenges and great opportunities for all of South Texas.
“The scope of impact is phenomenal with a long-term infrastructure that many communities do no have right now as they play catch up,” he said. “Some small communities have greater challenges than others. Everyone in the shale is experiencing the lack of housing and lack of workforce.”
Alice faces both of those challenges. Hotels are full on weekdays and the lack of family houses has kept the city from growing residentially. The Hub City has also depleted most of its workforce as well. Some local businesses have been affected as they cannot hire as those who normally take those jobs have gone to work in the oil field sector.
Across the shale smaller communities who were poverty stricken or had a population stigmatism are now playing catch up with limited resources.
LaVernia Municipal Development District Executive Director Jennifer Kolbe said you need a little math and science to keep up with the Eagle Ford Shale.
“You can’t have growth if you take the wrong approach. You have to be optimistic. Like math and science it goes hand in hand if you want to diversify your economy,” she said. “Look at what worked in the 80s and make it better. We need to get a return for our investments with these companies. We need to make them step up and get our infrastructures better.”
One thing that was evident of all communities for a sustainable economic development was to plan for the future and meet the needs of the companies spending the funds in your communities. The framework for a sustainable economic development can be categorized as community development, business development, workforce development and education development according to North Dakota Land Commissioner Lance Gaebe.
“we are three years ahead of Texas and have experience with what you are experiencing now,” the commissioner said. “What we experience was the lack of workforce as 50 percent of those who applied for jobs, did not pass the drug test. The reality is that this is not new.”
The long term is affect will be finding the skilled workers, setting up the workforce for the future according to Texas Workforce Commission Chairman Tom Pauken.
“It is now taking eight and half years for students to graduate and of those who go to a four-year college, two-thirds never graduate and have a debt on average of $25,000,” Pauken said. “Some 50 percent fail to graduate within six years..”
Chairman Pauken said it is up to local schools to get the vocational classes back to keep up with the demand of the shale.
“Young people are the key to our success. We have schools like the Craft Training Center of the Coastal Bend in Corpus Christi who is taking at-risk high school kids and training them in welding,” Pauken said. “We have to understand our focus and redefine our values of the skill trades which is so important for the future of Texas.”
Pauken added that during the next State Legislature, we need to have our legislature really look into the standardized testes being administered from a one-size fits all test to two tests one for career readiness and the other for college bound students.
“America’s work ethic has slipped away. We need to find a way to bring it back and ensure our efforts to educate the skills or we will see the consequences having losing our workforce entirely.”
While most Eagle Ford Shale communities are now exceeding sales taxes that are helping with infrastructure but it’s the ad valorem taxes that will be big benefactor as towns begin to expand through economic development.