Lauri Latta and Bart Myers speak to those who attended the Voices of the Valley meeting. Latta and Myers talked about their experience living in Pinedale during a large boom. They also discussed the impacts the boom and the following bust had on the community.
Voices of the Valley delivered a new perspective on energy development impacts with stories from the past.
Bart Myers and Laurie Latta, who both have experienced the impacts of large energy development, shared their personal stories at the VOV meeting May 8 of what happened to them during an energy boom in Sublette County.
The pair had a formal presentation prepared, but decided to abandon it and talk about their personal observations during the boom and bust in Sublette County.
“We knew what was coming in Sublette County, but we didn’t know exactly what it was,” Latta said to start off her talk.
Latta and Myers touched on several key points during their informal presentation, but the hottest topics included tourism, the housing market, rapid development and the boom and bust in general.
Latta said, at the time of the boom near Pinedale, Sublette County was the second fastest growing area west of the Mississippi. She went on to say the boom brought great socioeconomic change, and said the change is inevitable when a lot of people move into an area.
“You get all the people you talk about coming into this county, you are talking about huge socioeconomic change,” she said.
During the boom, local shops thrived because there were people bringing in revenue, Latta said.
“When things were really going, those businesses kept their doors open and things were going really well, but now things have slowed down so much,” Latta said.
Also, during the boom, energy development companies and other contractors built many hotels, hotels that were full during the boom, but now are empty, Latta said. However, Sublette County is working on repurposing the hotels by generating summer activity.
For Myers, the biggest impact the boom had in Sublette County was home equity after the bust.
“The biggest impact to the average citizen was maybe the lost equity in evaluation in your home, which in my case, is the single largest investment,” Myers said. “I just had my house appraised, and it is worth $100,000 less than I paid.”
After Myers and Latta touched on several key points, Lee Nellis of the American Institute of Certified Planners said Myers’ and Latta’s talks showed that, with any boom, there is also going to be a bust.
“After the boom, there’s a bust,” Nellis said. “A boom that is three times as big is going to have a bust that is three times as big.”
But Latta said a big boom is not “all gloom and doom.” Some positive things can come out of it. Latta went on to say open communication can make things better.
“I truly believe that part of the problem (in Sublette County) was our community leaders knew what was going on, but it was not shared. The BLM did have the meeting, but we didn’t pay attention to what was going on,” Latta said. “The idea of communication among you is really important to make things work.”
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