DUNN COUNTY - Looking out onto the gravel road that runs along his ranch, Allan Schmidt sees something new to his serene southwest corner of this rural county: Heavy traffic.

One after another, large trucks rumble by Schmidt's property, kicking up clouds of dust onto his cattle and wearing away at the gravel road.

"Before, it was just us, the mailman, and the school bus," said Schmidt, who's been ranching the land since 1977.

The surge of traffic in Dunn County is a direct result of the latest energy boom. As world oil prices climbed throughout 2005 and 2006, western North Dakota has come alive with oil rigs and pump jacks for the first time since the early 1980s.

But the stream of heavy trucks that haul drilling machinery in and oil out have created a headache for both ranchers and county officials, who are scrambling to maintain the roads with limited budgets and small road crews.

"From a county standpoint we're excited to have the oil development and the economic benefits it brings," said Carroll Gjovik, director of the Dunn County Jobs Development Authority. "But anytime there's good, there's also some bad."

Along the winding, dusty gravel roads that stretch out into the county from Killdeer, population 725, the riding is rough and potholes are a frequent sight. Many roads are down to a thin layer of gravel with track marks of dirt where heavy trucks pass regularly.

In a few especially dangerous spots, county road crews have placed small orange flags in the ground to alert drivers to slow down and take special caution.

"What we're seeing right now is that Dunn County is the most severe," said Vicki Steiner, executive director of the North Dakota Association of Oil and Gas Producing Counties.

The new wave of oil exploration also is causing road problems in Bottineau, Bowman, Golden Valley and Mountrail counties, Steiner said.

In Dunn County, the 12-man road crew is busy patching and re-grading roads as fast as they can. Still, it seems to be an uphill battle.

"Many of these roads were built for cars and pickup trucks and not really for the heavy machinery we're seeing today," said Clayton Cook, a county road foreman.

Cook said the county is getting more calls from residents who want their road fixed than it can handle, both from a personnel and financial standpoint.

In 2006, Dunn County spent $1.95 million of its total $3.6 million budget on road repairs.

Before the boom, it spent between $1.3 million and $1.4 million on roads.

Dunn County Auditor Reinhard Hauck said he expects road needs in 2007 to cause even more of a budget crunch than before.

"We started out in January and we're already looking at the budget, and there's not enough money there," he said. "We're not going to go out and spend money we don't have."

The consequences of increased traffic and deteriorating road conditions touch many aspects of life in this county of about 3,600 people.

For Schmidt, a third generation rancher who raises dairy cows and row crops with his wife and four children, the problem is a near-constant cloud of dust and debris as large trucks pass.

Schmidt worries the intake of dust could damage his farm equipment.

His wife, Jozelle, worries about the dairy cows breathing it in day after day.

"Long term, it's going to affect their health in some way," she said.

Gene Harris, a rancher in northeast Dunn County, had two calves killed and one injured last year when his animals wandered onto the road in an open-range area and were struck by oil trucks.

Harris said this was never a concern before because traffic was so light.

School kids also are feeling the effect as many endure bumpy, lurching bus rides on long rural routes into Killdeer.

Gary Wilz, superintendent of the Killdeer Public School System, said the worsening road conditions wear out school bus tires more quickly and rattle their large chassis.

"I can tell you that my maintenance crew sure doesn't need to justify their jobs," Wilz said.

The district's bus maintenance costs have increased 39 percent from about $13,000 last year to about $18,000 this year.

Wilz said he's even had to haul kids home himself a few times when there were too many buses in for repair to complete all the district's routes.

To be sure, the cycle of oil boom and bust is nothing new to Dunn County.

During the last boom in the early 1980s, when high oil prices made drilling here profitable, the county was flooded with oil workers.

Rockhaven, a suburban-looking subdivision on the outskirts of Killdeer, sprang up overnight to house the families of oil workers. Stores, bars and restaurants in town thrived and, as in this boom, the roads took a beating.

Then, as oil prices collapsed in the mid-1980s, the previous boom ended as quickly as it began. For sale signs appeared in yard after yard and business in town sagged.

Gjovik, the county jobs director, said the biggest difference this time is the magnitude of the oil companies' presence.

In the 1980s, oil workers set up wells in just few spots scattered around the county, she said. Today, with new technology that allows them to profitably drill in more spots, their presence is affecting a much greater area of the county.

Indeed, signs that boom times are back in Dunn County are everywhere, from new rigs dotting the horizon every week to groups of oil workers lunching at the Buckskin Bar and Grill in Killdeer.

Just last week, Marathon Oil Co. brought two new rigs online in Dunn County. The new rigs are part of a plan by Marathon to expand its western North Dakota operations from eight wells to 300 over the next five years.

Other independent drillers in Dunn County are analyzing current financial returns and considering whether to expand their operations, said Robert Harms, director of the Northern Alliance of Independent Producers.

As production increases, ranchers and county officials fear the roads will worsen.

Scott Schleffler, a spokesman for Houston-based Marathon, said his company will work closely with landowners to address any concern related to its operations.

"We have not been made aware of any specific concerns related to Marathon's use of county roads or damage to roads," he said. "Any such concern would be immediately reviewed by Marathon and county officials."

Jim Arthaud, owner of Missouri Basin Well Service Inc., a Belfield-based trucking contractor that hauls oil in Dunn County, said his company strictly follows state weight guidelines for trucks on county roads.

Arthaud said the safety of his drivers is dependent on fixing the roads, something he hopes the state Legislature will make a priority this session.

Steiner, of the Oil and Gas Producing Counties Association, also sees state assistance as the best solution to the counties' road problems.

"We think the state needs to share in the cost of energy development, and roads are a big part of that," she said, adding that oil taxes make up a big part of the state's $540 million surplus.

Her association is supporting two bills that would give oil producing counties a greater share of the 5 percent gross production tax that the state levies on oil producers.

Under the bills, which are under consideration in the Legislature, county governments would get $15.9 million more from the state.

For the Schmidt family, the solution is far simpler. They intend to wait it out.

Allan Schmidt said he expects the oil companies to leave when this boom passes, just as the last one did. Still, he worries the damage done to the roads could remain long after the prosperity is gone.

"They could all leave tomorrow and leave us with some pretty bad roads," he said.

(Reach reporter Jonathan Rivoli at 223-8482 or jonathan.rivoli@bismarcktribune.com.)