A state program that doles out grants to areas trying to cope with oil development is giving nearly half its money this year to fix township roads and bridges torn up from heavy truck traffic.

A bridge in Wayzetta Township in Mountrail County will be rebuilt using a $150,000 grant, the largest single project funded among some $3 million approved for local governments in oil-producing counties, said Jeff Engleson, director of the state Land Department's Energy Development Impact Office.

"That bridge was the most critical of the needs I saw - it's substandard. If that bridge doesn't work, it messes up a lot of stuff," Engleson said.

"It was put in years ago, and now it's on a major thoroughfare for oil traffic," Scott Stammen, Mountrail County's road supervisor, said of the bridge. "We need to get that replaced with a more modern, safer structure."

A total of 278 government entities submitted oil impact grant requests totaling more than $29 million this year. Engleson approved 265 requests in 15 oil-producing counties.

The funds, being distributed starting this month, come from part of the state's 5 percent oil and gas production tax.

Engleson said township roads and bridges beat up by oil traffic will get $1.47 million this year. He also approved 10 requests totaling $93,500 to help replace school buses that were beaten up by roads made rough from oil traffic.

"It's just a small part in the cost of replacing the buses, but it will help," he said.

Some of the oil impact money goes for drug enforcement, fire departments and ambulance services in oil producing counties.

Mountrail County got $796,000, the most awarded to a county this year.

Engleson replaced Rick Larson as the director of the state Land Department's Energy Development Impact Office. Larson, who held the position for about a decade, took a job in the state's oil patch, he said.

Engleson, like Larson before him, attends meetings across the state to hear local governments pitch their projects.

He said he personally reviews each request and drives every road that a county claims was damaged by oil traffic. That worked out to more than 5,000 miles this year.

Township roads in Mountrail County have been the most affected by the spike in drilling activity in the state's oil patch, he said.

"These roads absolutely take a pounding - they weren't designed for heavy-truck traffic," said Stammen, Mountrail County's road supervisor. "Roads that were seeing 20 to 30 trucks a day a year ago are now seeing hundreds a day."

Counties in the state's oil patch are getting more oil tax royalties from increased production but nothing is earmarked for townships, Engleson said. Heavy trucks working in the oil patch often take township roads because of weight restrictions on county roads, he said.

"The township roads are not in as good of shape as the county roads we are trying to protect," Engleson said.

The grant program has doled out more than $61 million since it was started in 1982.

Legislators from oil-producing counties are proposing to increase the cap on state oil impact grants from $6 million to about $40 million, citing the oil development boom in the state. The Legislature raise the cap from $5 million to $6 million during the 2007-2009 budget cycle.

Engleson said some of the requests don't fit the intended use of the grants. He said one city's park board asked for several hundred dollars to buy barbecue grills for oil workers who were living in trailers in a park.

"It didn't get funded," he said.