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A tireless promoter of the oil and gas industry—both of his sons work in the business as power engineers— Bumstead knows his stu'. At a lunch held by the Dawson Creek & District Chamber of Commerce, he outshines the guest speaker, a Business Development Bank of Canada expert on the sector, by shar- ing his encyclopedic knowledge of the Montney and its developers. The forma- tion already produces some 4.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day, according to the National Ener•y Board, about one third of the Canadian total. Bumstead downplays fears about fracking's environmental impact. "We all want responsible resource develop- ment," he says. "That's the key for not only our communities, our residents and our future generations, but, in my view, anyway, it's not being done in a haphaz- ard, unsafe manner." We spend an afternoon with Brian Lieverse, senior community relations adviser with Calgary-headquartered Encana, about 200 of whose sta' work in Dawson Creek. Lieverse, a long-time Peace resident with a wry manner, has been in oil and gas for almost 30 years. Before that he was a meat cutter. "I had some family that was in the industry, and I looked around and said, 'OK, you know what? I'm 25 years old, and I look at the guys beside me, and a lot of them were missing digits, dealing with arthritis in their hands or back problems.' And I thought, 'Jeez, is this what I want to do when I'm 45? There's got to be something a little better.'" Starting as a power engineer in pro- cessing plants, Lieverse became an oper- ations coordinator with Encana before the company asked him to move into community relations about a decade ago. He's philosophical about opposition to oil- and-gas development, whether it's from groups on the coast or locals. "You have to work with those residents and ¡nd out what their concerns are and, in the end, try to work for a solution for everybody." Lieverse shows us Encana's Water Resource Hub, whose two big tanks contain about 100,000 barrels ready to be used for fracks. One criticism of fracking is that it requires vast quanti- ties of fresh water. The hub gets its sup- ply from three sources, Lieverse says: recycled frack water, salty water brought to the surface with natural gas and water from a shale formation that contains lit- tle gas. Pumped to sites by pipeline, this water accounts for as much as 80 per cent of Encana's total usage, he estimates. On the site of Encana and Veresen Midstream's Sunrise processing facility (now up and running), a maze of staircase- and ladder-bedecked buildings with a daily capacity of 400 million cubic feet, we meet baby-faced plant lead Randy Munch. Wages have fallen in the past two years, but many industry workers still make $100,000 to $150,000. On a plant startup, some will earn as much as $200,000, says Munch, a native of nearby Chetwynd who joined Encana 15 years ago after getting his power engineering ticket. People with that kind of dough need somewhere to spend it—and some- thing to do in their o' hours. Perhaps Dawson Creek's most surprising feature is the Encana Events Centre, owned and UnemPloy- menT raTe (10%) average hoUsehold income (10% WeighT) average hoUsehold income Under 35 (10%) average hoUse- hold sPending on recreaTion (10%) average shelTer sPending (15%) Five-year PoPUlaTion groWTh (10%) Five-year income groWTh (25%) $103,948 $97,499 $5,424 $25,575 2.53% 7.09% 13.59% 4.60% $108,861 $88,017 $5,726 $26,257 2.89% 6.19% 13.71% 4.60% $84,683 $74,822 $4,456 $20,610 3.59% 8.74% 14.99% 4.60% $102,411 $89,781 $5,424 $24,547 2.49% 6.77% 13.71% 4.60% $103,195 $81,026 $5,351 $25,365 2.00% 7.86% 13.67% 4.60% $85,025 $65,817 $4,800 $20,942 4.24% 6.21% 16.78% 5.20% $101,946 $80,379 $5,126 $23,966 2.56% 6.93% 13.74% 4.60% $93,522 $77,121 $4,923 $23,054 2.06% 7.90% 14.70% 4.60% $92,153 $75,822 $5,129 $22,314 3.93% 5.15% 19.41% 7.10% $86,328 $74,901 $4,790 $20,322 4.26% 3.80% 17.36% 5.20% $80,782 $65,075 $4,487 $18,726 4.55% 5.70% 16.05% 5.20% $89,423 $74,809 $5,054 $21,541 3.28% 3.99% 17.06% 5.20% Category weights shown in brackets. Full methodology on page 31 residenTs Who bike or Walk To Work (10%) BCBusinEss.CA dECEMBER/JAnuARy 2018 BCBusiness 35

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