Water issue holds up South Heart crew camp

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Lots approved as the location for a crew camp sit vacant Friday in South Heart. Water utilities must be installed at the site before temporary housing facilities will be moved in.

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SOUTH HEART — South Heart City Council may have approved the construction of a crew camp earlier this month, but the promised relief of temporary housing has been held up by one problem — a lack of water at the site.

The city council approved a five-unit temporary housing facility on the east side of town, south of the railroad tracks. Each unit would house six Nabors Drilling employees.

Landowner Robby Urbanec said the company hopes to move in within a few weeks, but there has been complications getting the water utilities installed because companies are swamped with work.

“If I don’t get an excavator before winter, who knows, they might have to find somewhere else,” he said. “They (excavators) are just so busy, all of them.”

The company is proposing to put in single units that look similar to a single-wide trailer, Urbanec said. The approved plot is across the street from an existing trailer park.

Mayor Floyd Hurt said he thought Nabors had a good set of rules and regulations for employees, and that the city has not had problems with other workers living in the adjacent housing.

“We already have four or five (units) in town in the trailer court, and the people who work there are very good,” he said. “They don’t carouse around and raise heck and stuff like that, so with that experience we felt the rules and regulations Nabors has, they would probably be as good as the ones we already have there.”

South Heart resident Sandra Barnes said she was in support of bringing in the camp, but not everybody might be. She was originally from New England and compared the controversy to the uproar about bringing a correctional facility to New England, where ultimately “nobody knew it was there” when it was completed.

“I was just happy to see it approved, a lot of towns are turning them down,” she said, adding that temporary housing is a benefit because it can easily be removed if activity slows down.

Stephanie Toshach moved to town from Utah about three months ago and is staying in a temporary housing structure. She said it was the only place she could have lived and she was “all for” getting more camps.

“I think it is better for them to have more camps because it might lower rent and open up more spots for residents,” she said.

Elaine Semingson, who said she has lived in the area all but two years of her life, was in support of the crew camps.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I am happy it was approved.”

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