The influx of thousands of workers associated with a military update of the nuclear defense system is expected to have a massive impact on the Minot region. In preparing for the day, Minot will be looking to the North Dakota Legislature for help.

“This  is one of the largest projects, if not the largest construction project, in the history of the state of North Dakota — a $3.2 billion project for the Minot area,” Minot Mayor Tom Ross said at the Minot City Council meeting Monday. “We’ve got an ask going to the Legislature to help us prepare for that. I think it’s something we need to start talking about now.”

Legislation has yet to be drafted, but Minot Area Chamber EDC President Brekka Kramer said Minot, which is home to Minot Air Force Base, as well as Grand Forks with its air base and Fargo with the Air National Guard, are working together to obtain state resources in the 2023 legislative session. 

“We will be working this upcoming legislative session to see if we can support and match some of the local dollars that we’ve been fortunate to not only raise privately through the Chamber EDC, but the city’s portion,” she said. The Legislature previously has provided funding for base retention — most recently in the 2017-19 biennium.

The Air Force plans to replace 150 missiles in each North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming over several years. Montana and Wyoming will have the missile system installed first, and the hope locally is to learn from those states. Kramer said they want to develop a team to spend time in the other two states and assess the impacts there.

“Our goal is to really get boots on the ground to understand what the impact is, not only to our area but to our state and really prepare North Dakota for this project,” Kramer said.

Council member Mark Jantzer, also with Minot’s base retention committee, Task Force 21, agreed there is a need to understand what happens in Wyoming and Montana to prepare in North Dakota.

“They’ll be replacing a missile a week for nine years. That’s the scope of this project, and that doesn’t include all the infrastructure that will be necessary on the bases and throughout the missile field,” he said.

 ”With the arrival of the workforce, you have all the secondary and tertiary effects of school districts, health services,” he added. “We want to be prepared so that we’re able to get through this without overwhelming some of those agencies that are impacted.”

Kramer said the impact will be larger than just the Sentinel missile replacement project.

“Truly what we need to prepare for are all of the modernization projects. Not only do we have Sentinel, which is the missile silo side, we have the B-52 modernization. We also have LRSO (long-range standoff weapon), so we have a major, major lift as far as to stay ahead of what’s coming into our state,” Kramer said.

If North Dakota is well prepared, it would send a positive message to workers completing the multi-year project that North Dakota is a good place to settle down and continue using their skills, said Shane Goettle, Minot’s assistant city attorney for legislative affairs.

“We have workforce challenges today. I expect that we may have workforce challenges tomorrow,” he said. “This is also a workforce opportunity.”