The drilling for natural gas has slowed to little or none in the last few years, our neighboring counties of Blaine and Hill have been drilled and developed a handfull of wells last year. Valley County to our east is about the same as Phillips County. With the boom for oil in the Bakken, all workers and drill rigs have moved to North Dakota for work. There is a plan to replace some old gas wells in the existing field in Phillips County, but that’s about it. We do not have a population problem, so a well drilled in the country and is not a problem. The mining for gold in the Little Rocky Mountains came to an end after bad management within Pegasus gold and then the ban on using cyanide for leaching put a stake through the heart of mining in Montana in the late 90’s. The mines at Landusky and Zortman were the money makers for Pegasus and still could be profitable to the right parties if the cyanide ban and the problem with acid rock drainage were corrected. Mining took place when the price of gold was in the $300 to $500 range and they made money then, think what kind of money someone could make now at the $1500 dollar gold price! Think of the jobs created. The Little Rocky Mountains still contain a large amount of gold, why Pegasus went bankrupt is another story. They invested heavily in a couple of other Gold Mines that had little or no gold. Again, just bad management.