N. Dakota Town Teeters on Bankruptcy : Cities: Once a prosperous oil community, Belfield saw a drop in oil prices that left it in the lurch.

Main Street is quiet except for a few children riding their bikes, dodging the many holes and bumps their town can’t afford to fix.

For two years, this community of 1,100 has been on the verge of becoming the first in North Dakota history to declare bankruptcy. Outside town, on the edge of the scenic Badlands, an oil well reminds residents of better days as well as Belfield’s uncertain future.

“It’s pretty much at a standstill,” said George Kessel, 77, who was born and reared here. “Everybody’s hanging on, waiting for things to get better.”

Oil field worker Driggers (Bob) Tyndall has been in town for just three weeks, but he has been reading and hearing about Belfield’s prosperous past and troubled present.

“When it was up, it was booming, it was alive,” Tyndall said. “But look at it now--it’s dead.”

In the late 1970s, Belfield’s future looked as promising as the state’s oil industry. Oil workers poured into the unprepared town, forcing officials to sell $2.1 million worth of bonds in the early 1980s to pay for water, sewers and housing. Its population swelled by almost 300.

But by 1986, oil prices had dropped and Belfield was stuck with more than $1 million in unpaid property taxes owed by unemployed workers who left.

City officials ruled out new taxes for people already complaining of skyrocketing costs. Instead, they hoped to work out deals with the bondholders that would pay off part of the debt or set up a payment plan.

Today, the town’s debt totals almost $1.9 million, and no deals are in sight.

“We were hoping we could avoid bankruptcy, but as time is going by and no clear-cut decisions are made . . . we’re going back to the idea that bankruptcy is going to happen,” said former Mayor Phil Dolyniuk, who stepped down in April.

“It’s going to be a battle. The next four years are going to be very difficult.”

Attorney Albert Hardy told bondholders in a February letter that city services such as water, sewer and streets were curtailed “to the point where the health and well-being of the people remaining in Belfield may be at risk.”

Dolyniuk said that he doesn’t expect any health problems, although he noted that Belfield’s landfill is getting full and the town may have problems paying to get its waste shipped elsewhere.

The number of full-time municipal workers has declined from seven in 1984 to four today, and the town police bought a used car last time they needed one. The town has lost a grocery store and a car dealership, although it has gained a service station and a Dairy Queen.

Residents have formed a group called the Community Development Corporation to give the town a moral and financial lift.

The group and others helped raise money to repair a swimming pool that had been closed for years. It also put up signs along U.S. 85 to attract travelers and turn a small conservation dam nearby into a recreation center.

A new 24-page brochure was written to tell business prospects about Belfield’s history, recreation and climate.

Some of the efforts seem to be paying off.

Arcus Environmental Inc. last month announced plans to hire 50 people for a plant that turns hazardous waste into fuel. Belfield officials are wooing a dentist so people won’t have to drive 20 miles to Dickinson to get their teeth fixed.

And Mayor Susan Heck is cautiously--very cautiously--optimistic.

“If we maintain, I think we’ll be lucky,” she said. “We just take it a step at a time. It’s gradually coming around.”

“Nobody expects a big oil boom again,” said Duane Indergaard, owner of Belfield’s Ft. Houston Museum.