For Those Living in Gas Well Drilling Areas

I worked on the Jonah field in WY it is one of the most prolific gas fields in the world. I have also read articles about the wildlife habitat being destroyed and Antelope not coming within a mile of an Oil Well (field and stream). Not True. The worst damage i saw to the enviroment while i was up there was the camp location for the rainbow people. That being said protect your property and make sure you have done your due diligence. It can be done right and work very well for everyone involved.

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www.theidahoagripreneur.blogspot.com

Some won't believe how many Antelope and other critters there really are out that way . Bet you saw a lot of trucks with those heavy duty cow catchers on them too .

Regulations not only differ from state to state but county to county here in PA. Also, there are inexperienced mom & pop start up companies that are drilling. You can bet that there are companies not complying with regulations, if there are any. The drilling is even occurring within Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), not some rural non-populated area.

I wish it were possible for a "mom&pop" operation... Not in the deep shale plays. In the close to the surface coal bed methane, sure. But that's a horse of a different breed. Regulations are being enforced across the board.

The envirowackos are just miss reporting and combining all gas production in the state to suit their purpose. You are being misinformed. You do know that the "fraced" with a nuclear bomb in Wyoming. So tell me about "regulations".

Without having read any of the other posts, I will break my silence and say this:

I live in DISH, Tx and have been in this house since 1996--before the gaswells were drilled. We did not get mineral rights with the land, but that isn't uncommon in TX. One gaswell was installed not 200 feet from my front door in 1998 and I went from being a healthy and vibrant person to what I am now: I am not yet 40 and have been permanently disabled by the leaking toxins coming from the gaswells, the compressor stations, the pipelines, the metering stations, and the drilling rigs. I have been going to doctors since 2001 and have had several expensive tests done to rule out any other possible causes for my ruined health. We love this house but we just can't stay here any longer. We are looking to move to a county with no gas or oil deposits underneath. For those that think that we are all a bunch of environmental wackos, I can only say that we have been through the wringer with the TRRC and TCEQ, the two governing bodies that supposedly regulate the system. They refuse to acknowledge that any problems exist.

I was one of the participants in testing done by the state health dept. Toluene was found in my body and their explanation was that I obviously had pumped gasoline immediately prior to giving samples. They came to MY house to take the samples and I had not left my house in 2 days. Mind you, I've pumped gasoline a whole two times in my life, once in 1989 and once in 2001. Everything in my house is fragrance-free and all natural, so it's not like it was hiding elsewhere in my life. I had a chemist and mathematician look over the state's findings and was told that there were so many discrepancies there that nobody worth their salt would ever present such a messy load of manure and yet the state is clinging to that data as if it were the last lifeboat leaving the Titanic. Local residents finally petitioned the EPA to become involved because the state did nothing but laugh in our faces. Don't even get me started on the bullying tactics used by the gas companies if they think you stand in their way.

There is a LOT more information at the blog BadDish . Mayor Tilmon is honest and forthright and always happy to answer questions. There are clips on youtube that are worth watching, including the meetings where the EPA's regional representative spoke with residents and one where the state's mouthpiece came and tried to convince us that we weren't sick and everything here is fine and dandy. At the same time, the EPA has started referring to this town as "Ground Zero for hydro-fracking" because this is the piece of heaven where it all started and where the largest number of "fracked" gaswells sit grouped together. (Roughly 12,000 of them within a 20 minute drive of my house in any direction. Oh the joy!)

If you still don't believe how serious this situation is, then I have a 2700 sq. ft. house built in 1904 that sits on 1.121 acres of prime land for sale. There are two mature pecan trees out front and the back has been tilled into a garden. BTW, you will want to install your own whole-house water filtration system (trust me--you will regret it if you don't) because I'm taking this one with me. This homestead is picking up lock, stock, and barrel and moving to Fannin County!

....back to lurking....

Yeah lets go straight for the old emotional wammy. Facts should play no part in the discussion.

I'd love to buy the house, but I would have to move it too far to put it on my land.. 1.2 acres is not enough for me.

So sorry that this has happened to you and ruined your health! That must be awful.

Actually, the idea that we have to buy foreign oil because we don;t have enough of our own is a half truth. On the market, oil is oil, no mater where it came from. We buy oil off the open market, at the market price. if we produced as much oil as the middle east, and consumed as much as we do now, the prices would still be the same. Oil is oil, and its all on the market at the market price of the day. if we produced a zillion barrels a day, that wouldnt change. if we produced zero oil a day, it wouldn't change.

So when one says we are dependent on foreign oil, it's somewhat misleading. We are dependent on world market oil, since all our oil gets sold on the open market to anyone who buys oil. China could very well buy US oil and the same way we buy Iraqi oil, off the world oil market.

Other fuels like gas, solar, hydro, geothermal all reduce our overall need for oil.

if they put 100 oil wells in your back yard in Texas, that doesnt benefit you in Dallas. It will benifit/effect the price we buy oil in general on the market.

Gas is not as bad as it's made out to be, but it is messy, and does polute the watershed if its not done right. The pollution of the wells mostly happens from frac water runoff, or dumping. Intrusion via the actual well casing is rare, because the wells are so deep. yes it happens, but not as much as people are lead to believe. It is a big deal when it happens, since it is so toxic.

as for drilling under your land, they cant do that even to get to a fracing area, its called subterranean trespass. They must hold the lease to any land they are drilling on, or through. The entire area must be in one contiguous pool of properties. So if someone tells you they will drill under you, and get tot he gas anyway, then they don't understand how it works. if the drill passes under you, they have to lease your gas rights. it's no different than if they laid a pipe across your yard. A mile under your yard is still your property.

I know where to download a copy of gasland if anyone wants it.

Yup and we buy more oil from Canada and Mexico/S America than we do the middle east.

I figure with oil and gas demand rising do fast in Asia and India the prices will get high enough for petroleum that alternative sources of energy will be cheaper and we will shift to them. Just a matter of time.

Unfortunately our government seems to be dragging it's feet, while others like China are passing us by investing in it.

Assuming that this poster is truthful, I'm sure that poor health is a fact. It's probably a really difficult fact to have to live with every day. Hydro-fracking is increasingly being discussed in my area due to the Marcellus Shale area. I just cannot support anything that poses a risk to our water supply. We all need clean water to drink and fresh air to breathe. Without both, we cease to exist!

To the poster who mentioned the CNY area. I sincerely doubt that it will be allowed in this area. No politician around here really wants to go on record as being supportive of this kind of activity. This area really is gorgeous with all of the lakes, wildlife preserves and rivers. Even the city people don't want it to happen because our city water comes from some of those same pristine sources.

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~TheMartianChick~

My latest novels:
Bystander: A Tale of the End of the World as SHE Knew It!

Christmas in Bystander & Other Village Tales

Coming Soon: A Slice of Heaven

I'm familiar with mom and pop companies.

However, mom and pop's usually buy old nearly depleted wells and try and squeeze a little profit out of them.

A new shale well in my area is averaging 5 million. Don't believe you could with a straight face say a mom and pop company can spend 5M on an exploratory well. Well, unless you got some awful well off mom and pops.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

I've known a few who also go after smaller deposits that aren't worth the big boys time to mess with at current oil prices. They use smaller older gear, try to eek out a little profit here and there.

I don't see what all the hubbub is about, growing up for 50 years in an area full of wells, where one of the best employers has been fracing companies like Schlumberger I don't see the nightmare scenarios that that film is putting out..

Except in the shallow coal bed methane drilling... Which is a whole different ball game and should be seriously dealt with.

Sorry for your ailments...

I live in Panola County... Gas Capital of the World. From WWII onwards, this county has sat on the largest gas field known.

Hydrofracking has been going on here since the early 70's. There are gas wells every quarter mile in every direction and everyone drilled since the 70s are fracked. I know of zero contamination problems due to fracking. Now, Salt Water Disposal operations have had their problems...

Why are you moving to Fannin County? Sorry to disappoint you, but a 2 second check on the TX RRC systems shows there ARE gas wells being drilled, as we speak, in Fannin Co., Tx. Go to this site and enter Fannin Co. http://webapps.rrc.state.tx.us/DP/in...QueryAction.do

Maybe you should check Patt's location, apparently no drilling is going on there... disclaimer: I haven't done any research in AR, and there 'could' be a promising formation there being explored, or it could already be in production. If you don't want to be around oil/gas drilling, Texas really is a bad place to live. You might check out the Big Bend area, or around El Paso.

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Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

The industry has been using hydraulic fracturing for decades. There is not one single documented case of causing damage to the water supply. This is all baseless propaganda by people who depend on deluding the gullible with emotion.

I would take exception to that, in the shallower coal bed methane fracturing at depths as shallow as 600 feet or so there is clearly possibility to damage and or pollute aquifers.

For most shale and other gas wells though, it's several thousand feet down, and of no danger to water aquifers at all.

As well, underground disposal of brine can also ruin aquifers if not done properly. Especially in areas where they convert very old wells with corroded well casings into disposal wells and pump brine down into the depleted reservoirs under high pressure. All it takes is a small leak in the casing somewhere near an aquifer depth.

That is definitely the operative word here. From what I have seen/heard and from others have posted here, none of their health ailment cases ever makes it to being classified as "documented" because the gas powers that be and those that are profiting from it (state/local governments,etc.) do not allow it to happen. Which is the way things always seem to go when money is involved...

At some point reality has to set in... if you're sitting on a postage stamp sized property you probably aren't going to support gas drilling, if you have a larger property (in my case over 250 acres on two parcels) your school and property tax bills are nearly $12K AND the economy has effected your income, well you're going to be more supportive. I own property in two gas areas- Marcellus Shale and Trenton-Black River. I support responsible gas drilling because NY has a multimillion dollar deficit and the money has to come from somewhere, I (and many many like me) simply cannot pay any more in taxes. That's the bottom line.

There are many NY politicians (and those that are campaigning to become one) that support responsible gas drilling. They will get my vote.

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People say I can't multi-task. Well, I can tick you off and amuse myself at the same time.

..................Too say that every gas well drilled is 100% sealed off from polluting fresh water zones several thousand feet Up the bore hole is a bit of a stretch ! Fracing a well by pumping fluid and frac sand at 6,000 too 10,000 PSi and fluid volumes around 50 too 100 barrels per minute means that it is quite possible that the pressurized fluid found a weak point in the cement job surrounding the casing and made it's way UPhole into a fresh water zone ! This , then , establishes a pathway for the gas too follow once a large % of the frac fluid has been recovered , the flowback completed and the gas well brought on line . , fordy

have seen some of the contracts they are trying to get signed around our property and they have clauses where they can come in and litereally take your land for next to nothing and next to no reason..needless to say we didn't sign..none of us in our neighborhood signed