Ponder This: Venting and Flaring in Ponder, TX

I couldn't stand listening to this for 87 seconds.  Imagine having to listen to this for an hour or two in the middle of the night.  Some of these facilities are as close as 100 feet from houses.  This video was taken from quite a distance.

Gas Royalties in Texas: New Deductions Affect Royalty Checks

Chesapeake Energy has decided to deduct post-production costs from royalty checks in the Barnett Shale Play in Texas.  About 20,000 royalty owners will likely see their royalty checks slashed by roughly 25 percent after the company deducts expenses associated with post-production, such as gas gathering, compression, and transportation, according to the Star-Telegram.  The changes took effect with the July royalty checks, based on May production.  Only those leaseholders who have specific clauses precluding assessments for post-production costs will be exempt from this new policy. Would you like to read the letter they sent to landowners who have signed leases with them?  Here it is:  http://www.askchesapeake.com/Barnett-Shale/Royalty-Owners/Pages/Gathering-Deductions.aspx

Chesapeake Energy can do this with leases that do not specifically prohibit the assessment.  That's how it works.  Pennsylvania, watch out.

A related article from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Read Sue Heavenrich's blogpost on The Marcellus Effect.

Lightening Strike in Texas Causes Gas Well Fire

Just another serious danger when you live near a gas well.

NPR Interview Reveals Health and Environmental Concerns about Gas Drilling

Rene Montagne, host of Morning Edition, and reporter, John Burnett, raise questions about the natural gas industry on NPR.

Vast new natural gas fields have opened up thanks to an advanced drilling technique. While natural gas is a cleaner burning fuel than coal or petroleum, extracting it is still hard, dirty work. Some people who live near the massive Barnett Shale gas deposit in north Texas, have complaints. Health and environmental concerns are prompting state regulators to take a closer look.



Read the full transcript here.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Barnett Shale From the Air: Watch and Weep

See the true cost of gas! Natural gas is just another dirty fossil fuel. A [Barnett Shale] drilling rig operating for 3 months has the same impact as a city of 4,000 people—water use, solid waste generation, air emissions and traffic.
[David Burnett, Dir. Global Petroleum Research Institute, a collaborative research organization representing 12 major international oil producing companies]

Thanks to TXsharon and Bluedaze: Drilling Reform for Texas for this video. TXsharon is a tireless advocate for public health and safety and the irreplaceable environment we take for granted on this planet. She does her work as a volunteer inspite of repeated attempts to discredit her, intimidate her, and silence her.

People of the Marcellus Shale, this is what an industrial zone looks like. The rolling hills of Pennsylvania will soon resemble this landscape. Most of us didn't know the landmen were combing the country, getting landowners to sign gas leases. Now it is probably too late to stop it. All we have left is to regulate the industry as much as we can. However, the gas industry is the most unregulated industry in the nation. We are limited to a few things like road use and permits for water use. Don't give any gas company a free ride.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

Let Those Who Have Ears, Hear!

Read this description of what the people of Texas have experienced.

Marcellus Shale is next.

In the last few years in North Texas we have seen the BOOM of the BARNETT SHALE GAS FIELDS. We have all seen the TV ads by Tommy Lee Jones and Chesapeake Oil & T. Boone Pickens, telling us how great the benefits of Natural Gas are for the Texas economy.

What they haven’t told you about is the devastation the Barnett Shale has done and is doing to the Texas environment!!

If you don’t have a gas well yet, then take a drive in Wise, Tarrant, Johnson or Hill Counties in the rural areas--not Ft. Worth, they have regulated the drilling somewhat, but in the country. You might have seen the drilling rigs up for 6 to 8 weeks, but look at the completed wells! You will recognize them by what looks like storage tanks in the fields surrounded by a fence. Listen to the NOISE the compressors make. Notice the PONDS of Drilling Sludge. Those big tanker trucks you see, that are speeding and destroying your streets and roads, Notice they have big HWP permit numbers! HWP, “HAZARDOUS WASTE PERMITS”. The TV ads tell us we are SAFE, NOT TO WORRY!

Why do these trucks have these PERMITS?

Notice the PIPELINES being laid. Notice where fences have been cut, trees torn down, and the pipe above ground, (that can be tampered with by anyone who chooses to do so) and ask a property owner if they were threatened with eminent domain? Ask them how their peace and quiet has been disturbed and if they would sign a lease now with what they have learned? Ask the towns people of Dish, Texas, what they think about the pipelines!

Notice what seems to be Large Storage Tanks, sometimes as many as 10 sitting together. These are water reclamations farms or where they inject the Drilling Salt Water back into the ground from those trucks you see.

Notice the Compressor Stations and the Noise and visual effect it has on property owners close to them!

Ask the people of Grandview what happened to their water wells and their animals.

They tell us not to worry about what is called “NORM”(Normal Occurring Radioactive Material) being pumped out of these wells, that it won’t hurt us. Again notice the trucks hauling this waste with the HWP permits!

Go see a “LANDFARM or MUDFARM”, this is where they dump all the Toxic Sludge from the pits at the drilling sites. These farms require commercial permits; however, they can take 100 acres and divide it into 30 three-acre cells and get what is called a “MINOR PERMIT.” They say they don’t have to notify the adjacent landowners to issue a MINOR PERMIT! My home is 50 feet from a 100 acre landfarm across the road!

Ask a mineral owner who is in a gas pool, how long it took to receive their first royalty check. Was it within 120 days from the first on line sale? Are they being paid the correct amount according to the “RULES”?

Ask a SURFACE OWNER who doesn’t have the mineral rights, what happened to their property and what were their rights?

Check on what has happened to Property Values around these sites. Would you want to live next to one of them?

As a property owner and mineral owner, I have found out that the “TEXAS RAILROAD COMMISSION” REGULATES the PROPERTY OWNERS and NOT THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY!

4/26/09
Dick Ross
Itasca, Texas

Read the whole article here at Bluedaze Drilling Reform for Texas
www.txsharon.blogspot.com

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!