(Walkin' Like An Egyptian)...;0)
Posted on 06/29/2008 7:21:07 PM PDT by neverdem
You could have taken a nostalgic drive through the past on Thursday night, through the dreamy green landscape at the outer edges of the Catskills, past sleepy fishing towns like Roscoe and Downsville, to the lovingly restored Walton Theater, built in 1914 for vaudeville acts, honored guests like Theodore Roosevelt and community events of all shapes and sizes.
And, if you got there, you would have received a distinctly less dreamy glimpse of the future. You would have heard an overheated mix of fear and greed, caution and paranoia, of million-dollar gas leases that could enrich struggling farmers, of polluted wells, pastures turned to industrial sites and ozone pollution at urban levels. You would have heard anguished landowners from Wyoming and Colorado, facing issues now improbably appropriate to the Catskills, present their cautionary view of an environment dominated by huge energy companies where some will get rich while their neighbors might just see a hundredfold increase in truck traffic without much else to show for it.
Such gatherings are being repeated throughout a swath of upstate New York, from Walton to Liberty to New Berlin, as thousands of landowners, many of whom have already signed leases with landmen fanning out across the state, contemplate a new era of gas production now hovering almost inevitably over New York’s horizon.
It’s a development born of new technology, rising energy prices and insatiable demand that is turning the Marcellus Shale formation, which reaches from Ohio to Virginia to New York, into a potential trillion-dollar resource in the gut of the nation’s most populous and energy-hungry region.
Development of the Marcellus has been most advanced in Pennsylvania, but since the beginning of the year, development pressures, land prices and activity by oil and gas firms have increased exponentially across a broad expanse of New...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Drill here, drill now, pay less.
This description from Wall Street's hometown paper.
this article ignores the fact that gas leases are a fact of life in this area and has been for 75 years or more.
The NY slimes and negativity.
This is "news" designed to promote hysteria. I live in the heart of the Barnett Shale in North Texas -- the most active single drilling location in the US. Like the Marcellus, the Barnett shale is a natural gas formation.
At night, you can see as many as twenty rigs working around the horizon.
Yes, the truck traffic is heavier than it was. But it's hardly a burden. No, nobody's well has been polluted. No, the diesel exhaust of the trucks and the rigs has not created a pall of ozone. And, no, production pads in the pastures do not resemble "industrial sites".
This is the New York Times and their enviro-weenie audience trying to frighten people who live or own property in the Marcellus shale. And turn people everywhere else against energy independence.
My God, they are despicable people!
Typical Slimes lies. What could be a windfall and boon to the depressed Catskills is to be seen as a pollution generating destructive activity. Man is so evil.
Here in the Barnett Shale in North Texas about 100,000 high paying jobs have been created in the last 5 years as the field has been brought into production. The drilling is expected to go on at this pace for the next 30 years. By the way our economy here is doing just fine.
Pennsylvania was the first place on the planet to be drilled for oil, giving us names like Pennzoil and Quaker State. These people are acting like we're introduing some horrible new technology to the area. A trip to parts of north central PA will still show you working oil wells.
two bumper stickers on a car,
on the left,
Pay More, Drive Less
on the right
Drill Now, Pay Less
(Walkin' Like An Egyptian)...;0)
I fully expect every one of these concerned citizens to be driving electric cars, and to have flown from Wyoming and Colorado on hang-gliders.
"You need to do an enormous amount of planning to get out in front of it"
Not really, unless you're a totalitarian.
And that's a key difference. The horizon's a lot more distant there.
“This one, sponsored by the Catskill Mountainkeeper environmental group, featured presentations by landowners and environmental and citizens’ advocates like Jill Morrison of the Powder River Basin Resource Council in Sheridan, Wyo., and Peggy Utesch of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance in New Castle, Colo.”
The train is leaving the station. Be on it or get the hell out of the way.
There was a meeting in Schoharie County just over 3 weeks ago re: gas leases. Landmen have been approaching folks there, as well. There apparently is some question as to whether the Marcellus reaches Schoharie County, but there are other shale formations that do. My sister and I now own the remaining 100 acres of my Dad’s farm, and we certainly have lots of shale, including a shale bank that has hard, excellent quality shale. ( of what type it is, I’m not sure yet.) No one has yet approached us, but they have approached farmers in the vicinity. Whether there’s anything there remains to be seen.
I visited an Aunt in Shreveport earlier this month and that was the first I had heard of the Haynesville shale. She and members of her family have leased their land and hope for a lot of royalties in the future. On a cautionary note, nothing has been drilled yet.
Activity in our county, Pike PA, has slowed apparently due to DEP requiring okays from the Delaware River Basin Commission for all permits. The issue is the driller has to explain where they will get all the water needed for drilling and fracking. Obviously they can’t pump trout streams dry or take unlimited amounts from rivers, but they only need the water for a short time so it isn’t like a long term usage of water so I hope it will be worked out.
I have read there is a permit for a plant that will evaporate the water/debris that they need to remove from the well sites in Centre County so it won’t need to be hauled to Ohio as the “environmentalists” are claiming in our local paper.
The Boom and Bust Cycle of oil/gas has not ended. As always, it is a question of when, not if. But we are enjoying it while we can.
Most of us with a couple decades or more in the business are not spending every dollar we make at this time. We have been through more than one downturn.
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