Southern Illinois residents rally, wait for fracking

Bakken News / The Chicago Tribune ^ | October 25, 2014 | Julie Wernau

[2ndDivisionVet]

Wayne Woolsey, an oilman since 1958, says he has core samples pulled from deep below the shale rock here that “look awful promising,” comparable to what has been found elsewhere in the country where fracking has brought plentiful jobs and enriched land owners and energy companies.

So, Woolsey said, he was stunned when a Twitter account with his company’s name and his portrait surfaced with links to complaints about fracking along with a letter with his signature that informed more than 200 property owners in another county that he was terminating leases on land where he planned to drill.

“We cannot in good conscience subject you and your community to the dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing,” the letter said. “The benefits of our contractual agreement would be egregiously one-sided, since we would be exposing you and your community to immeasurable dangers. Unconscionable contracts carry no legal force and therefore must be dissolved.”

In response, the 83-year-old president of Woolsey Energy Corp. quickly contacted the landowners to let them know the letter, which used his company’s letterhead, and the tweets were fakes. Woolsey, who has leases covering 50,000 acres in Wayne County, clearly was not amused.

Neither was the crowd of 600 people who gathered last week in a church here, about 100 miles east of St. Louis, to find out what was taking the state so long to get fracking started. No one here has seen Woolsey’s core samples. But they say they trust Woolsey because he meets regularly with local government officials — in contrast with other energy firms that have remained distant and silent....

[2ndDivisionVet]

Is there any dirty trick they won't use?

[mosesdapoet]

Fracking....I have yet to hear that issue come up in any of the Illinois state wide races in both the governor’s and state legislative races...