However, those royalty checks totalling in the thousands of dollars every month do tend to offset the pain.
"However, those royalty checks totalling in the thousands of dollars every month do tend to offset the pain."
Dog, you are assuming that everyone in the neighborhood is getting those checks.
There are many of us on the edge of the Barnett "play" that will never see a dime in royalty but who are watching our wells and springs dry up. Sure, the drought is a factor, but so is the massive amount of groundwater being sucked from the ground in the Fort Worth basin as fracturing of the shale continues.
It's a problem, a big one if you depend on wellwater, as most of us do. Don't denigrate our serious concerns.