Posted on 07/29/2008 5:16:30 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Rush for Natural Gas Enriches Corner of the South
By ADAM NOSSITER
MANSFIELD, La. — They had to repeat the amazing number, $28.7 million, over and over, to make sure it was real and would not go away. Even then, the members of the De Soto Parish Police Jury — the county commission — could hardly believe it.
They laughed, rocked back in their chairs, shook their heads, stared at the ceiling and muttered oaths to each other. “We have — $28.7 million,” said the president, Bryant Yopp, to settle the matter, definitively if still incredulously. It was nearly one and a half times the parish’s entire annual budget.
A no-holds-barred, all-American gold rush for natural gas is under way in this forgotten corner of the South, and De Soto Parish, with its fat check from a large energy company this month, is only the latest and largest beneficiary. The county leaders and everyone around them, for mile after mile, over to Texas and up to Arkansas, in the down-at-the-heels city of Shreveport and in its struggling neighbors, suddenly find themselves sitting on what could prove to be the largest natural gas deposit in the continental United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I am so glad to hear that some prosperity is coming to Desoto Parrish. I was born and raised there and that has always been a very poor part of the country. the little towns of Logansport and Mansfield are smaller now than they were when i went to high school there over 40 years ago. One of my buddies (Bubba) was a Parrish Police Juror (county supervisor) there for several years. I got word from one of my 3rd cousins that she had just received $300,000 as a lease bonus on 106 acres of land near there. said they wanted to sell their chicken houses and do some traveling. they are in their early 70’s. I am very happy for them. Wish i had bought the 8 acres i was considering buying there a couple of years ago.
You got it right, good job! Why should a small poor parish suffer now that they have some money coming in? Just like outsiders, trying to tell someone how to spend their long awaited due. Locally, we have a new oil lease that produces oil from under a small lake. The royalty is owned by a little country church. Members of this church are now guaranteed a college education, thanks to this discovery. Now what is wrong with that, pray tell?
Conservative, is your tag line, not mine!
I am no Big Government lover, no way you can read that into what I wrote. Guilty conscience, perhaps?
Apparently you are, my point was that handing that much money to a small parrish board is not wise, your point was something about not being a Conservative, since when do Conservatives believe that politicians should be handed money and have no guidelines for using it? Or even adding it to the general budget?
Nice try GrannyK, but I don’t think you got the point I was making.
Actually, that is one of McCain’s proposals, the Federal Government has the largest auto fleet in America, McCain wants them to run on propane or whatever.
It’s one of the few McCain proposals that make any sense.
NOPE! Didn’t get a point...
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