Gas Leases and Drilling An Important Issue

When you drive through the pastoral landscape of western Sullivan County (or neighboring Pike and Wayne counties across the river in PA), about the last thing that comes to mind is gas drilling. But that's exactly what's on the horizon, with all of its noise, disruption and environmental consequences.

The impending arrival of gas drilling has been in the newspapers here for months now, but I have to admit I haven't paid that much attention. Gas company representatives have been approaching local landowners to sign gas leases, and they portray it all as rather benign. They'll just make a little hole on your back 40, suck out some gas and send you nice fat checks. Heck, to hear them talk, you'll hardly notice they're even there.

But the more I learn, I'm coming to understand that the reality is very different. The use of toxic chemicals in the fracing process, polluted wells and ponds, drilling rigs and tanker trucks lumbering down roads at all hours of the day and night, tall rigs lit up 24/7 like Christmas trees. Over in Hickory, PA, the gas drillers have been doing their thing since 2006, and their experiences are very instructive --- they aren't a happy bunch. The gas companies are moving east, and have set their sights on the Delaware River valley.

I've posted a mailing from a group organizing against the drilling, Damascuscitizens.org. (Click here to get the .pdf of the mailing.) While you may not have any intention to sell the gas drilling rights on your property, your neighbor might.  This is a difficult issue, because  often local farmers are the landowners with the large acreage holdings that are most attractive to the gas companies. And those local farmers can have a tough time making ends meet - so the revenue from gas leases becomes very attractive.

I encourage you to learn more about this issue, because its something that could affect us all for a very long time.

Comments

[SM]

Seems more destructive than its worth.
I'd rather see fields of solar panels or wind mills than this environmental poisoning and greed.

http://www.riverreporter.com/issues/08-04-10/head1-drilling.html

[Michael]

I'd rather see solar and wind too, but keep inmind that when SUNY and Penn State identified the magnitude of the marcellus shale, it became imminent that there would be wells here. This is the biggest natural gas play currently untapped in the world (check out last month's cover story of popular mechanics, many articles recently in WSJ too).

The damascus citizens group is raising great points and we should all be concerned. But I lost a lot of respect for their group when people locally here in PA started getting threats from certain members when they became serious about leasing their land to a gas company.

It is easy for the wealthier folks that have come here to say that this is terrible and we should all go renewable, but how do you heat your house? how do you cook your food? how do you power your car? the world still needs this fuel whether we like it or not, and the "not in my backyard" attitude is as unenlightened as anything.

I am happy that the landowners here have banded together to protect themselves from being taken advantage of by the gas companies and to negotiate the most environmentally friendly leases possible. The damascus citizens group would like to dismantle the property owner's alliance, but it is only because of the property owner's alliance that the environmentally friendly leases are being developed...before the property owners got together people were signing for $25/acre....now the numbers are up to 100x that amount. That is because of community and I am happy for the farmers who will be getting this money. No one was nearly as outraged when their milk prices were slashed time and again. Hmmm.

[Justin]

Some realtors (era burke is one) are marketing their properties as having potential gas fields in hopes of nyc folks being suckered into buying raw land for stupid 2004-like dollars. I think sullivan county sellers need a serious reality check and some realtors need to face reality even faster or else stagnation will be worse than the 1970's depressed catskills. No-one wants that to come back.

[aa]

Justin the Confused

I'll take stagnation over natural gas drilling rigs.

[HotAir]

2011

http://randolfe.typepad.com/randolfe/images/housing_projection.jpg

[Beware]

Gas drilling operations IN ADDITION to the proposed NYRI electric transmission powerlines? Wow -- sounds like buying in western Sullivan County right now could be a little bit of Russian roulette. David K honorably flags the gas drilling risk, as he previously has the powerlines. Anybody who tells you not to worry about these things is trying to sell you something.

[David Knudsen]

I think both gas drilling and NYRI are results of our land just being too cheap. If land here was $50,000 an acre, rather than $5,000 an acre, and that value derived from being pristine or bucolic, farmers and locals wouldn't be so quick to sign gas leases for a few thousand dollars that would substantially reduce the future sale value of the land. Its the same thing we've seen with timber. A local landowner needs some cash and has a forested part of the land clearcut for the timber value.

Has anyone read anything about the Sullivan County government weighing in on this, particularly Bill Pammer and the planning group? Has the planning group incorporated this scenario into some revision to the Sullivan 2020 plan?

[Beware]

Value is set by the marketplace. If land in Sullivan County sells for $5,000 an acre rather than $50,000, that's a function of market demand. On a broader level, it is reflective of the fact that the marketplace does not value Sullivan County as highly as it does some other second-home venues, whether Columbia County, Ulster County, the Berkshires. You have to pay more for land and homes in those places than you do in Sullivan County. But I've come to think you may get something in return -- protection from the kind of exploitation that NYRI and now the gas drillers represent. If you had a larger critical mass of affluent and influential second home owners in Sullivan County, property values would not only be higher; they would be safer from the kind of threats posed by the NYRIs of the world. It is unimaginable that NYRI would stand a chance of despoiling, say, Columbia County. There are too many investment bankers with second homes there, and with the right kind of clout, for that to happen. NYRI chose a route through Sullivan County and sister counties on the "wrong" side of the Hudson for a reason: a perception that these counties are economically and politically vulnerable in a way that other upstate locales are not. The gas drillers may have a similar perception. It remains to be seen whether NYRI or the gas companies will have their way. My own opinion is that Sullivan County is more attractive and desireable than the better known second-home venues because Sullivan County has a kind of gritty, unspoiled authenticity that cannot be maintained in the face of gentrification. I'll take Main Street in Callicoon over Main Street in Great Barrington any day -- but only for so long as I can't see a 13-story transmission tower looming over the newly refurbished ice cream shack. When that day comes, I'm gone, and the threat that it will come is very real.