To Lease or Not to Lease: Has Anyone NOT signed a lease? I'd like to hear why you didn't

My wife and I are part of a landowners group that is in the process of having their Range Resources contract reviewed by attorneys.  We only have 3.2 acres and have not decided whether we are actually going to sign a lease.  I am curious to hear from people who started to go through the process and then at some point decided against it.  I'd like to hear your reasons.  FYI - I'm not posting this so I can attack people's decisions.  I am genuinely interested in hearing from people who decided not to sign a lease.  

 

Thanks in advance!

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Permalink Reply by craig on November 5, 2011 at 10:42pm
I have a customer that works fracking wells in Pa and W Va. He tells me that the DEP covers them like flies on sh&*. They send in their folks undercover, dressed like workers on occasion. They stand on nearby hills with cameras and monitor them sometimes. This is on top of the 'official' site visits weekly or even daily sometimes. His frac crew has been written up a handful of times this year...the worst one was because a pony motor blew up and spilled 12 quarts of motor oil on the pad. Of course the local newspaper headline was "Oil spill at wellsite xxxx"....Now how is that headline furthering what we all want...to drill and frac responsibly?  I'm not saying there haven't been some problems, but we need to put them in perspective.
Permalink Reply by Barbara on November 4, 2011 at 9:52am

this is good to know, utica....thanks for the follow up.  there were other concerns in silt, as far as i know, too, and 'silt' just happens to be a name that stuck as there were other places in colorado that had 'events'.  ............but i havn't done the research you have now so do not have facts to report.  but at any rate, there are other areas in colorado and elsewhere with more years of gas fracking experince  than bradford county.  the other shale workings in texas and the west may be of interest. the whole major questioning of the process doesn't seem to have become 'news' until the activity picked up here in the east.  is it due to more incidents coming to light over time or to sheer population density?  i don't know. but i'm glad to know what you find out.  can't learn enough when something is so pervasive in our area.

the whole 'fracking' of shale gas has been going on for many years in various amounts and i ,persoanally, was totally unaware of any of it before the white pickup came to my house in 2007 for seismic testing permission. 

Permalink Reply by Dan on November 5, 2011 at 1:44pm

Barbara, It seems there is only one coarse of action for you folks in PA.  Community monitoring.  Years back a group in Maine got the NRC and the Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant to give them testing and monitoring equipment and the training to use it so the groups volunteers could take shifts on the surrounding hillsides and monitor the plant.  If the state will not take responsibility you may have to organize and do it yourselves.  If the community takes charge responsibly, a watchful eye may prevent reckless drillers from being reckless.  Would you leave a frack waste pond for three years if someone was going to be constantly checking it.  If it was mine I would pay the extra and have it hauled away.  You could possibly
elicit responsible regulation with the radical right and give the extremist on the left a job to perform instead of quoting erroneous info.  And, what a great photo shoot for Tom Ridge.  Good luck


Permalink Reply by Barbara on November 5, 2011 at 8:40pm

thanks for all of this, dan. i have been a sidelines observer, partly due to being a 'flatlander' here....someone who has moved here to the 'endless mountains' rather than someone who is a 'native'.  let's see if i can get up the energy/nerve to go for this...... thank you.

and to jim...so far, as far as i know...and i am just another person...the regs you speak of i would like to know of. thanks....and the impact fees are good to know about...for i, and other chesapeake leasors, will be paying them before i/we receive royalties.  no, i do not know the details of these and i would be glad to hear them from you.  i'm not trying to 'bs' anyone....so do welcome what info you have 'discovered'. 

Permalink Reply by Jim Litwinowicz on November 6, 2011 at 10:59am

The proposed regs and laws are all over the newspapers and internet.  If you haven't heard of them then you need to be reading more responsible sources than environmental extremist sites. Go to any major paper's website and search for them.

Impact fees are part of the permit application process and are not deducted from royalties unless you have a really terrible lease. Thats one reason that Corbett wanted impact fees instead of an extraction tax ....that the Philly area legislators are screaming for ....that would have been paid by landowners so thank the governor.The other reason is that he wanted the moneys raised to stay where it will mitigate the impact of drilling and not be stolen away by greedy legislators buying votes for their re-election.

 

 

 

 

Permalink Reply by Barbara on November 7, 2011 at 7:27am

jim, my lease with chesapeake clearly states that all royalties will be paid after all fees, taxes, production costs are taken out.  clearly. this was all cleared up front by a lawyer touted as being an 'expert' at that time on the gas leasing going on. everyone i know who has a chesapeake lease has the same terms. perhaps you have a really exceptional lease, or are with another company if you do not have the same conditions.

the actual implementation of a tax/fee is only recently becoming closer to a sure thing. local government is still talking that they WANT funds to come locally; not yet a done deal.  local politicians running for election are all claiming that they are for this. 

i'll try to capture sites for you......i tend to read and go on...i am admittedly not retaining them....but will be trying to 'gather' some for you as i travel along.  i have all this literally in my back..or rather 'side', i guess, yard............i do have an emotional overlay as i watch and wonder....................and know now how much i do not have in my leases/addenda that could be working for my protection, and the protection of my  little piece of the planet.

Permalink Reply by Jake Jackson on November 5, 2011 at 6:07pm
Or a town called Dish in TX.
Permalink Reply by Lana Boyer on November 2, 2011 at 6:18pm

Think about it!  What is your land worth?  What ever you sell it for you are selling it for life.  Once you sign you have no bargaining power.  They got what they wanted and you lost your rights.   They need you to add to their total acreage or they may not be able to complete their puzzle.   

 

Permalink Reply by wayne on November 4, 2011 at 1:03pm
I own about 100 acres in the souther tier. When the sgeis is finished & NY is open to drilling, members of my coalition will be looking at the best offers that take into account all the issues laid out in our lease agreement. We only get one chance to do it right.
Permalink Reply by Jake Jackson on November 5, 2011 at 6:40pm
The Marcellus Commission set up by the Corbett administration is made up of people who are all tied to the industry with the exception of a few.  And there is no one on that commission who is from the Public Health sector. That's for a reason, none of the professionals who head up public health initiatives can agree that this does not have major health impacts.  The PA government, both sides of the aisle are being bought by the industry.  There is very little they are able to do because it's so BIG.  The few that do try to protect the citizens they represent are being out voted in large numbers.  Although I was told that there are some serious issues that have both parties worried. Another well blowout this week, more toxic waste and no where to put it except to truck it to Ohio and inject it into the earth!   http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11072/1131681-454.stm
Permalink Reply by craig on November 5, 2011 at 10:35pm

Just a heads up that the article you referenced was published in March 2011. I won't try and piecemeal the articles' depiction of things. However you will notice if you read the whole article that one important item the author mentions is "One item clearly not on the panel's agenda will be reviewing the need for a severance tax or impact fee on drillers:..." Today, of course we all know that this statement is completely false.  Now we know the tilt of the story he wrote back then. The lesson learned should be that just because somebody writes something and has it published doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. Now, I don't mean to belittle the rest of his arguments, which may or may not be true, but it should make one think about the author and question his 'facts'.

 

 

Permalink Reply by Jake Jackson on November 7, 2011 at 1:24am
The idea that the DEP is watching them like "flys on s&*~^t is completely false. The well blowout last week burned for hours before anyone showed up and they still don't know how many gallons of toxic fluid got out. And the governor asked that water treatment facilities not accept the fluid but it is voluntary not mandatory and they are still taking it at some.  One reason why Scientific American reported high levels of bromides in the Monongohela River.  Some are treating the water unsuccessfully and it's eating up the plants.

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