As shale development continues to spread across eastern Ohio we are hearing more about the good experiences landowners are having leasing their land.  Landowners are seeing income they never imagined which is helping them, and the communities of which they are apart, crawl out of their previous economic malaise.  One example of this can bee seen in the story of Jim Long of Carrollton, Ohio.

Long lives on a farm that his family has owned since the 1830′s.  The farm used to grow hay and straw until his father started a farm equipment business in the 1950′s.  After Long attended Ohio State and spent time in the Army, he came back to work for the family business.  During that time, his mother encouraged him to take out “the girl at the bank”, which led to him marrying his wife Marsha, of Cadiz.

From there, they had one son and two daughters and continued the farm equipment business.  Unfortunately, like the rest of the country, the economy affected their business and they had to downsize.

Luckily, things changed when shale development came to town.  According to Jim, a qualified and nice Landman from Chesapeake Energy came  to talk about leasing their property.  After consulting with neighbor and friend Vernon Cummings, they decided to lease with Chesapeake, since the company was doing most of the business around them.  Since signing, Long said Chesapeake has done everything they said they would and they are happy with their experience.

EID-Ohio was able to ask Long about his experience with the leasing process and the how he thinks it affected his family and community:

It’s been my experience that life is a series of trade-offs, and about another ten years, it was about to be real quiet around Carrollton.  Any time you have industry, you have coal mining, you have oil wells, you’re going to have some inconvenience.  But so far, Chesapeake has done everything they said they would, and it’s certainly better than watching the community die on the vine—Jim Long

READ THE REST (VIDEO): http://www.eidohio.org/carrollton-landowners-see-both-family-and-co...