Landowners, Unite

1-22-10

A few weeks ago in an “Other Views” column, Harry Levine of Springfield warned readers “If You Signed Gas-Drilling Leases, It May Be Too Late.”
I offer a counterpoint – “If You Haven’t Signed a Gas-Drilling Lease,  Consider Joining a Landowner Coalition.”
Mr. Levine and I are at opposite ends of the gas drilling issue. He opposes drilling. I’m for it. But we do agree on one thing – gas drilling leases are complex instruments with implications that can affect a family, and possibly a community, for years into the future.
Like any contract, the two parties in a gas lease have different interests. One wants to buy cheap; the other wants more money and better terms.
Nothing new here; This is as old as human nature. The problem is drillers have 150 years of gas-field law and experience under their belts and most New Yorkers don’t know a pump jack from a Christmas tree.
With the technical terms and jargon of the industry foreign to us, we’re lost on Word #1 when reading a lease. The sentence ends on Word #175. And that’s just the sentence. Wait until you see the paragraph.
You need an attorney, preferably one experienced in gas-field practice and law. You also need an association of fellow landowners. The solidarity, the sharing of knowledge, the ability to bargain on a larger scale, all give the individual landowner the means of leveling the playing field.
Understand this. The drillers and the landowners are in for a decades-long relationship, longer than many marriages. And like marriage, the benefits have to be mutual to work.
Mr. Levine and I disagree in his call for a ban on hydro-fracking. After 50 years of hydro-fracking and with 35,000 hydro-fracked wells coming on line each year in the U.S. alone, the industry, the nation and the world isn’t going to cripple itself over anecdotal tales of groundwater contamination.
Close to a million wells in the United States have been hydro-fracked and there are no studies that indicate groundwater contamination through hydro-fracking.
However, contamination of groundwater can occur from drilling activities. The primary sources are migration of methane up the well bore in instances of faulty casing and from surface spills. Anti-drillers often confuse this with the effects of hydro-fracking.
What are the real probabilities of contamination? In Pennsylvania, over 350,000 wells have been drilled since 1858. Of that number, 120,000 are active today. Each year, less than a dozen cases of migration are reported. To be exact, 54 cases over the last five years.
The odds of methane migration from a lower strata to a higher up are either about 30,000 to one, if all possibilities are taken into account, or 10,000 to one if only working wells are considered. In most instances, cases of methane migration are mitigated within a year.
Surface spills also have to be put it in perspective. New York has about 13,000 active oil and gas wells, over 10,000 of which were drilled since 1979. During that period, the DEC has recorded 160 surface spills attributable to oil- and gas-field activity. Over the same period, there have been 354,615 spills from commercial, industrial, residential, transportation and all other sources. The percentage of gas field spills to all spills is 0.045 percent (45 thousandths of 1 percent).  About one out of every 2,000 spills in NY is gas-field related.
We hear a lot about Dimock, Pa. In Dimock, Cabot Oil hit unsuspected gas at 1,500 feet. Due to faulty casing, the migration of methane contaminated the water wells of 13 households. A year later some water wells are still contaminated.
The DEP levied a fine and set the date of March 31 for final remediation. The 13 households have retained an attorney. If the attorney can’t win this one, I would suggest he find a new line of work. Dimock is an anomaly, a rare instance of slow remediation. However, the contamination was caused by methane migration, not hydro-fracking. Certainly not pleasant for the 13 households, but the DEP did its job, and residents affected will get their recompense.
Those are the risks. What are the rewards?  Our association has identified over 50 occupations and services that will prosper as the industry expands. They range from attorneys to welders, from truckers to restaurant workers. People from all walks of life will make money. And people will spend that money. Expendable income means JOBS.
Broome County has done an economic impact study;  Google “Economic and Fiscal Impacts of Natural Gas in Broome County.”  Check it out.  Likewise, check the Houston-area economy as reported by the Perryman Group. Not only jobs will be created but also tax revenues. Each well has a tax number. Broome County conservatively anticipates 2000 wells over the development of the plan. Imagine 2000 small businesses contributing to school and local taxes, lowering our tax burden.
These are the economic rewards. The environmental (cleaner energy) and geopolitical (energy independence) rewards are topics for another day. So landowners, join an association and help yourselves, your area, your state and your country.
With risks minimal and rewards substantial, look forward to the completion of the regulations and possibly the best opportunity for Upstate New York since the opening of the Erie Canal.

Mr. Downey is president of the Unatego Landowners Association.