Update: Just in time for EARTH DAY

The Texas Railroad Commission Web site is not NOW fully functioning right now AGAIN.  Access to Drilling Permits Public Queries is unavailable AVAILABLE AGAIN through the Main Page.  Here's what the Main Page says:

The Drilling Permits Public query is currently not available. If you have an RRC On-Line account, you can access the queries after you login. The RRC is currently working to resolve this issue.

So, if you are an "Operator" you can access after you login.  But if you're a CITIZEN seeking information about well sites in your community....NO ACCESS. 

We called Austin to see what's going on...we've been told everything will be back online by tomorrow. We'll see. ONLINE QUERIES FOR DRILLING PERMITS NOW WORKING.

Reservoirs R Us

The Dirty Little Secret

Click Here and then scroll on down to Page 103 of the Transcript*:

Line 5 to Line 6.  "...You have got a lateral that was drilled and just a small portion of it is underlying the reservoir --- or excuse me, the neighborhood, so I don't know that a MIPA would be applicable to this particular well."  (Testimony from Mr. Dave Henson, Senior Reservoir Engineer for Chesapeake Energy) [emphasis added]

Thanks a bunch, Chesapeake!  It's not like we haven't "felt" like a reservoir for a long time, now.  Yee Haw!!  Read Mr. Louis McBee's incredible cross-examinations of Chesapeake Energy personnel.   Read what our neighbors told the Hearing Examiners and the Senior Attorney for Chesapeake.

This is a must read from beginning to end.

*Transcript of the Barnes Assembly A (Well 3H) Rule 37 Waiver Hearing, Tuesday, February 1, 2011 in Austin, Texas; Chesapeake Energy vs. Grand Prairie, TX Trailwood Neighbors. (No Legal Decision as of April 18, 2011)  Barnes Assembly A Well 3H Form W-1*:  Link

(*Note:  The link to the Permit for Barnes Assembly A is currently unavailable.  Everything should be back up by Friday, April 22, 2011 ~ Good Friday ~ according to the Railroad Commission of Texas.)

Boone Pickens Sells His Water: Update

I guess Mr. Boone Pickens sees the writing on the wall for shale gas drilling?  Or maybe he just realized everybody knows he owns all that water and that's not necessarily good for one's legacy.

Still, he's going to make 103 million on this sale!!  Not bad. 

The preliminary $103 million deal between Pickens' Dallas-based Mesa Water LP and the Amarillo-based Canadian River Municipal Water Authority for the water rights to 211,000 acres in Roberts County in the Panhandle promised to end long-held concerns in the region that he would sell the water to downstate interests.

Link

UPDATE:  Here's a good explanation of the story behind this story from a Washington Examiner August 21, 2008 story. Not sure if our local papers ever reported it quite this way. Pretty sure they didn't.

Texas oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is about to make a killing by selling water he doesn’t own. As he does it, it will be praised as a planet-friendly wind project. After he pulls it off, the media will deride it as craven capitalism. In truth, it is one the most audacious examples of politics for profit, showing how big government helps the biggest business steal from the rest of us. The plotline behind Pickens’ water-and-wind scheme is almost too rich to believe. If it were a movie script, reviewers would dismiss it as over-the-top.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

Aubrey McClendon Says, "It's a Big Boy's Game"

In a story appearing in today's Dallas News, Chesapeake CEO  Aubrey McClendon said:

"It's a Big Boy's Game."

Sure thing.  Westchester Neighbors know all about Chesapeake's Big Boy who made himself at home with the Chesapeake MONSTER FRAC Pond last summer.  We expect to see him again, soon, as the weather warms up...and he discovers that his FRAC Pond is still there.

In a speech to the Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference Friday, April 8th, CEO McClendon also said:

“I believe every one of these issues or inconveniences we’ve had has an engineering solution or a human solution,” said McClendon, who leads the most active natural gas driller in the country.

Still, the push-back to drilling from environmental activists and neighborhood groups will cost the industry, he said. As lawmakers halt drilling in some areas or add regulations, there are “financial costs, and it’s going to drive smaller companies out of business,” he said.

Read the story.  Be amazed.  No mention of the Barnett Shale in there that I could find.  Maybe he doesn't want his [Dallas] audience to realize how close all the problems are to them. 

But just in case...he's already hedging his bets.  Now, he's going to be fracking for oil.

"He said domestic drilling has added hundreds of billions of dollars to the national economy, and the techniques the industry developed for gas are being applied to oil. A boom in domestic oil could fundamentally change global politics and allow Americans to distance themselves from problems in the Middle East, he said.

“We will increase oil production in the U.S. by 50 percent in the years ahead,” he predicted."

Batten down the hatches, everybody.  The Big Boys are gonna forget big gas and go for the BIG Oil.  No telling what horrors that might bring in the "guinea pig" stage for our communities that are already the all-important "reservoirs" to O&G production.

God. Help Us. Please.

Link to Dallas News Story.

North Texas Sign of the Year

Southlake, TX Drilling Facts

Day of Action Against Extraction: 

North Texas Unites to End Gas Drilling! 
April 20, 2011
Sundance Square, Downtown Fort Worth, TX
5:00pm - 7:00pm