I've blind copied the group on this just to clean up the header length. I'm putting this on our blog site too because everyone can comment easily through that tool. http://naturalgas-midway.
Read Ann's message in purple type then jump back up to my humbly submitted input> (pause in action to read Ann now).
Can we all agree that the royalties and signing bonuses are huge and may be tabled for the time being?
I agree with Ann that subcommittees are going to be most effective. So regardless of whether you rent, squat, own, thinking about owning... EVERYONE is invited to seek best practice options. If you are a chemical engineer, real estate agent, geologist, hydrologist, physicist, volunteer fire & ambulance, hydrocarbon Tradesperson, lawyer, or in the Dept. of Health, EPA, Soil & Water, CCE, Farm Bureau, Water Resource Council, USGS, etc. you can help.
Action item: try to attend the March 13th meeting 1-3pm, place to be decided soon
Action 2: be thinking about a list of subcommittees
Frank Verret (neighbor on Old 76 Road) sent me this wealth of information http://www.wateronline.com/
There is an entire industry set up to handle on site water. When you go in, view left side margin scroll down ...there is even a link to companies which claim to mitigate & handle radium.
See you March 13, Linda
Ann Boehm writes:
Dear Linda and everybody else, I am still most concerned that we continue to very carefully investigate all the environmental and health risks and present them with clarity and conciseness to the community at large alongside our scrutiny of leasing opportunities, legalities and projections of royalties. For instance, I spent most of yesterday reading about radium. We could frack with Kool-Aid, close loop everything, mega-muffle the trucks, and still have that to contend with. I need to hear from experts about the most up-to-date environmental solutions to a great range of problems both universal and local. And then I need to learn which companies can be expected to take these concerns seriously and which have made technological investments that support the window dressing of their reassurances. Nothing I have read lately, adding to what I already know, has assuaged my own opinion that fracking, as our practice of it stands now, is not safe, and the bulk of its worst consequences will remain invisible or hidden, hardly remedied by the kind of back fill and cyclone fences that improve the visible footprint. I am hopeful about some of the technological innovations that are beginning to be used, but I don't feel as though I know enough to evaluate these on my own, much less find out which techniques and companies might be willing to come here.
I am not reading bulletins from Shaleshock or any other coalition, but rather government testimony and professional journal articles of scientists who do not seem to have any kind of vested interest other than their concern for what we can't yet measure with precision but can genuinely and disturbingly identify as dangerous. I would imagine that for most of us, this undertaking is presenting a pretty steep learning curve. Because I am not the best person to come up with the specific technical information that will educate others without riling or simply frightening them, getting more people involved is uppermost in my mind. This matter should not be being discussed at this point only by a small group of self-interested landowners. Though relatively few will profit much from the leases, every single person living here, landowner or renter, will be impacted. So will the university community. Would you want to go to college in the outskirts of Houston? Every resident of Caroline, at the very least, should be vigorously and genuinely invited into this arena to consult, to listen, to learn, to contribute. Of course, we have been introduced to information at some of the bigger events around the county so that most of us, like me, have at least taken a stand, but this is no substitute for weighing many of the issues together, determining which degree and type of risks are acceptable or preventable and which are not. Personally, I want to alienate companies who will ride roughshod over us and split, even if they offer attractive money deals; on the other hand, I want to entice companies who are beginning to believe that in some places, environmental consequences to the land, to the communities, to wildlife and generations of people who will follow, are the foremost concern of the landowners willing to do business. This insistence will not change the fact that landowners will profit handsomely, but factored in at the outset as a condition of defining good business, it would at least give the nod to interests of the 92% of the township who will be largely only adversely impacted. I recognize how nerve-wracking it can be when all around us groups are forming, eager to make lucrative deals, and the gas companies are encouraging such money grabs. But if we become too focused on those fantastical royalties at this point, we will really get the cart before the horse.
So I'm asking myself, don't we need some teamwork here--a couple of different kinds of Tech Teams (drilling and mitigation innovations, health prevalence studies--preliminary though they may be), some legal committees, someone who will concentrate on the royalties issue, as well as people who will do publicity, possibly neighborhood canvassing etc.? At our first meeting, I thought that everyone who spoke suggested that all these matters are important--did I hear that correctly? Now we need to step up to the plate and work together on those issues that concern each of us, trying to deduce their impact at a local level, so that everyone who lives here is well informed. In what capacity does each person think of making his or her best contribution? Ann
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