Saturday, July 23, 2011

Wellsville Officials Trying To Catch Up With Drilling Details

There was a meeting held this past Thursday afternoon at Village Hall. The news media was told it was suppose to be a Property Committee meeting. When they started the 2 PM meeting it was called “a work session to catch up all of Council on the drilling here Marcellus shale”. The Mayor opened the meeting and turned it over to Councilman Tony Cataldo.

We questioned earlier who called the meeting. Property Committee Chairwoman Sue Haugh was out of town on vacation this week. After checking with one of her Committee members we were told that they didn't know who called it. We've been told that to call a committee meeting in the absence of the Chairwoman, Robert's Rules require that any meeting scheduled has to be by mutual agreement of all the members on that committee. Wellsville Village Council committees mostly have three members maximum. With the Chairwoman being out of town and one other Committee member saying they didn't know who called the meeting, we didn't see any sense checking with the third member. Rather than wasting our time we would just wait for the meeting before making any other inquiries. In addition to Haugh the Property Committee has Rosie Goss and Randy Allmon on it.

After attending the meeting we decided there wasn't anything accomplished worth writing a report on. Other than some obvious political posturing the only decision made was to see if a second meeting could be set up with A.L.O.V. Director Bob Rea. If some of those present hadn't blown off previous meetings concerning drilling there wouldn't have been any need to conduct a “work session”.

Chairwoman Haugh has had two previous meetings. The first was with a broker called Everflow Eastern. Their representative had a very informative presentation on drilling for oil & natural gas. He gave some history and a thorough explanation of the safety precautions now being use by the drillers. He informed everyone that the drilling companies are very interested in drilling into the Utica shale in the Wellsville area. It's been determined that drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus wouldn't be cost effective on Village owned propety. The band of that shale is too narrow in this area to make it worthwhile.

The second meeting, held on July 12, was with Mr. Rea of the Associated Landowners of the Ohio Valley (ALOV), a non-profit corporation. He distributed copies of sample contracts they use when landowners lease their property for drilling. He spent over an hour going over the high lights of that 24 page contract sample. Mr. Rea is a landowner himself and has devoted much of his life to seeing that he and “his neighbors” get the best deal. He was quite impressive when he explained how they researched everything to get all the basis covered. ALOV's contract is a very comprehensive, lengthy document compared to the three or four page contracts other brokers use.

When we read the news article reporting on last Thursday's meeting we couldn't believe the scare slant given to the drilling prospects. One Councilman expressed his concerns about the effects on water contamination. If he would have paid attention at the previous meetings he would have learned of the safety precautions now being used to guarantee against that. His research was obviously telling only part of the story. The lawsuits he was referring to was mostly from the earlier days in Pennsylvania before well testing is routinely done. Incidentally, we have been informed there have been a lot of bad wells found with the pre-drilling testing being done now.

Mention was made to losing “several thousand dollars worth of timber” if a contract was signed. Thankfully the Village Law Advisor was present to explain that timber could be covered if a contract was drawn up for Wellsville. Several years ago the Village got out of fiscal emergency selling timber harvested at the old reservoir. Again, the contract the Council members were looking at was only a sample. It was not one actually drawn up for Wellsville.

The figures mentioned in that news article in that sample contract are not set in stone. No negotiation has been done on the Village's behalf as of yet. The per acre lease amount and royalties could be better than what was quoted.

Although no one at last Thursday's meeting had any idea how many acres are involved in the two Village owned properties being considered for leasing, the proceeds could be a very nice rainy day fund. There are more than just a few acres involved in the old city dump and reservoir. Those are the two areas being considered. In the news, in the last week or so, it was announced that the County commissioners and the Village of Leetonia are ready to sign lease contracts. East Liverpool is working out the final details in preparation to signing one. If the politicians in Wellsville don't scare everyone away we might have one someday. It's a time consuming thing but we believe it will be “what is best for the people of Wellsville”.

ole nib

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't it about time that our elected officials work for together for the betterment Wellsville instead of promoting their own personal vendettas?

Anonymous said...

the meeting was originally called as a "work session," fyi

************* said...

Originally calling it a work session may be true B U T it was never corrected in the newspapers. Doing something as simple as that could have saved a lot of face...

nib

Anonymous said...

This must be the last WHO WHAT! Tony must go,Randy must go.This bullcrap is for their own personal gain.They screwed up more than they 've accomplished .Hopefully McMahon will follow as he always does.WE need new faces on council.Not back stabbers out for their own political benefit.People wake up!Make the change.

************* said...

Charlie H - We appreciate your comment but it has already been said. Thanks anyway...

nib

whaaat? said...

so exactly HOW is this benefiting individual elected officials to have this meeting? I'm not being facetious, I'm serious. Although it seemed redundant after the recent committee meeting, I can't see that the mayor or other council people could gain personally from discouraging this drilling????

************* said...

We think you answered your own question when you said the meeting was "redundant". After the meeting we felt that there was nothing new covered that couldn't have waited for the Committee Chairman to return from vacation. We had to ask ourselves "what was the purpose of this meeting?" We don't feel that any Village official would want to scare anyone away from Wellsville possibly making somewhere in the area of one-half million dollars on land that is presently unused. Questions and concerns raised at last week's meeting could possibly have been answered by the Chairwoman. A lot of research has been done already. Getting the best deal for what is best for Wellsville is not going to happen overnight. Being an election year we came to one conclusion.

nib

Anonymous said...

Thank you Nib.That was very simply explained.At least you see what goes on with some of these politicians, if thats what we call them.