Natural Gas Exploration on National Forest Land in Alabama losing 43,000 acres

[fsu33952]

If you can please check out and sign the petition in the link below. Apparently the Bureau of Land Management has decided it would like to long term lease 43,000 acres of land on the Talladega and Conecuh National Forests. If they discover natural gas then this could be really bad. It will only add to the high traffic that you already see out there. Finding a good place to hunt is difficult enough as it is. If these big corporations want to drill for natural gas then I am sure they can go out and buy a large piece of land somewhere with their own money. I personally do not like the idea of these fat cats getting rich at the expense of the taxpayers land. Please read this and take the time to sign the online petition. It shouldn't take more than a minute. I also urge all of you to contact your local representatives as well as the governor. I am sure it won't be long before the government will basically want to give away land in your backyard. Just because you might not be a resident of Alabama doesn't matter. The National Forests belong to all US Citizens.Every person we can get to fight for it will help.

http://annistonstar.com/bookmark/18388467-Keep-our-forests-fracking-free

http://wildsouth.org/index.php/public-lands/forest-watch/577-fight-fracking-on-national-forests

[Turkey Trot]

1.  The "fat cats" in the oil and gas business generally don't buy private land either, they lease it.

2.  When they lease federal land, it is done through a dutch auction-like bid submission process.  The royalty and bonus payments are at market rates and not materially different than rates paid for production on private land.

3.  Pursuant to the facts in (1) and (2) above, the taxpayers are being compensated for production on the land and it is fallacy to embrace the " fat cats getting rich at the expense of everyone else" that the liberal enviro whackadoodles promote.  In addition to the royalties paid, that are split by the feds and states, the little guy gets the benefit of availability of gas and lower prices, which improves the standard of living for everyone.

4.  Natural gas inventories are high, more is set to come on line, the price is low, and the market forces alone may chill interest and bidding.

5.  The land is subject to a multiple use mandate and they are a different user.  If you think that they can go buy private land and do their thing, what is wrong with them thinking that you can buy or lease private land to do your thing?

6.  The question of whether it is prudent to explore and produce gas there is a different question and is still open after you remove all the bombast and whackadoodle incendiaries from the equation.

[fsu33952]

Very well said, however it is my opinion that they can go someplace and frack for natural gas. Not in my backyard. It is my opinion that the National Forests are for the use of the citizen and not corporations. I would rather pay 4 dollars a gallon for gas as have them destroy our National Forests. Since when did the US government become a for profit organization? If they want to make a profit then they should try and make the logging interests build and maintain the hundreds of thousands of miles of roads that they use primarily for extracting timber from public land. Last I read we(the taxpayer) was subsidizing each logging site by about $2,200 or 100 something plus million bucks a year. Why should we pay to build all those roads for them when they are making the profit. If they were coming onto my 600 acres I wouldn't have to cut the roads for them to get the logs out. Those statistics are about 20 years old by the way. I just remember reading them horrified when i was in college. Understood it creates over 40,000 jobs, etc... but why? The government is not designed to create jobs. I understand multi-use but don't understand how that applies to a business. Since when is a big business a citizen able to vote or able to petition the government? The petition with their money and we petition with our vote. I would love to go and lease all that land and use it however i wanted but i doubt they would even discuss it without lobbyist to pave the way.

[Devastator]

you guys should see the wells on the gamelands here in bradford county pa.still have not seen a published report of where the lease money and the royaltys are going.

[Houndstooth Game Calls]

I hate to see drilling on National Forrest land as for forestry I am for. Any where diversity in forestry is, is what makes wildlife thrive as for road up keep we pay .10 a ton on every ton that is hauled which is a severance tax hence road usage not to mention all the other costs permits and tags, insurance wich are outrageous more needs to be done for the forestry industry than anything to make sure it survives. I garuntee you that these states are getting paid on the forestry end now what they do with it is a different story.  Here in the south it is a large industry especially in the small towns. Trust me the forestry industry is suffering which only hurts the landowner.  If they tax us more and more it wont effect us it will only be handed down to the landowner in the end which means you will get less for your timber in the end. Right now the only thing thats holding the forestry industry up is the papermills right now at the moment. Just some forestry info.

[fsu33952]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/24/fracking-pollution-bradford-pa-blowout_n_883902.html

Sure the Huffington Post is a liberal media outlet but this just happened to be on there today. Surely ironic.

[Grunt-N-Gobble]

Thats what everyone says.........Not in my backyard.  Well, if not yours, then whos??  Some where, some place, is always going to be in someone's backyard.

Who in their right mind wants to pay $4 per gal. of gasoline?  And besides, thats not even what they are pulling out of the ground.  Thats apples and oranges.

This country is sitting on billions of cubic feet of natural gas and billions of barrels of oil for that matter.  Why in the world shouldn't we go after our own natural resources?  I'd really like someone to explain that to me.

Do you think that all 43,000 acres is going to be affected?  Hardley.  They will do their test pits and find the best places to set the wells to pull the most gas from the surrounding area.  And once the wells are done and the piping is in place, the land is reclaimed (or at least shoud be).  You now have edge cover, some open areas which are all a benefit to wildlife.  The state benefits from the timber sales and the gas revenues.  YOU get cheaper natural gas to heat your home or business.  And hopefully, your state makes the right financial decisions and you don't see your taxes go up.

As for the huffingtonpost article...........its heaviley biased.  They make no bones about being against fracking.  ANY, and I mean ANY possible or perceived problem will be exploited to its fullest.  Sometimes things happen a problems arise, but that doesn't mean you stop making progress and advances.  Heck, if people did that through the course of history, I probably wouldn't be typing this post out now on this computer.

So many people are benefiting from the boom to the industry, its NOt just corporations.  Private landowners are being compensated (read made millionaries) over night.  And if they are pulling gas from under your land and you own the gas rights, even if there isn't a well on your place, you get a monthly royality check.  I admit, I have a stake in this industry.  The company I work for sells and installs the liner systems that go into the frack water ponds @ the well sites.  We've installed these liner systems at alot of sites here in PA where they store the fresh water prior the fracking and where they store the used frack water afterwards PRIOR to it being transported to a facility that cleans it to be reused.

The well construction is temporary.  In the end, it benefits everyone.

[Turkey Trot]

Very well said, however it is my opinion that they can go someplace and frack for natural gas. Not in my backyard. It is my opinion that the National Forests are for the use of the citizen and not corporations. I would rather pay 4 dollars a gallon for gas as have them destroy our National Forests. Since when did the US government become a for profit organization? If they want to make a profit then they should try and make the logging interests build and maintain the hundreds of thousands of miles of roads that they use primarily for extracting timber from public land. Last I read we(the taxpayer) was subsidizing each logging site by about $2,200 or 100 something plus million bucks a year. Why should we pay to build all those roads for them when they are making the profit. If they were coming onto my 600 acres I wouldn't have to cut the roads for them to get the logs out. Those statistics are about 20 years old by the way. I just remember reading them horrified when i was in college. Understood it creates over 40,000 jobs, etc... but why? The government is not designed to create jobs. I understand multi-use but don't understand how that applies to a business. Since when is a big business a citizen able to vote or able to petition the government? The petition with their money and we petition with our vote. I would love to go and lease all that land and use it however i wanted but i doubt they would even discuss it without lobbyist to pave the way.

Nat'l Forests were established for resource production, not recreation.  Recreation became a use later in time.

The US passed the Mineral Leasing Act many years ago, and had other law and regs in place before than.  Oil and gas on public lands are defined as "minerals" for the purpose of that act.  The US had statutes, regs, and permits for grazing on public lands in the 1890's. So the US has been in the business of generating profits off of public lands for well over a century.

[gobbler336]

the are wells all over the alegahany nf in pa.   been there for years,  sometimes the turkeys gobble at the older wells that make that thump thump sound, the new ones are quiet.

[fsu33952]

Hey, Great stuff here. I am not beyond being educated this matter.Turkey trot might be right. Maybe it is tree huggers running out trying to scare the crap out of us. This fracking stuff just sounds so destructive. Most of the stuff concerning I have read is negative. I am beginning to believe that this Fracking thing is probably worse than the gas company is will to admit it being and not as bad as the environmentalist try to say it is. Maybe somewhere in the middle. I am just afraid it is going to mess up what little good turkey woods we have left. Things are getting crowded around here.

[Grunt-N-Gobble]

fsu..............

What are you worried about exactly?  You worried about the fracking process itself or are you worried about losing hunting ground?  They are clearly two different things.

The construction of putting a well in is temporary like I said.  It doesn't last forever.

Each gas company has their own "fracking" formula of chemicals, water and sand.  The chemicals are necessary for lubrication and corrosion protection of the well piping.  We're talking in "parts per million" here.  And it takes around 6 million gallons of water to frack a well.  This is done WAY BELOW the water tables.  They recover about 1/3 of the water that is pumped down the well.  The bottom line is that those who are against the process make it sound as scary and terrible as possible.  It really itsn't.  A few miles from my home, they are fracking multiple wells next to a major water supply reservoir.  The wells are triple pipe encased along with multiple layers of concrete.  What the gas companies really need to be careful of is what happens on the surface at the well pad itself.  That is where ground contamination can happen easily.  At this reservoir, one of the universities is testing the water frequenty for any contamination and so far......there hasn't been any.

Several years ago, a gas company came in and began the construction of a gas well the FIRST DAY of rifle deer season.  You want to talk about messing up the woods.........this screwed everything up for the rest of the season.  However.........it was temporary and it created an open area in the woods that I've planted a food plot at and have killed some nice deer there.  And they didn't mess up even 10 acres.

[fsu33952]

I am concerned about both. Like I said. I am not beyond being educated. I do not believe for a moment that this fracking is just completely harmless to the environment. Everything that you read about it can not be propaganda that has just been fabricated by the environmentalists. I am willing to concede that it might not be as harmful as all these "tree huggers"running around here are trying to make us believe, however I am not willing to believe that it is as harmless as the people wanting to drill are trying to say it is.

Maybe it will help the economy here. We will wait five years and see. It will not be hard to tell here. I am not sure if you have ever been to Talladega and Clay Counties in Alabama but they are pretty poor counties. Clay County, I would think is probably among the poorest in the state, so if any money comes out of this it should be pretty easy to see.

[Grunt-N-Gobble]

Nope.....Never been to Alabama.

I'm not going to tell you that fracking is harmless.  Everything has risks. Where the problems arise is if there is a spill or some sort of accident.

If the well casings are constructed correctly, there shouldn't be any ground water contamination. Same goes for spills.....no spills, no problems.

There can be explosions if something malfunctions or a guy does something wrong.  It's happened here in PA.

As for the economy, its been a boom for alot of businesses.  Piping, trucking, earth movers, new construction of water treatment plants, new gas transmission stations, surveying .......the list goes on and on.  For example, I've heard of one small trucking firm that was running less than a dozen trucks.  He actually went out and bought a dozen new dump trucks and hired a dozen drivers just to keep up with the demand.  Local companies that deliver heating oil to homes are losing drivers because they are going to drive for the companies that haul water to the well sites.  My company alone was bidding on at least 2 well sites a week for the liner systems.  We didn't get all of them, but we got alot.  Things have slowed now, but thats only because the infrastructure isn't there to get the gas to market.  But that is currently changing now and new piping is now going into the ground.  Once the piping is in place, we expect the bidding of new wells to pick back up.  We still are bidding on them, its just slower.

What I'm trying to say is that it's not the end of the world and it's not the end of your hunting grounds.

[Old Gobbler]

Its difficult making tough decisions , but I would prefer a alternate to sending my money to a  Islamic regime , or Hugo Chavez 

[fsu33952]

Good point Old Gobbler. Its tough to think of it like that.