The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

September 10, 2012

On the losing end

Couple leased land before boom

By Tom Davidson Herald Staff Writer

WEST SALEM TOWNSHIP — John and Mary Ann Sensesak live across the street from where Mercer County’s first shale fracking well will be drilled.

A pile of topsoil is supposed to shield some of the sounds of the drilling from them, but the couple isn’t concerned about the noise or possible harmful effects the drilling may have on their water well or the environment, John Sensesak said.

The Sensesaks don’t expect any positive affect on their pocketbooks either, John said.

“I’m very disappointed,” he said.

About a year ago, Mary Ann Sensesak recalled, they renewed a lease that netted them about $500 with Cobra Resources. That was before the Marcellus and Utica shale boom made natural gas drilling rights more valuable in the region.

They didn’t know about the shale boom, Mary Ann Sensesak said.

Some people are getting up to $3,000 an acre to lease rights to the gas in the shale rock formations beneath their land. The gas is released through a process known as “fracking” – short for horizontal fracturing.

Wells are drilled first vertically to reach the shale, then horizontally for miles to make a path for fluid that’s blasted into the rock to release trapped reserves of natural gas. The process can be a cash cow for the oil and gas companies and landowners who’ve leased the mineral rights to their property.

It also could open up a Pandora’s Box of potential pollution problems ranging from contaminants being released into the air to ground water being fouled by chemicals used in the fracking fluid to noise pollution from the drilling and the truck traffic to and from the well pads.

The Sensesaks aren’t worried about that; what they’d like is some money to make their life easier. John’s on disability and Mary Ann’s laid off right now, they said.

“I didn’t know this was going on,” he said.

They renewed their lease with Cobra, and that lease was picked up by Carrizo Oil and Gas, a Houston-based drilling company that’s getting set to drill the well.

The Sensesaks own about 20 acres, which at $3,000-per-acre now would have netted them a $60,000 check.

“It would have been sweet to have a chunk of change like that,” John Sensesak said.

The Sensesaks aren’t alone. Most of the landowners in the area already had leased their drilling rights to Cobra before the shale boom hit.

Some have assured him the royalties they get from the gas extracted will make up for it, but John Sensesak is skeptical, he said.

“Everybody I’ve talked to said you don’t have to worry, you guys are going to be fine,” he said. “We’ll wait and see.”

He’ll believe it when he “sees a check” with his name on it, he said.

“We don’t know what the outcome’s going to be,” he said.

A mile down the road, Dan Moore’s in the same situation, except he won’t have to look at the well head from his house.

“Same thing,” as the Sensesaks, he said.

“It’s leased,” Moore said. “We’ll wait and see. It is what it is.”

 

Text Only
Local News
  • Crash claims 21-year-old

    A 21-year-old Sandy Lake man was killed early Saturday when he lost control of his car and rolled it several times on Hadley Road, Perry Township.

    May 19, 2013

  • UPMC to judge: Throw out bias claim

    UPMC Horizon has asked a federal judge to throw out a former employee’s claim that he was discriminated against because of his gender.

    May 19, 2013

  • Judge Christopher St. John Judicial daily double

    This year marks the first time in the county’s 209 years as a judicial district that voters have the opportunity to choose a new judge, while also deciding whether to retain an existing one.

    May 19, 2013 1 Photo

  • Court: Divorce pact still a contract

    Superior Court this week agreed with a local judge that a man’s change in fortune does not get him out from under an alimony agreement he entered long ago.

    May 18, 2013

  • sorg,sharon Sorg’s leadership expands to New Castle

    Herald Publisher Sharon A. Sorg is no stranger to hometown newspapers.

    May 18, 2013 1 Photo

  • Kelly rant goes viral; GM question raised

    U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly made an impression during Friday’s hearing on the IRS targeting of political groups seeking tax exempt status.

    May 18, 2013

  • snow plow Council warms up to idea of replacing snow plows

    No one wants to think about snow plows when we’ve just begun to have 80 degrees and sunshine in May.

    May 18, 2013 1 Photo

  • Meth lab cook pleads guilty to drug charge

    The alleged cook of a methamphetamine lab raided by drug agents last summer has entered a guilty plea, the third of five people arrested that day to do so.

    May 17, 2013

  • Devine Campbell acquitted of gun charges

    No one disputes that a Sharon woman was terrorized by a young man who pulled a gun on her after tossing a half-eaten stromboli at her as she was walking home from work on a Sunday night in December 2011.

    May 17, 2013

  • Drilling equipment maker plans plant here

    A Winner Cos. warehouse in the North Flats of Sharon is on its way to conversion into a manufacturing plant offering more than 100 new jobs.

    May 17, 2013