Seismic 101
A number of Arlington Heights residents have noticed small boxes and electrical cord strung along the street curbs in the southeast section of our neighborhood. I saw four workers putting them out in front of my house late Friday and started asking questions. The white truck they were driving said “Dawson Geophysical”. I asked to speak to their supervisor and Jeff Seay from Gateway Permitting Services showed up at my house. Following is what I learned in Seismic 101.
These cords and boxes are tools for seismic testing over a 30-square mile area which is being conducted for XTO, with Chesapeake Energy and Vargas Energy participating as partners. The testing gives them information about the shale formation below that helps to determine how difficult and expensive it will be the recover the gas below. Some areas are easier and less expensive to extract from than others. For example, the shale formation in parts of Arlington has proven to be easy to extract from and thus less costly to the exploration companies. The result has been higher signing bonuses to the neighborhoods in those areas because the companies can get to the gas easily. As Seay explained, “We’re not looking for where to drill, but where not to drill. We’re looking for obstructions because we want to stay out of the Ellenberger and karsts (a small underground cave).”
XTO has hired third party companies to conduct the work for this project known as the Edwards 3D Project that encompasses Botanic Gardens on the east, Benbrook Lake on the south, 820 on the west, and a section of our neighborhood is in the northeast corner of the project.
In order to conduct seismic testing, the company must have permission from the property owners in an area or if the seismic equipment is located only in the public right of way (between the sidewalk and the street) as it is in our neighborhood, then all they need is a permit from the city. Which is what Gateway has done. There’s not a lot you can do to stop it, short of going to court “as long as they’re not physically trespassing on your property,” according to Parnell McGlinchey, the attorney who is negotiating our neighborhood lease with Chesapeake.
Seay showed me a copy of the permit signed by a city employee. It was past 5pm so I haven’t had the opportunity to confirm that at the city. I was able to reach Sarah Fullenwider, a city attorney who is working with the Gas Task Force, who confirmed that as long as the equipment is in the city’s right of way and the company has a permit, then they could do what they’re doing. She also said that if they were surveying for a pipeline they didn’t need a permit whatsoever.
Gateway Permitting was hired to go door to door in our neighborhood a month ago, asking people to sign an agreement to allow the testing and paying $25 for each signature. After AHNA requested that they stop, Seay says “we pulled out the permitters in your neighborhood and stopped them going from door to door.” XTO then engaged another third party company, Map Snapper, to send out letters and $25 checks to people who already signed leases that automatically grants surface access to the property.
Once surface access permits have been issued, a survey crew sets up receiver boxes and a series of six geophones on the ground every 175 feet. The geophones are small, measuring 1 1/2″ square and 1 1/2″ tall on a 3″ prong that is stuck into the dirt. Receiver boxes look like a shoebox with some cables attached are connected by electrical cord. Dawson Geophysical, yet another third party company, is doing the set up work for the seismic testing in our neighborhood.
On the day of the shoot, three white Vibroseis trucks about fifteen feet apart will shoot seismics in 330 feet increments. A recording truck will follow them. The trucks are from Vibrotech, a third party engineering firm out of Austin. It only takes 1 1/2 minutes to shoot a seismic, but then the trucks have to move ahead 330 feet and shoot another one and move ahead and so on. You won’t hear or feel anything when they conduct the seismic testing. Sound waves are transmitted through the ground and measured as they bounce back, “like a sonogram on a pregnant lady’s belly,” says Seay. After the testing has been completed, the receiver boxes, sensors and cord are removed.
Typically, seismic testing isn’t conducted until after an area has been leased, but that is not the case in our neighborhood. Since the majority of our area has not yet been leased, the seismic results can be used by the exploration companies as a determining factor in negotiating our neighborhood lease. We are at a disadvantage because we don’t have access to the results of the seismic testing.
Gateway’s Seay says, “what we’re doing can’t wait”. They are working seven days a week to complete the seismic testing. “If these companies don’t have seismic data on your neighborhood there’s a black hole on the map and they won’t lease you,” warns Seay. Attorney McGlinchey disagrees, “they lease all the time without seismic data.”
The testing boundaries within our neighborhood are Montgomery on the east, I-30 on the south, Ashland on the west and Bryce on the north. Seay assured me that they won’t start the testing in our neighborhood before July 23, but says “that’s subject to change.” He’s agreed to put out signs in our neighborhood that announce the seismic testing. The signs include a phone number to call for more information–don’t hesitate to call it. -written by Christina Patoski
Gas Drilling Task Force: Second Public Hearing
The Fort Worth City Council appointed an 18-member Gas Drilling Task Force of citizens and industry representatives in February to examine the city’s gas drilling ordinance and to make recommendations on changing it. The Task Force has convened more than ten times and in June conducted its first public hearing.
A second public hearing is scheduled for Monday August 11 at 6:30pm in City Council chambers at 1000 Throckmorton. Anyone may speak at the hearing as long as you fill out a speaker’s card at the beginning of the meeting. Contact Sarah Fullenwider for more information at 817/392-7619 or sarah.fullenwider@fortworthgov.org.
On Thursday August 7, a workshop on pipelines will be presented to the City Council and the Gas Drilling Task Force from 1:00pm-3:00pm at the South Texas Room, Will Rogers Memorial Center. This workshop is open to the public, but no public comments will be taken.
General Membership Meeting
Title: General Membership Meeting
Location: Arlington Heights United Methodist Church
Description: Parnell McGlinchey, the attorney who is in the middle of negotiating the Arlington Heights neighborhood gas lease, will be there to answer questions.
Featured subject will be gas pipelines with a panel of local experts: Mike Martin, an eminent domain attorney with Cotten, Schmidt Law Firm; Bill Fisher, an attorney with thirty years of experience in the gas pipeline business; and Jerry Lobdill, Sierra Club member and retired physicist with a degree in chemical engineering.
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2008-07-21
Gas Lease Update
Many of you are wondering how long it will take to finalize a deal. We are working directly with operators, not leasing agents, and are waiting on other west side groups that are negotiating their quality of life (QOL) terms and monitoring their progress. Our attorney will be available after our regular monthly neighborhood meeting on Monday July 21st to answer your gas lease questions. Please understand that due to the sensitivity of negotiations, he may not be able to answer all questions.
As any land man can tell you, gas leasing is more than just the bonus money. The leases we sign will be in effect for the next 50-75 years. The next generation, our heirs, will be wrestling with the outcome of what we negotiate. QOL issues we want addressed include, among others, safety, noise abatement, dust and light control, truck traffic, eminent domain, and location of pipelines. Standard lease forms don’t address these issues, and we also want to make sure the lease provides for a fair and proper royalty calculation. We want to get our slice from the biggest piece of pie—gas sold at a hub, with market forces dictating the price—not the size pie the operator wants to give us. Standard lease forms calculate royalty “at the wellhead,” where there is no competitive market and the operator is essentially free to pick a number. If leasing agents and land men are pushing you to sign, it’s because the deal favors them. We want to be sure the final deal works in our favor as well.
Urban gas drilling is a complicated process. Folks who say we are shortsighted or selfish to consider the long-term repercussions of how the drilling will affect us are just impatient to have us sign the lease they are offering so they can control all the terms. They don’t want us to consider the long term impact—the sooner they can get us to sign, the sooner they can get us out of their way. We deserve better. These are our minerals, under our homes, in our neighborhoods. The gas isn’t going anywhere. We will literally have to live with whatever we decide. The energy operator won’t.
Arlington Heights is one of the largest single neighborhoods to consider leasing, and we are situated over a sweet spot of the Barnett Shale. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. Here are some mind-boggling numbers to contemplate. At 622 acres, AHNA is almost one square mile. One square mile contains about 140 billion cubic feet of gas. Put another way, that’s roughly 140 million MCFs of gas. With natural gas at a modest $7 per MCF, that’s an economic potential of $980,000,000, almost one billion dollars, under our homes. Energy companies will recover about 20% of that 980 million dollars in five to ten years, or about $200 million. They may extract more as technology improves. How much of that income will you get? And how much will you sacrifice in safety, inconvenience, decreased property values, noise and pollution, and legal hassles to get it?
Be sure before you sign! AHNA will send a mass mailing and blast email when we are ready to recommend a deal. The best way to stay informed on how we’re progressing is to go to our revamped website, www.arlingtonheightsna.com click on the gas lease page and subscribe. When in doubt, please check the website or call a member of the AHNA executive committee. In the meantime, be aware that leasing agents are still working the neighborhood trying to sign up neighbors. If you sign their offers, we cannot help you, and you will be stuck with the financial and QOL terms in their lease. Remember that these folks are paid to get you to sign, so they will likely tell you anything to get you to sign over your mineral rights. Thank you again for staying informed and sticking with us. -written by Beth Kaufmann
