Rice Energy Does 2nd Deal with Belmont County, $8,200/Acre!
In April, Belmont County officials signed a lease with Rice Energy to allow drilling on 406 acres of county-owned land for a staggering $7,500 per acre and 20% royalties. They liked it so much, they immediately put another 426 acres up for bid (see Belmont County Shopping New Deal to Lease Additional 426 Acres). It didn’t take long for Belmont County to sign a new lease with Rice for the second parcel–for an even higher $8,200 per acre signing bonus with 20% royalties…
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Range Resources built an open-air frack wastewater and brine impoundment in Amwell Township (Washington County), PA in 2009–the Jon Day Impoundment. At the time, they installed a monitoring system under the impoundment to alert them (and the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection) in case the impoundment–essentially a big pond with a rubber liner–sprung a leak. The monitoring system included 4-inch perforated pipes under the impoundment located inside trenches of gravel. The theory was/is if anything leaks, it will hit one of those pipes and come out the end. According to the DEP the monitoring system was “over and above” DEP requirements at the time. Unfortunately, the monitoring system somewhere along the way failed and the impoundment sprung a leak and now we have some 15,000 tons of “contaminated” soil which has nearly all been removed from the site…
