Let's Make a List of All the Good things about Gas Drilling

Let us assume you leased. The big one of course is BIG MONEY, well it looks big to you but to folks like Exxon and Columbia Gas is really is chump change. They are buying your land and water and children's and grandchildren's future for a very small percentage of their profit. Their executives are sitting at lunch in New York or Houston chewing rib eyes and drinking bottled water from Italy. They have lost absolutely nothing. Their risks are zero. The 5 acres drilling pad that took two plus years 24/7 to put into place is not the "field and productive pasture" they promised they would and could restore but is now a wired fenced compressor station with crew and guards with loud diesel motors running all the time and huge trucks constantly coming in and out using it as a turn around. And of course, there are pipes running in highway sized rights of way cut into your woods and fields because the gas doesn't simply come out of the ground and walk away. And perhaps your neighbors are getting "rich too" so they have the same pads and roads and pipes and rights of way in their "pastures" and you get to share in that as well. And perhaps you are smelling gas fumes in the air or in your water and having your problem "fixed" with a huge water tank next to your house. And your community is changed beyond recognition, There are gas well pads everywhere and constant traffic noise and dust and fumes. And are your cattle ok? Is that water ok? The point here is simple. And I am trying to say it with real compassion: When Columbia Gas counts their money, they have none of these impacts, they are not you sitting in your ravaged community. No sir, they have come and gone. Fair trade. Your farm and life, as you knew and loved it, for "fair compensation". Columbia Gas parted with a percentage of profit written off as a business expense which means they parted with nothing and you gave them everything in return. Please think long and clearly about this. Go to Wetzel County and see for yourself.