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Jul. 7, 2011
A group of Garrett County property owners announced this week they have formed an organization to provide public information about concerns related to natural gas drilling. The group, called CitizenShale.org (CSO), will hold two high-profile education events next week.
The organization’s executive committee is currently taking shape, and anyone wanting an active role is encouraged by organizers to get involved.
“People in Garrett County – landowners, renters, business owners – need to be informed,” said Eric Robison, CSO’s director of educational outreach. “CitizenShale hopes to play an active role in that education and seeks members of the community to help us develop a broad consensus for involvement.”
Robison, a candidate for Garrett County commissioner last fall who campaigned for enhanced local control of industrial Marcellus shale drilling, said the local citizens who formed CitizenShale have been involved in the public debate about industrial drilling since a Texas corporation, Chief Oil & Gas, announced it wanted to drill four wells in the county last November.
“Large corporations from outside Garrett County and Maryland do not have our community’s best interest at heart,” said Robison. “With that in mind, several residents have questioned state and county officials to see what should be done. We found a void that needed to be addressed.”
Chief Oil announced in May that it had sold all of its leased holdings in Garrett County, amounting to several thousand acres, to California-based Chevron. Although the purchase price has not been disclosed, national media reports have put the price at about $10,000 per acre, on 288,000 total acres in three states, including the Maryland holdings.
A survey of Chief Oil’s leases in Garrett County shows a typical price paid for shale gas leases first bought in 2006 and 2007 was $5 to $7 per acre. Some of those five-year leases began expiring earlier this year. Approximately 110,000 acres in Garrett County, plus several thousand in Allegany County, are leased. More than a dozen companies, all from outside Maryland, own the leases.
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