Gas Drilling Public Meeting

[Sal]

Newton Township is holding a public meeting on Monday September 19, 2011 at 7PM.  The purpose of the meeting is to allow input on gas drilling within the Township.  Those interested in speaking need to contact the Township at 587-1520 to be put on the agenda.  So-called professionals will get 15 minutes to speak everyone else gets 5 minutes.

Many of you have attended meetings regarding gas leasing in the past.  The meetings were good and informative explaining the pros and cons and what to watch for.  As a result some property owners obtained good gas leases.  Be forewarned this meeting is not likely to be anything like the nice constructive meetings that we had in the past and it is not about obtaining leases.

Brief Background
Recently a small vocal group called Community Counts that is affiliated with an out of town environmental group tried to push an illegal ordinance on Newton Township.  CC gave Newton Township an ordinance to ban gas drilling two days before the Townships monthly meeting in May.  Then they stormed the meeting demanding that the Township adopt the ordinance.  More information regarding the incident is available here.

The ordinance was reviewed by the Township’s solicitor and at the June monthly meeting the solicitor advised the supervisors that among other things the ordinance was unenforceable and could get the Township into a lot of trouble. The supervisors also gave the ordinance to the Planning agency and the newly formed Gas & Oil Committee for their input.  At the August supervisors meeting, the committee advised against the ordinance.

The Community Counts group is extremely disruptive. They hijacked several meetings demanding that the Township adopt their illegal ordinance and accused the Township supervisors of not caring about our community.  They have spread misinformation, scare tactics and outright lies throughout our community to gain supporters.  The group’s latest tactic is to change our local government, remove our supervisors and put people in place that will adopt illegal ordinances with total disregard of laws and people’s rights.

Earlier this year I wrote about the SAPA scam and how it is designed to take away the rights of property owners in Newton Township.  Supporting documents were attached and are still available on the main page of our website.  At the same time I also warned that it would just be a matter of time before someone would try to take away your gas rights too.  Gas and oil belongs to the property owners not the gas company.

Well, SAPA is rearing its ugly head again and the Tree Huggers are out in full force.  The Saps and Huggers intent is to take away our rights and if we don’t do something about that they will do it.  Protect your property rights or you will lose them.

The problem is that property owners and business people have no representation in Newton Township.  We need to form an official group to represent us and then we can take official action and put the Saps and Huggers in their place.

[bmr]

Sal,

thanks for the heads up.  these outsiders are getting out of hand.  I plan on being there.

Brad

[Sal]

You are welcome Brad and here is an update on the meeting.

The drilling opponents took up most of the meeting repeating their reasons why drilling needs to be banned.  Most were from out of town or fairly new residents.  The Dimock crew gave speeches and put on their usual side show including the dirty bottled water act.  

Other outsiders warned about the terrible thing that would happen if the drillers came to Newton. The air will be polluted.  The water will be poisoned.  Children will die.  Property values will go down. Banks will foreclose and so on.  It was quite a show.

Anyone that believes the doomsayer’s may want to consider getting of town while they can because the fact is neither an ordinance nor a ban can stop the gas companies.

One doomster’s pathetic attempt to scare people was hilarious. He said that Chesapeake Energy is financially broke and had to sell its leases to a foreign company and that those leases became liens and now that foreign company is going to foreclose on the people that have leases.

Here’s how it works.  If you lease land to Chesapeake, the tooth fairy turns the lease into a lien and boogieman forecloses.

Is Chesapeake really broke? Let’s take a look. Chesapeake is a public company and their financial information is available from various sources on the web including the Securities Exchange Commission. (Symbol CHK)  The company is profitable, it pays dividends and its Net Tangible Assets have been averaging around 15 billion dollars. Hmm

Most of the Newton residents that support drilling sat quietly and did not speak.  Others left when they realized what the meeting was about.

Newton resident Brad Reeves did not take the podium to speak but reportedly told the Times Tribune that he was concerned that Township officials were considering passing "more laws and regulations we don't need" and said "we need less government, not more."

Joe Barrese from Newton spoke, saying he was concerned that job opportunities would be lost.

Keith Eckel of Eckels Farms, Inc. in Newton was on the list of speakers but apparently overlooked listing himself as an expert.  At the podium, Mr. Eckel said that he is an expert citing a long list of credentials and asked to have fifteen minutes to speak.   The drilling opponents group that was organized by outsiders vociferously protested.

It is a sad day when outsiders and people that don’t even know their way around the Township get to tell a resident businessman whose family has been farming the area for over a century that he can’t speak for fifteen minutes.  What are they so afraid of?