The latest salvo in the battle to lease Berkeley Place, Mistletoe Heights and Ryan Place was delivered Monday by FedEx: Chesapeake Energy's latest offer of a $12,500/acre bonus, 25 percent net royalty and up to a $75,000 contribution to each neighborhood association. That's up from the $11,000 just last week. Homeowners in each of the neighborhoods reported receiving the packets Monday. Fort Worth Energy and XTO Energy had earlier reached agreement with the neighborhoods on terms of $10,000 per acre, 25 percent royalty and, just last week, a payment of up to $50,000 to the Ryan Place Improvement Association. That contract also specified several environmental and safety concessions sought by the neighborhood negotiators.
Chesapeake's cover letter says it intends to use the Eighth Avenue drill site (in the railroad right-of-way across from Elizabeth Boulevard). That's a big issue with Berkeley Place in particular. The lease also guarantees only a 200-foot separation from homes, less than the city's 600 feet minimum, which Fort Worth Energy has written into its lease. Chesapeake notes that it asks only a three-year term, compared to Fort Worth Energy's four years, and matches Fort Worth Energy's promise to keep compressor stations at least 1,000 feet from neighborhood borders.
-- Jim
WHAT IS OUR QUALITY OF LIFE WORTH? If we even got to $24,000 for the amount of land many of us have in Meadowbrook and Eastern Hills, about 1/4 acre and maybe up to about 1/3 acre....we would get about $6,000 to $8,000.
For those with an 1/8 of an acre...5,000 square feet, which is what most folks have for a lot size in many parts of Fort Worth, they would only get $3,000 if it got to $24,000 per acre. PEANUTS! When we take it down to reality, which is what we need to do...then even $50,000 per acre is not enough for what we will lose in the long run, while they make billions, and while our property values fall far lower than we will ever make on this. Think this through folks and add up the numbers....for me and many others, they just do not add up. What we are being offered is not near enough to make it worth while in the long run.
The acreage price sounds great until you break it down into the pieces of pie that we all have. We will never make anything close to what folks think they will. When they are hearing the price per acre...very few have an acre and when folks realize that we are sharing 25% in royalty payments with 160 to 340 other folks...that also substantially reduces the amount they get, which also relates to PEANUTS.
We are worth more than that by a long shot. I am not being greedy, it is just I cannot put a price on what my piece of mind, my health, my quality of life, and my neighbor's too at anywhere near where we are now. In the meantime, we get to see how all this pans out for the other neighborhoods that have signed and set toward being having active drilling in the next few months, see if the city is going to go against neighborhoods in allowing high impact wells, despite what we want, see what the city is going to do to allow on site dumping of waste, which the gas companies say is harmless.....it contains some very hazardous chemicals....frac pits close to where your children play....what is your piece of mind worth as far as they are concerned? In later years will you be glad you made the same choice? If we find out later that our cancer rate is higher, that there are chemicals that have leached into our precious acquifers, trucks that are spilling waste into our Trinity River, which by the way, Don Young found was happening just a week ago, despite denials. Look at more than the money, because in the big scheme of things, that money will seem paltry in comparison. Choose wisely and don't listen to hype. They want you to think that there is some rush to do all this. There is not. They are not going away....so WHAT IS THE RUSH to sign anything, except so that they can play poker with your leases and sell them to someone else? Every time that happens, and it does, they make a big profit, especially for those that thought they were going to miss out....they did...by signing! Our quality of life is worth far more than you think.
Posted by: G. Giles/EHHA | October 22, 2007 at 08:05 PM
WHAT IS OUR QUALITY OF LIFE WORTH? If we even got to $24,000 for the amount of land many of us have in Meadowbrook and Eastern Hills, about 1/4 acre and maybe up to about 1/3 acre....we would get about $6,000 to $8,000.
For those with an 1/8 of an acre...5,000 square feet, which is what most folks have for a lot size in many parts of Fort Worth, they would only get $3,000 if it got to $24,000 per acre. PEANUTS! When we take it down to reality, which is what we need to do...then even $50,000 per acre is not enough for what we will lose in the long run, while they make billions, and while our property values fall far lower than we will ever make on this. Think this through folks and add up the numbers....for me and many others, they just do not add up. What we are being offered is not near enough to make it worth while in the long run.
The acreage price sounds great until you break it down into the pieces of pie that we all have. We will never make anything close to what folks think they will. When they are hearing the price per acre...very few have an acre and when folks realize that we are sharing 25% in royalty payments with 160 to 340 other folks...that also substantially reduces the amount they get, which also relates to PEANUTS.
We are worth more than that by a long shot. I am not being greedy, it is just I cannot put a price on what my piece of mind, my health, my quality of life, and my neighbor's too at anywhere near where we are now. In the meantime, we get to see how all this pans out for the other neighborhoods that have signed and set toward being having active drilling in the next few months, see if the city is going to go against neighborhoods in allowing high impact wells, despite what we want, see what the city is going to do to allow on site dumping of waste, which the gas companies say is harmless.....it contains some very hazardous chemicals....frac pits close to where your children play....what is your piece of mind worth as far as they are concerned? In later years will you be glad you made the same choice? If we find out later that our cancer rate is higher, that there are chemicals that have leached into our precious acquifers, trucks that are spilling waste into our Trinity River, which by the way, Don Young found was happening just a week ago, despite denials. Look at more than the money, because in the big scheme of things, that money will seem paltry in comparison. Choose wisely and don't listen to hype. They want you to think that there is some rush to do all this. There is not. They are not going away....so WHAT IS THE RUSH to sign anything, except so that they can play poker with your leases and sell them to someone else? Every time that happens, and it does, they make a big profit, especially for those that thought they were going to miss out....they did...by signing! Our quality of life is worth far more than you think.
Posted by: G. Giles/EHHA | October 22, 2007 at 08:04 PM