Barnett Shale

FWCanDo's Young unhappy with Meadowbrook deal

Don Young, head of FWCanDo (Fort Worth Citizens Against Neighborhood Drilling Ordinance), isn't happy with the Greater Meadowbrook Mineral Leasing Task Force's decision to recommend a gas lease deal with XTO Energy.

He notes FWCanDo's genesis was in the Meadowbrook area of east Fort Worth. "Eastsiders were informed early on about environmental and safety tradeoffs that erase much of the expected windfall," he writes on FWCanDo's blog. "We pulled back the veils on corrupt elected officials and their industry-friendly ordinance. We scoffed at hte misleaing language of industry ad campaigns. We questioned the ethical lapses of our daily newspaper. We knew about the risk that gas drilling posed to our neighborhood integrity."

For these reasons, he writes he expected the Meadowbrook task force to tell any interested gas companies to "take their gas wells and shove 'em." Click here to visit Young's blog.

-- Scott Nishimura

(Photo: Young at a 2005 protest in east Fort Worth)

FW Eastsiders say a $25k deal is nigh

Louis McBee, one of the Fort Worth Eastside organizers who's trying to extract a 30-30 deal ($30,000-per-acre bonus, 30 percent royalty) out of one of the gas companies, tells FWWeekly in this story that the neighborhood task force has a "deal pending for $25,000 an acre and 26.5 percent. It's going to be a record-setting deal. Nobody's gotten that much. In addition, should this deal go through, there will be no drilling in Meadowbrook at all."

-- Scott Nishimura

East Fort Worth group swings for the fences: $30,000 and 30%

Nobody can accuse homeowners in east Fort Worth of thinking small when it comes to negotiating for the best mineral rights lease.

The Greater Meadowbrook Mineral Leasing Task Force on Jan. 11 sent letters to Barnett Shale operators seeking a bonus payment of $30,000 per acre ($6,000 minimum) and 30 percent royalty. Lease terms also include a one-year term and 800-foot separation of the drill site from residences and protected uses. The letters seek responses beginning Jan. 21.

According to the group's literature, it represents 3,252 acres made up of 5,440 residential lots and 390 commercial properties in the West Meadowbrook, Central Meadowbrook, Eastern Hills, Chimney Wood, and Brentwood-Oak Hills neighborhoods. The group's boundaries generally are south of Interstate 30, west of Loop 820 and east of Riverside, with the southern boundary varying, and are pictured here.

The West Meadowbrook Neighborhood Association's home page, with links to leasing updates, can be found here.

Click here to read our previous posts on this group.

-- Jim Fuquay

(Photo: Special Olympics golf at Meadowbrook Golf Course)

Having a meeting on the Barnett Shale? Publicize it here, on our new Community Calendar!

5 East Fort Worth neighborhoods to meet

Discussion of a community gas lease for five neighborhoods in east Fort Worth is the subject of a meeting set for 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Eastern Hills High School's auditorium. On the agenda is an information session describing the lease, put together by a negotiating task force authorized to research terms of a desireable lease, and time for questions and answers. The lease will be sent to interested drillers, who will be invited to submit offers. The neighborhood associations involved are in the meeting represent Brentwood-Oak Hills, Chimney Wood, Eastern Hills, Central Meadowbrook and West Meadowbrook.

The most recent lease offer was from Holland Acquisitions, on behalf of Paloma Resources, for $7,000 an acre ($1,200 minimum) and 25 percent royalty. That compared to Holland's offer in August of $3,000/acre ($500 minimum) and 20 percent royalty from Holland.

-- Jim Fuquay

(Photo: Eastern Hills football)