Well Water and Big Oil

This afternoon I'm waiting for the well guy.
We were approached by an oil and gas company in September. They want to do 3 test seismic blasts on the far end of our land. Part of the conditions are they will check our well water before and after the blasting tests.
The well guy is coming today to do the initial check, so I guess their going ahead with their test blasts soon.

It left us kind of scrabbling when Well guy called yesterday. Chris has been meaning to shock the well for months and hasn't gotten around to it. But he wasn't going to let them test our drinking water without trying to make it as clean as possible before hand. So about 8 liters of bleach went down the well last night. The cistern got a flush and a clean out. I spent a good part of the morning running water to flush the cistern a second time. Although I'm sure the water will still show a high concentration of bleach, I'm hoping it will at least test better than it would have.

I'm not totally thrilled about having the seismic tests done on our land. But it was very obvious that the company would simply test 10 feet from our fence on the neighbors land if we didn't agree. I thought it was better to allow them to do it here, so we have a paperwork trail if something goes wrong. Like they collapse our well or poison it. Not that I'm expecting them to do that with the initial blasts, but if they find enough gas under our marsh and probably the Ducks Unlimited area across the street, then they'll go ahead with a full drilling rig. Which is what I'm even more upset abut. There is a very high likely hood that they will directionally drill from an adjacent piece of land. Since the marsh area would be to unstable and most of our land surround the marsh is covered in trees. This means we will get absolutely N-O-T-H-I-N-G if they choose to drill. Nothing. because we only own surface rights. They can take whatever they want from underneath our land, create all sorts of problems and disturbances, and take it from whatever "direction" is most convenient for them.

It kind of goes without saying that I hope their seismic tests come out badly. I hope they don't find enough gas to make it worth their time. Because I'm not particularly looking forward to the extra traffic, the noise, probably blinding lights etc. from a drilling rig right across the field. Okay probably across the field and over a fence. It irritates me, since if they came and took the gas and screwed anything like the water supply up, or if the house shifted, or any sort of damage. We would end up in a court battle to get them to acknowledge it. A court battle we would be paying for out of pocket until/unless we won. So it make me pretty hot that they can just come in and take whatever they want, and not have to pay for anything but a minuscule amount for access and space on whomever's "surface" they choose to use. While they "rape" underneath anyone's and everyone's land they choose too. Without the landowners being able to have a say ,or pretty much do anything about it. Even if we had not signed off on these initial tests, they could have done the test from the neighboring land, gotten a good idea of what the whole area would yield and choose to drill right underneath us without ever really getting or needing our permission.

And Now,
Now I understand why so many people bitch and complain about big oil and gas companies.