Another Benefit Of Fracking For Rural Wyoming - Roads Crumble From Truck Traffic w/o Cash For Repair

[hatrack]

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In 2010, Hall granted a lease to Chesapeake Energy to drill two exploratory wells into the oil-bearing Niobrara shale. The formation is located 6,000-8,000 feet beneath the cows that graze on the surface of his property. Over the last few months, Hall has seen hundreds of semi-truckloads of drilling materials, water and rig equipment roll down the county road to the well pads. He and his neighbors have high hopes that exploration in the Niobrara formation will lead to an oil boom in southeast Wyoming. If companies find oil, they could bring new prosperity to this historically tax-poor and oil-dry region of the state. Neither Goshen County, where Hall lives, nor nearby Platte County have ever had significant oil production.

“The positives outweigh the negatives 10 to one. There’s going to be a tremendous opportunity here,” said Hall. “We could go from being the poorest county to dramatically changing our position. Platte County, too.” But while he is happy to see the rigs at work on his land, Hall is also worried about the effects all the traffic could have on the county’s roads. “Let’s say spring comes along and we’re blessed with a lot of precipitation, like we have been the last few years. You get a lot of (semi) truck traffic on these roads and they get to where they are impassable. That’s a very real possibility,” said Hall.

A destroyed road could be a major inconvenience for Hall and Chesapeake Energy. But it would also be a safety hazard for local residents, and a barrier for emergency vehicles that might need to respond to accidents at the oil wells. Even worse, a ruined road is a problem that cash-strapped Goshen County cannot afford to fix with its current tax revenues. In an era when rebuilding a paved road can cost more than $1 million a mile, the annual maintenance and construction budget for the Goshen County Road and Bridge Department is a meager $1.6 million.

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“It takes about 30 or 40 days to bring in all the materials to start the (fracking) process,” said Goshen County Road and Bridge Department superintendent Gary Korrel. During that time trucks are constantly delivering material to the site. “Once they have all the materials there it only takes three or four days to frack,” Korrel said. Korrel estimates a well requires 6,600 tons of gravel for the well pad, plus 4 million pounds (2,000 tons) of frack sand and chemicals, which are injected into the production zone of the well to break apart the rock so oil can flow into the well. Doll said the Niobrara oil wells completed so far have required an average of 1.2 million gallons of water to frack. If there is no local source of water it must be hauled in by tanker-truck at about 3,750 gallons a load. That makes for an estimated 320 semi-truck trips, and a major impact on county roads.

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http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/niobara_oil_drilling_saps_wyomings_county_road_budgets/C618/L618/

[ellenfl]

1. considering who their favorite son is, it couldn't happen at a better place. (sorry, wyoming) eom