Rayzor Ranch Neighbors, Here’s What Range Resources Drilling Looks Like

A friend in the Marcellus Shale area sent out these pictures and first person experience of drilling Range style. I asked his permission to post it here so the Rayzor Ranch neighbors can brace themselves for what is to come if Range Resources drills those 5 wells 200′ from your yards.

I was back out in the Marcellus Shale gas fields today taking photos near Buffalo Village, Pennsylvania where they are doing more seismic testing and fracing. It was alarming what this one family has next to, across from, and behind their house. They are going to super frac 7 gas wells on the same drilling pad all at once. Might melt the siding right off their house when the wells all get flared!

They turned down the drilling company’s motel offer even though they have been living next to all this calamity and dealing with it for one year already. They have a huge black lined pit in their backyard where they told me “the smell varies between kerosene (probably some of that diesel fuel they don’t use in fracing anymore 😉 and raw sewage.”

The husband is only 53 and has been in and out of Hillman for kidney cancer. Like he needs all this in his life too! He looks older than me and I’m Santa white. Say a prayer for his family and their neighborhood tonight. People have no friggin idea what this industry brings with it, and all the things they don’t tell people. Their other neighbor lost her water well right after drilling began. Distant neighbors in Hickory have filed lawsuits.

Range Resources said they had gotten that road (Wotring) closed to “Thru Traffic” but residents could still use it (supposedly Hopewell Township authorized all this, but I couldn’t find anyone in at their small office to tell me for sure). Range likely doesn’t want people witnessing their huge mess since it’s so close to the road. My call to the State Police yielded their Fax line, so no sort of confirmation there. So I had to try something else that was still perfectly legal.

After being thwarted on driving in that road earlier, I parked down the road and walked in that same road (walking on a public road and then turning around is not Thru Traffic, right?) but the Range Resources rent-a-cop called the State Police and I was politely escorted out. No arrest of course, for what?? That’s a public road only closed to Thru Traffic.

Guess the rent-a-cop didn’t like my blatant defiance when I swore while telling him to get out of my face, as he tailed me up the road in his Jeep. These companies really think they are The Almighty, so citizens need to start standing up to them. What about citizen’s rights, the ones my ancestors fought and died for, don’t they count anymore once drilling begins?

The state trooper allowed me to take my photos of the frac site (above) before we left. The AC felt good in his car and it sure beat walking 2 miles back to my vehicle in the August heat! When asked, I told him my photo mission was for environmental purposes for my website, and that I considered it a form of Crime Watch, just like we have in our neighborhood. The more eyes you have on this industry the better. We fought too long in this country for our rights just to have them trampled by the gas industry.

Bob
of BOB’S BLOG

Please see the recent and alarming ambient air quality study to see what natural gas development brought to another Denton neighborhood.

Natural Gas Development Brings “Amazing” Levels of Carcinogens to DISH, Texas

Yet another analysis of air near oil and gas operations finds hazardous air pollutants