 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston area had rain and some minor flooding blocking for a time some area highways.
Thelma Starcher Griffin, wife of Ferrell Griffin passed away. She had become ill before Christmas.
Some Burning Springs area residents have been having telephone problems. Seems that, unless unplugged, the phones ring constantly. Some Calhoun residents lost service and it was determined that someone shot the telephone cable. One of the affected residents asked if anyone saw someone with a towel wrapped around his head?
Sgt. & Mrs. Thomas Fluharty, USA Retired, were visiting friends in Tennessee.
Erlewine Concrete hauled a lot of rock up the Richardsonville road. They in turn discovered a huge cavern under the road just below the mouth of Ghost Hollow. The problem site is where Exxon & other Rockefeller related companies set off a shot (without the landowner's permission) about 30 years ago when they were doing seismic prospecting for oil and gas. The Wirt road crew hauled rock to fill it up but the place has again settled.
Carol Lynch turned a big 47 and Kathy Arthur also celebrated her birthday.
W. Harrison Schenerlein IV was visiting at the Engelke residence as his mother became ill with some sort of viral type infection which resulted in a high fever.
One short-term former local resident who was implicated in a crime spree was transferred from Doddridge County to a penal facility near Martinsburg.
An Annamoriah resident was sent to Neola while another local is sojourning in Doddridge County for the time being.
Local residents have been keeping an eye on the legislative doings down at the Mouth of the Elk. It was learned that the Big Boss wanted to cut some deals with the foresters if they would agree to about 300 streams being put on the Tier 2.5 list. There were 37 streams on the list that no one objected to being so listed.
The DNR reported that over the past few years hunting licenses have dropped by a significant percentage giving them a revenue shortfall. With SSI checks and food stamps (or the plastic cards) many people no longer have to garden or hunt, fish & trap to obtain food and then there is the constant drum beat from those who want to ban guns, hunting and life as most of us know it. Added to that there are those who don't want to be labeled as "rednecks". DNR mismanagement in some areas has also resulted in a paucity of game unless one chooses to hunt coyotes, black vultures and other noxious invasive species.
Richard McFall has been working on his chariot and his Bucyrus-Erie 24 which he hopes to lease out.
Charles & Euell Russell were consulting their physician at the Minnie Hamilton Health Care center. They both received good reports. Nancy Engelke underwent routine tests at Roane General Hospital.
The health department sewage inspector threatened a local family after the W. Va. Housing Development Fund denied a loan for work, approved by the heath department that was substandard. One might wonder if deals haven't been made between bureaucrats and certain contractors. Quality time in a cesspool might give some of them an attitude adjustment.
Susan Myers, Greg & Delia Sutton , Michael Collins, Rob Kimes, Debbie Hennen, Robert Lowe, Naomi Toler, Debbie Nicholson, Cindy Greathouse, Clarence Lott, Jerry Murphy, Virgil Maze, Casper Shuman and M. C. Pursley, Jr. were all attending to business in Creston.
The Creston auction was featured in the most recent issue of Appalachian Living. Susan Myers is the editor and both Greg & Adelia Sutton are involved with the Spencer based paper.
A local resident was checking a business checking account on line and noticed that the account had descended far down into negative numbers. A quick check determined that no one had written any large checks but a trip to the bank showed that a forged check for $11,370 made out to a fellow named Abdul with an address in the Bronx had cleared the bank. Quick action was taken, the account closed and others who had real checks were notified of the situation. As they say, identity theft is real and modern bank robbers do not use guns. Likely the funds, if the check had been honored would have been wire transferred to Lagos, Damascus or Nablus. One would hope that prosecutors where the check was deposited will prosecute.
Gary Buchanan noted that he was looking for some hay.
A tractor-trailer hauling a pickup truck broke down on W. Va. route 5 near Burning Springs. The company had a crew out Sunday morning to retrieve the equipment.
Nationwide the politicians who all want to be el presidente have been making all sorts of promises of what the government can do for everyone. Local residents received letters from an outfit in Kansas City reflecting just what kinds of wonderful projects government programs generate. The letter states that senior citizens can sign up for a HUD regulated FHA insured program to allow this outfit to do a reverse mortgage - that is take the money out of the equity of one's home. Of course the FHA insures the company that does this so the taxpayers foot the bill while the old folks end up with nothing as the money goes away to support casino gambling, relatives' bad habits, "lifestyle enhancement" etc. As the fellow said, "I'm here from the government to help you!"
The price of local Penn grade crude fell $2.75/bbl over the weekend to $82.75/bbl.
A recent report from researchers in Pennsylvania & New York stated that there was a present in the Marcellus shale at least 500 trillion cubic feet of gas of which at least 10% could be counted as recoverable reserves using present technology. Unlike the Big Injun sand and other more familiar oil and gas pays which store and hold hydrocarbons, the shales are source rocks where gas and oil are formed from the decay of organic sediments.
Equitable Production reported that the company drilled 634 wells in 2007 of which 266 were CBM (coal bed methane) wells and 88 were horizontal, mostly in the shale although one was in the Berea Grit. Equitable permitted 6 more horizontal wells in Mingo County. Some claim that these wells will cost $3 million each.
Dominion E & P reported that their well on the Pack property came in at 993 MCF after fracture.
Junior Hildreth reported that the wells he drilled in Calhoun County came in at about 250 day/day in the Big Injun sand.
Sam McKown is drilling Devonian shale well at Burning Springs.
CNX, a spin-off from Consolidation Coal Company, has been drilling lots of CBM wells but they announced that they would now also be drilling wells into the Devonian shale. Consol acquired Amvest which had been acquiring CBM and coal leases in Jackson and Wood Counties.
Ohio oil tycoon Kean Weaver recently purchased 85 acres near Reno Ohio for $1.5 million. The Ohio DOT will spend $14.5 million to widen the road to the area. Kean Weaver owns Triad which has wells on the Bingman farm in Creston and operates the Richardsonville secondary oil recovery project on the West Fork. The Ohio Port Authority is also developing a 51 acre tract that he purchased earlier.
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