 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
The Creston auction with Col Dobbins will be Friday, October 17th, starting at 6 P.M.
The Wirt County Farm Bureau Annual Meeting will be Tuesday, October 21 at 6:30 P. M. at the high school in Elizabeth.
Bobby Ray Starcher, age 78, of Oil City Pennsylvania passed away after an extended illness. For years and years he held an auction the first Saturday of the month at the Creston Community Building. He was brought back, for the last time to the church at Hur for services and then burial in the Starcher cemetery.
Area residents attended the hearing held by the DEP on little Senator Unger's tank bill. The DEP folks could not tell attendees how much the annual tank "registration fee" or tax would be nor has it been determined how the DEP will determine how tank owners are "fiscally responsible". DEP estimates there will be over 60,000 tanks registered and detailed records must be kept on each tank. One DEP employee noted that during the session they tried to tell the legislators that they should take their time and be sure of the consequences of what they passed but such was to no avail. One woman who operates a firm that supplies petroleum products to construction sites noted that with testing fees of up to $5,000/tank she was out of business. Some years back Hillary Clinton said of folks in her situation, "undercapitalized firms shouldn't be in business". Small producers told the DEP that they and other small producers that they knew had never been notified of the new "emergency rules" concerning the "tank law". Director Huffman said, "We notified the trade organizations and sent out press releases". It was noted that his office has a list of all oil & gas producers in the state. Written comments will be accepted until October 24th. One producer said that he had a tract of land in Ohio and that he was going to haul all his tanks there and avoid all the hassle. Other firms are placing small tanks on their well locations.
Alvin & Nancy Engelke spent the weekend visiting Adam & Anna Yates in Silver Spring Maryland. While there thy took in a performance of the "Capitol Steps". That brought the visitors up to speed on on the goings - on down in the swamps of the lower Potomac, otherwise known as the boomtown of America. Train load after trainload of lumber arrived for new construction there and long coal trains brought the energy to run the place that promotes "pretend" measures to generate power. Gasolene was in the $3.20 range in the Maryland suburbs.
It is now a scenic time to travel as the xanthophylls and anthocyanins are, each day, becoming more striking, especially in the higher elevations, with sumac, etc.
The local area received more rain and cool weather. There has now been no global warming for 18 years which is giving the believers in the Church of Anthropomorphic Global Warming serious heartburn and other miseries. Of course they still want to raise taxes and institute new prohibitions to "fight their cause and feather their nests."
HG Energy is hauling stone for a road and well pads on Laurel, a tributary of the Hughes River adjacent to Wirt County in Ritchie County. A spokesman for HG said they the firm planned to drill laterals across the famous A. B. Wilson lease on Straight Creek. For years & years Rockefeller's South Penn Oil Company made the Wilson lease the best in Wirt County.
The Creston Halloween party will be October 25 at the Creston Community Building. That is the one time that anyone can dress up and "be somebody". Donations are still needed for the "gala event".
Natural gas produced in August in the Chestnut Run area fetched just $2.00/mmbtu.
It was noted that the price for calves was high.
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude oil is now $89.34/bbl. with Mountain high test (drip) fetching $67.34 & Marcellus & Utica light $83.34 & medium $89l34/bbl.
A Wirt based trucking firm advertised for new CDL drivers and had 20 applicants but 19 of them failed the "tinkle test". The firm needed ten (10) additional truck drivers but, like other firms, they are having difficulty obtaining "clean employees." It was noted that the government from the leader of the Choom Gang on down are promoting drugs while waging a war on tobacco. Presently the labor participation rate is the lowest in decades [that means a lot of folks are not working, about 92 million able bodied souls] and welfare benefits are not restricted by drug tests. This all works just as long as folks will work to keep those who choose not to work and those who come to America from foreign lands not to work but to suck up "benefits" just like the Liberian who came to Texas to get treated for Ebola. The president of his country plans to prosecute him if he survives.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Hur Herald. | 
