 By Alvin Engelke
alvinengelke@hotmail.com
Rev. Keith Belt filled his regular appointment at the Burning Springs M. E. Church.
Spring continues in the Creston area with peach trees in bloom, bloodroot, spring beauties, trilliums, toothwort, chickweed, colt's foot, etc. Grass is growing although one fellow noted that cattle would have trouble getting much nutrition from it; sort of like trying to get one's calories, vitamins & minerals by eating lettuce.
The Creston area had hard rains, hail and such with a number of local roadways blocked with flooding. This time the highway department put up no signage. The road crews have been working evenings and weekends doing "FEMA" work for some disaster. Apparently for the FEMA money to kick in the work has to be done on overtime.
In spite of dedicated work from Sen. Donna Boley the educrats still have their darling common core that came from the Big Eared One, his terrorist friend Bill Ayers and some gullible governors who thought (or were told) that it was "their idea". The Educrats down at the Mouth of the Elk are very testy when someone would question the teaching of "global warming" to the state's youth gospel that cannot be questioned even though the lies have now been proved false. After all, how long has it been since the Vikings kept cattle in Greenland? Al Gore Jr.'s "hockey stick" left that part out.
"Bill" McFee, age 80, of Chestnut Run passed away. He had that "family tradition" of heart trouble. A retiree from the Marbon/GE plant he was active in the Farm Bureau and worked to raise quality cattle. He was involved in the Jackson County calf pool and had been a grower of quality burley before Hillary & Bill sent that market to friends/donors in Brazil.
Charles Russell Was attending to business in Spencer and called on brother Euell, Ray Gumm & Mr. & Mrs. Paris Parsons. One of the ladies who dines with the Parsons family had some lovely ladies visiting her on Sunday as well.
The Creston auction will be Saturday, April 18 starting at 10 A. M. It will be new for everybody so come out and see how it goes. There may be all kinds of bargains.
The big Creston ATV poker run will be Saturday, April 25 at the Community Building. Breakfast will be served and riders will have a scenic tour of rocks flowers and goodness knows what else. The route may be changed at the last minute in the event of cloudbursts, etc.
Local residents have been enjoying the beautiful weather (between rainstorms) by cleaning up their lawns, riding four wheelers, etc. Two very lovely young ladies from Michigan, one a grand daughter and her friend, were visiting Chancy & Mary Shaw. Those who drive through Ground Hog to Spencer know that Mary is the workingest woman in the neighborhood and many have said they wished that their wives had half the energy that Mary obviously has. The young damsels had a good lesson on work. Looks and personality get a girl somewhere but cooking skills and a reputation for work are rare traits.
Mary O'Dell, age 84 passed away after a long siege with Alzheimers. For years she was one of the smiling faces in the First National Bank in Spencer in addition to being Jimmy's wife and the mother of one of the local banjo & fiddle legends, David O'Dell who is now a professor at Glenville.
Nancy Engelke was consulting with Dr. Morehead.
Some local folks had to go to a meeting in Friendly on Saturday but the road was closed because of a slip and travelers had to go to New Martinsville on the Ohio side because the Sistersville Ferry was closed as well. Some stopped on the way back and had homemade cherry pie at Marv's place in Sardis Ohio.
The Klingons opened fire on the Enterprise in the Palestine sector and took out the warp drive but not before the Enterprise returned fire and obliterated the Klingons. Then friendly forces arrived and made repairs so that the Enterprise could return to the Space Dock at Creston.
Delegate Bob Ashley, Sen. Donna Boley, Sen. Mitch Carmichael & Sen. Mike Hall met with the Roane County Chamber of Commerce and a discussion of the forced pooling bill ensued. One fellow said, "you wanted that 80%, isn't that important?" A local attorney explained that what the bill did was lock by law royalty at 1/8th when the going rate now is much more He noted "You ignored your constituents" and that they were acting as a "rubber stamp" for large out of state companies. The attorney, Thomas N. Whittier noted that he had been negotiating a lease for a client but when the bill was introduced the company ended the discussions as they noted "the legislature would give them the property for a lower royalty." As a result of the bill's failure to pass it is understood that some who "guaranteed they would get it through" have been dressed down. Some are now frantic to get the bill through before more find out the ramifications of the bill.
Delegate Woody Ireland, the silver tongued legislator from Ritchie County, attended the Boley breakfast and defended the legislation. He actually believes that he, with the help of lawyers on the legislative staff, wrote the bill. Some might note that there is unhappiness is some sectors down at the Mouth of the Elk and in the swamps of the lower Potomac that the Republicans are in charge and some area not above setting them up to look like the gullible goons answering to the big money guys. Those who have read the bill recognized lawyer George Patterson's wordsmithing and at the recent legal education seminar Patterson told Jennifer Garrison, one of the lawyers with the Wirt Oil & Gas Group that indeed he did write the entire thing. Mrs. Garrison who formerly was in the Ohio legislature offered to help him rewrite it to be fair to land and mineral owners.
EQT & Dominion wanted to get the bill through quickly to use it as a club to force lease modifications on old leases dating from the 19th century that still have flat rate gas wells and $1/acre storage clauses [not to mention fixed rate leases which allow royalty to be calculated on 6 cent or 12 cent gas]. Those who signed the EQT lease modifications would receive 90% of the inside FERC price and no payment for gas liquids for as EQT noted there is nothing in the lease that says we have to pay you for them. As an example the Annie Haymond well near Pennsboro made in October 2013, $1 million in natural gas which would mean under an EQT lease the first $100,000 in gas would be free of royalty and the $800,000 of plant product from the Sherwood plant (all the gas liquids, propane, etc. with ethane excluded) would likewise be free from royalty payments. The bill has no provision whatever to determine actual volumes and qualities of gas and liquids produce, sorta like the state collecting coal severance on the railroad scales that the state is not allowed to test or verify.
Cabot Corp is now working on their Rogersville well in Putnam County. It is reported that several good wells are now producing in Kentucky and the new deep shale is found in the Rome Trough (an old ocean deed) that included all of Calhoun & Roane Counties and most of Wirt County as well. On the talking points handed out by the forced pooling folks they forgot to note that when wells are permitted to deep zones, such as the Utica and Rogersville, express written permission from the surface owner is required. Some of the other "talking points" are also subject to some "debate".
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude oil finally rose above $50/bbl to $50.64 with drip fetching $26.64, Marcellus & Utica light $44.64 and medium $50.64/bbl.
The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Hur Herald. | 
