Wedgwood Square March 2ND Natural Gas/Drill Site Update:
Hello Wedgwood Square,
**For a complete understanding of the events leading to these drill site hearings please read this update entirely.**
A lot has happened since our neighborhood's potential high-impact Residents last met and since the last email update. Here is the most
recent news regarding Vantage Energy's natural gas drilling plans in our community.
You'll recall that Vantage Energy had a contract on a significant portion of the "Harbor Freight Tools" shopping center at Granbury Road and Wedgmont Circle, where the company wanted to demolish businesses and build a drill site that would eventually include up to 50 wells directly across the street from many of our neighborhood's homes.
This project, as they had planned it, would require 275 high impact waivers from "protected use" residential homes within 600 feet of the drilling pad site (by requirement of the City's Drilling Ordinance) and within 1,000 feet of the property (by requirement of the Southwest Fort Worth Alliance lease agreement).
Vantage Energy had expressed that the company had the recent opportunity to purchase the Chesapeake Energy property located in the "Pancho's" shopping center at S-820 and Granbury Road.
Wedgwood Square President, Tolli Thomas, encouraged the company to make use of that opportunity as the S-820 site would be considerably lower impact to the residents, the community, the traffic, the businesses, the planned future redevelopment of the Trail Lake Drive, the school, and would required well under 100 waivers.
Vantage Energy chose instead to move forward with the Trail Lake Drive location noting that they already had unofficial approval on the "Harbor Freight Tools" site from the City Councilman, a point that Vantage Energy stated as fact on multiple occasions.
Learning this, Wedgwood Square began negotiations with Vantage Energy on the High-Impact Waiver Agreement terms that would hopefully help to offset the impact of this site on our community and its residents (requiring pipeline location plans/integrity and maintenance plans and agreements, emissions mitigating technology, restricting heavy truck traffic from main roads, addressing frac pond and fencing concerns, etc.).
Wedgwood Square also held a two meetings specifically for the Wedgwood Square residents and property owners who would be most impacted, those within 1,000 feet of the drill site.
The high-impact Residents met with Wedgwood Square on January 11th to discuss this development within the area, to compare it to the redevelopment plans that the City of Fort Worth had laid out in 2008, and to report on the progress made in negotiating the High-Impact Waiver Agreement. Wedgwood Square continued waiver negotiations with Vantage Energy after this meeting.
On February 8th, while attending a City Council meeting to address the Mixed Use-1 rezoning of the recently demolished apartment complex in our neighborhood, Wedgwood Square President Tolli Thomas, spoke with the City Councilman about Vantage Energy's activity and statements regarding the Councilman's support of the Trail Lake Drive "Harbor Freight Tools" drill site location. The Councilman renounced that he had given unofficial support to Vantage Energy for their Trail Lake Drive drill site location and stated that he had instructed the company that they would have to have 100% of the required high-impact waivers within 1,000 feet of the drill site, honoring the terms of the Vantage lease agreement and that the company would have to have neighborhood support in order for the "Harbor Freight Tools" site to be approved. Wedgwood Square President Tolli Thomas, asked the Councilman to attend the Wedgwood Square high-impact Residents meeting scheduled the following Thursday, to express his stated position to the community in person, which he did.
On February 10th Wedgwood Square held a second meeting for our high-impact Residents to inform them of progress on the waiver agreement; about 100 Residents attended. The discussion was lively and many Residents pleaded with one another against the Trail Lake Drive location for many varied reasons focusing around property values, quality of life, and air quality.
After more than an hour of such discussion, Wedgwood Square President Tolli Thomas took a vote to determine the direction of the community's future position on the Trail Lake Drive drill site. 5 Residents were "undecided", 0 Residents were in favor of negotiating waivers for and in support of the Trail Lake Drive "Harbor Freight Tools" drill site, and ALL other remaining residents were opposed to waivers for the Trail Lake Drive drill site and in favor of the alternative S-820 "Pancho's" drill
site-stating that they would sign a waiver negotiated by the neighborhood for that location (a number of the residents present would be within 600 feet or 1,000 feet of either site). The Councilperson told the community first-hand that if that was what the community wanted, that was what would
be done.
On February 16th Wedgwood Square President Tolli Thomas attended a meeting with the Councilman and Vantage Energy where the outcome of the February 10th meeting was discussed. Vantage indicated that the company would pursue the purchase of the Chesapeake Energy drill site at S-820.
On February 23rd Wedgwood Square met with Vantage Energy to discuss progress. The company informed that it had not come to an agreement with Chesapeake on the S-820 drill site but was still in negotiations. The company asked for support on the S-820 drill site and also noted that it would prefer to include all of the high-impact waiver agreement points into the City's permitting process rather than include the points in a separate high-impact agreement, but it would still need the residents within 600 feet of the site to sign the City's waiver to meet permitting requirements. Wedgwood Square expressed that this plan, according to the intent of the document, did not meet the company's obligations in the original lease agreement, which had been discussed as interpreted to require a separate written agreement with Vantage Energy Lessors within 1,000 feet of a drill site to circumvent various restrictions or requirements in the lease agreement. Wedgwood Square stated its position that the community would prefer the separate waiver agreements, per the original lease agreement, for the protection of the community. Vantage Energy stated that they would be in touch and noted that they would like to complete this waiver negotiation as soon as possible.
On March 1st Vantage Energy applied for a multi-well permit for an initial 7 wells at the S-820 "Pancho's" drill site location and further requested a hearing before the City Council, which is only necessary if the company has not obtained all of its required waivers. The company still had not purchased this location from the current owner Chesapeake Energy at the time of application, according to a Vantage Energy Representative.
Over the next week, Vantage Energy's CEO Roger Biemans gave power point presentations to two or three surrounding neighborhood associations including Foster Park and Overton South and noted that a meeting was also planned with South Hills Neighborhood Association (all fall within District 3/Wedgwood Square along with all of Wedgwood falls within Council District 6).
The Vantage presentation discussed the drill site location at S-820 and Granbury Road. There was brief discussion regarding the Trail Lake Drive site, which was also noted on the map in the presentation and labeled "alternative drill site". The company stated that everyone who had walked into the meeting had received a piece of paper that included two signature places to allow seismic activity and separately to support the drilling at the S-820/Granbury Road location.
Vantage Energy also noted that there were landmen in the Church who would sign a lease agreement with anyone unleased who wished to lease now. This was not an SFWA or Neighborhood Association negotiated lease agreement.
According to one Vantage Energy Representative, this offered lease was not the Southwest Fort Worth Alliance (SFWA) negotiated lease agreement nor a modified SFWA lease agreement, the royalty clause among other clauses was different than that in the SFWA lease, and the bonus was not the $6K per acre that Vantage had indicated to SFWA that it would be offering unleased residents within the drilling area, but considerably lower.
The questions from residents addressed the expiration of the primary term, royalty revenue, and seismic activity. There were a couple of questions regarding impact to property values in close proximity of the site.
Vantage Energy CEO Roger Biemans, stated that there was no data to support any property devaluation and that any loss would be offset by a royalty stream, which Mr. Biemans estimated to be equal to the signing bonus received "Over the Life of the Well", which we have been told is estimated at 50 to 80 years. At the Foster Park meeting, Mr. Biemans stated that the only property associated with the S-820 drill site which would require a high-impact waiver would be Southcliff Baptist Church. Mr. Biemans did not note that there were homes in other neighborhoods that would be within 600' of the pad site, in Wedgwood Square and South Hills.
A Vantage Energy Representative noted to Wedgwood Square that Vantage anticipates that the company will probably still work to obtain City required waivers from the Wedgwood Square residents within 600 feet, but that there was not current authorization to negotiate high-impact waivers with Wedgwood Square. In other words, Vantage will offer some amount of money ($500-$1,000) and the City waiver to Wedgwood Square's 25-50 homeowners that are within 600' of the pad site, but did not anticipate negotiating the high impact waiver agreement with Wedgwood Square to meet the terms of the lease agreement for those leased to Vantage Energy who are within 1,000 feet of the pad site. According to this Vantage Energy Representative, Vantage Energy is now interpreting the requirements of the original lease agreement differently. This Vantage Energy Representative stated that the company would use the statements of support from other neighborhoods to offset any failure to obtain waivers from high-impact property owners.
Wedgwood Square President Tolli Thomas called the City of Fort Worth Gas Department to confirm the terms of the Vantage Energy permit application and spoke with Jaqi Peace who confirmed that Vantage Energy had filed a multi-well permit application on March 1st for 7 wells that ultimately requires 7 permits under one application for the S-820/Granbury Road location. No additional permit applications were filed by Vantage for any other location. Another City Representative, Estelle, who was processing the application, informed that Vantage has, in their application, requested a hearing in lieu of providing waivers for protected uses within 600 feet of the pad site and further stated that this was not standard procedure as most companies are fairly diligent about obtaining waivers and only request hearings if the cannot do so.
The Residents who would likely fall within 600 feet or 1,000 feet of the S-820 drill site should receive a notice from the City within days and are likely located along Wonder Drive, Wonder Court, Wooten Drive and Trail Lake Drive.
Vantage Energy contacted Wedgwood Square on March 2nd noting that the company may indeed move forward with negotiating waivers for the community if authorized, but there has been no contact on this point since.
Please send Wedgwood Square your questions and comments.
IMPORTANT DATES:
March 31st 3:00PM
Gas Drilling Review Committee Hearing
1000 Throckmorton Street
Hearing for Vantage Energy's High Impact Multi-well Dill Site Permit
Questions/Comments City of Fort Worth Gas Well Section 817-392-2339
http://www.fortworthgov.org/gaswells/default.aspx?id=50580
May 3rd
City Council Meeting/Public Hearing
1000 Throckmorton Street
Hearing for Vantage Energy's High Impact Multi-well Drill Site Permit
(without high-impact waivers from Residents within 600')
Questions/Comments City of Fort Worth District 6 Council Office Telephone
817-392-8806 (Fax: 817-392-6187) E-mail: District6@fortworthgov.org
http://www.fortworthgov.org/government/district6/