Gas Wells for Southwest Virginia

More Gas Wells for Southwest Virginia

Another county might soon be added to the list of those producing natural gas in Southwest Virginia: Washington. But only if the county will change its zoning ordinance to allow it.

The Virginia Gas and Oil Board has approved the creation of two drilling units and forced pooling orders for the first of four proposed gas wells in the Benhams area of Washington County.

Forced pooling is a process authorized by Virginia law that allows gas companies to drill even without leases from all affected property owners and that provides the uncooperative owners a default one-eighth royalty. The system is the subject of a set of class-action federal lawsuits in which coalfield landowners claim that gas companies benefit at the expense of citizens -- and that promised payouts are not always delivered.

Charlie Bartlett, a geological consultant who's long advocated for Washington County's gas potential, said he also has long advocated for landowners getting their rightful royalties when gas is produced from beneath their land, and he's making it a point to go about the project in Washington County the right way.

He also said that Washington County could ultimately have many more gas wells.

 "If those [first ones] are successful, it will lead to a couple of dozen wells," Bartlett said. "So basically we're hoping for the establishment of a new gas field in Washington County."

Abingdon-based Southeast Land and Mineral wants to drill the proposed wells in an area about a mile north of Benhams, Bartlett said, about five miles north of Bristol and eight miles northwest of Abingdon. He also said the county has gas development potential in the area "between about the North Fork of the Holston and about Route 700."

Were Washington County to enact a severance tax, each well could generate thousands of dollars in revenue, Bartlett said, not to mention thousands in royalties for landowners and the creation of jobs.

"We're hoping that we can make them [Southeast Land and Mineral] some money, make the landowners some money, make the county some money and make the state some money, and everybody will be happy," Bartlett said.

Regarding the concerns raised by the federal lawsuits, Bartlett said he does not anticipate any effects on his project -- except the possible assurance that landowners would get fairer treatment under the law.

First, however, the project, financed by a coal investor from Kentucky, must hurdle the zoning ordinance that currently prohibits natural gas drilling in Washington County. And if the county agrees to change the ordinance to allow drilling, that would open the county for any gas company to operate.

"It would be sort of ridiculous for us to use gas from other places and not allow gas to be drilled here," Bartlett said.

Bartlett said he's run into some skepticism from county zoning officials. But Odell Owens, the county supervisor who represents the district where the wells are proposed, said it's an idea worth exploring.

"If we're sitting on natural gas that the landowners can benefit from extracting, and also if it can serve as a revenue source for the county, we have to look at it," Owens said, adding that experts likely will be asked to speak before the board.

While Owens said the county's groundwater resources are precious, he suggested that if drilling can be done safely -- protecting that natural resource -- he'd be supportive.

County Administrator Mark Reeter said he doesn't know why the county's zoning ordinance doesn't mention -- and therefore doesn't allow -- drilling, and county officials are just beginning to research what gas drilling is about.

At a Feb. 22 meeting of the Washington County Board of Supervisors -- more than six months after the county's Board of Zoning Appeals affirmed a decision denying permission to drill -- a man representing the company came to extol the virtues of gas production.

"We need to get all the energy we can from beneath the soils of the U.S. instead of being held hostage," Gus Sorensen of Bristol told the board members. "I hope that any sort of rules and regulations can be taken care of so we can extract this energy."

At a county board meeting last week, Damascus resident Judith McBride spoke in opposition to the zoning change that would allow drilling, citing potential risks to water supplies from wastewater disposal. Originally from Pennsylvania, McBride compared the impact of drilling on her family farm back home to the effects of strip mining.

In Abingdon, long an economic center for the coal and gas-producing region of Southwest Virginia and home to many who moved away from the environmental downside of life in coal country, it's not clear yet how residents will react to the proposal.

However, there is no coal -- only gas -- in Washington County.

And, Bartlett said, he has no intention of drilling near the town of Abingdon. Plus, he said, the county, through its zoning ordinance, could restrict drilling to certain areas.