Our Views: Tap water, gas responsibly
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There’s gold for landowners in the Shreveport area, in the form of natural gas in the big Haynesville Shale find. But it’s going to take another resource to get it out: water.
Lots of water.
While the eye-popping lease payments in the Shale find have drawn most of the attention, oilmen are also focused on the problems of drilling for and transporting the natural gas to market. That production process is the long-term payoff for landowners, Don Briggs of the Independent Oil and Gas Association told the Press Club of Baton Rouge.
Companies and local officials have begun informal discussions about the issues of developing the field, still being mapped and leased. Only a few wells have begun drilling, but already water is one of the resource issues for the wells, Briggs said.
Each well requires about 3 million gallons of water to drill.
It’s strange to think of Louisiana, which drains most of the continental United States, as having any shortage of water. Briggs said the aquifers that provide drinking water for the region are part of the answer, but piping or trucking water to the wells is a huge undertaking and companies are looking at any source of water that they can find.
North Louisiana already has been concerned with the impact of today’s population drawing too much on the Sparta and other major aquifers.
We believe it’s important that state and local officials be at the table to work on water-resource solutions that don’t further strain aquifers. Local and state governments benefit greatly from lease and royalty payments, too. Officials don’t want to shut down this potential golden goose, any more than other landowners do.
Today’s oil and gas industry is in environmental terms a far cry from what it was two generations ago. Briggs said the industry is committed to responsible stewardship of the new find.
People in northwest Louisiana talk of little else these days than the Haynesville Shale. But water is a vital resource, too, and the region needs both to be developed in a sustainable way.
Lots of water.
While the eye-popping lease payments in the Shale find have drawn most of the attention, oilmen are also focused on the problems of drilling for and transporting the natural gas to market. That production process is the long-term payoff for landowners, Don Briggs of the Independent Oil and Gas Association told the Press Club of Baton Rouge.
Companies and local officials have begun informal discussions about the issues of developing the field, still being mapped and leased. Only a few wells have begun drilling, but already water is one of the resource issues for the wells, Briggs said.
Each well requires about 3 million gallons of water to drill.
It’s strange to think of Louisiana, which drains most of the continental United States, as having any shortage of water. Briggs said the aquifers that provide drinking water for the region are part of the answer, but piping or trucking water to the wells is a huge undertaking and companies are looking at any source of water that they can find.
North Louisiana already has been concerned with the impact of today’s population drawing too much on the Sparta and other major aquifers.
We believe it’s important that state and local officials be at the table to work on water-resource solutions that don’t further strain aquifers. Local and state governments benefit greatly from lease and royalty payments, too. Officials don’t want to shut down this potential golden goose, any more than other landowners do.
Today’s oil and gas industry is in environmental terms a far cry from what it was two generations ago. Briggs said the industry is committed to responsible stewardship of the new find.
People in northwest Louisiana talk of little else these days than the Haynesville Shale. But water is a vital resource, too, and the region needs both to be developed in a sustainable way.
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