The noise, I mean the rig is less than a mile from my house.... Yes you can hear it... All the stupid freaking trucks coming and going all hours of the night sucks, yes you can hear the stupid exhaust brakes... Yes the road damage completely sucks cause you have to drive considerabley under the speed limit to travel on those roads...

 

Once the drilling stops drilling (usually 3 weeks per well) new trees and grass are replanted and either the city is paid a lump sum (for road repairs) or the oil company has the roads repaived themselves. So the rigs will eventually move out of your view but you and your local economy will benefit from it for many years to come. Plus for all of us who like driving our gas guzzling trucks we need to keep drilling. Even though we are short of refining abilities. Not to mention all the other petroleum based things we all use on a day to day basis (Google it, its a long list)....basically Americans depend on oil so unless you want foreign countries to have us by our ***** lets keep it in the U.S

 

Just because we allow drilling does not mean Rigs will be everywhere.

I just think its ridiculous that we are so dependent on foreign oil, I would rather pay 100.00 a barrel for US oil instead of the profits going overseas. We need the money in our economy instead of theirs.

The oil companies are going to make their profits no matter what the price per barrel is.
Its business and its BIG business. Profit margins will only decline if the demand declines...
We all know the demand for oil is high and will be high for many years to come.

If I had an oil company and was paying X amount per barrel and making X amount of profit and suddenly my cost of oil from my supplier increases I just increase my total price to cover the cost increase.... Im not going to take a hit on my profit margin and keep prices low if the demand for the oil is still there.

Oil prices will come down which will bring the prices of everything else affiliated with oil down as well.
Shipping, food and thousands of other things.

BUT, the only thing that will bring them down is if we start drilling on our territory.

Of course there are positives and negatives associated with drilling on our territory but at the same time there are a TON of negatives when purchasing foreign oil.

The positives will out weigh the negatives in this situation, I promise you when the price of oil increases so much that you cant afford any luxuries at all and living check to check to break even each month is a common occurrence you will wish you had a noisy rig down the road from you.
Then again you may make enough money that it wont play a huge toll on you or your family but just think of the lower income class, with gas 4.00 a gallon and pay wages as low as they are you begin to wonder how long this can go on before the economy crashes all together....

 

Trees, grass, road repairs, in two years of this going on around here I have yet to see it... I am not saying they don't do it but I don't see it... For example: When me and my GF started dating (2.5 years ago) the road going to my parents house 1187 (into Aledo) was being completely repaved, paid for by tax payer of Aledo... That is also when all this drilling started... Today you have to drive 35mph on a 55mph road other wise it completely kills your vehicle...

I understand what your saying since you work in the industry and know how things are supposed to occur... However I have to deal with this stuff everyday... Perhaps you should get the people you work for to come visit some of the sites and see what it is doing to the community themselves...

 

One big accident in the last what 20 years? You should also tell the WHOLE story, since then MANY safety precautions have been enacted because of the Valdez. So really how many environmentally damaging spills have there been by a US company since the Valdez?
Ok a 1/3, now tell me how much water is wasted watering your lawn? IMO water being used to help the economy is better used for that then for our own gain.
Mean Z71 covered this one for me pretty good. Im in the construction business and my family has land in east texas that has gas wells on it and just a few miles away coal strip mining going on so Im very familiar with the practices of these types of companies. They leave an area in better condition then it was before. Not to mention flood the local market with many. Its not all bad IMO.

 

Sorry for the venting, apparently my Tree-Hugging-GF is rubbing off on me... Nothing offense to anyone, just my opinion...

 

I agree with corey about the noise. There was a rig across the lake by my house, and its at least 2 miles away, but when it was drilling I could feel the vibration in the ground and heard a really low deep noise 24/7 until they were done drilling.

 

The roads wont be repaired until they are done otherwise they just tear them up again we have many contracts for the cities north of Austin where they use to mine Limestone and the roads need to be fixed due to the heavy trucks. Crude oil drilling is different too, if its a large deposit a pipeline is built isntead of stored in onsite tanks then trucked away.

 

I hope you arent taking my posts as direct attacks on you, I just want to prevent both sides of the story that its not all doom and gloom for everyone and the environment if drilling happens.

 

Do you own a home? Do you know what happens when you don't water your grass in texas and you let it die? It ruins your foundation. Also if everyone lets their yard go to crap what do you think that does to property values... Yes I do take pride in my yard, Yes I do water twice a week, nothing overly done, just enough to keep it green... Not watering your grass, is like never ever washing your vehicle...

Last year we were under serious water restrictions, and we had record rain fall last year.... I wonder where that water went?