Doegey said the city hasn't conducted any research to calculate potential dangers of drilling underneath a megastructure like Cowboys Stadium. But he said there has to be a concern about drilling beneath a structure that expensive ($1.15 billion) and that heavy (more than 805 million pounds).
"Doegey said that when he lived in Southern California, oil extraction had caused some surface collapses and seawater had to be injected into the rock to mitigate that."
I guess it is okay to drill under homes, schools, parks, hospitals, land used for farming and livestock (food sources), near water wells etc., but not under the Cowboy Stadium!
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/070509dnmetmineralrights.3ce41e0.html
Cowboys Stadium site in Arlington isn't expected to be used for gas drilling
10:34 PM CDT on Saturday, July 4, 2009
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News jmosier@dallasnews.com
Natural gas wells could eventually crisscross the rock formations below almost every part of Arlington, but one area is expected to remain off limits.
City Attorney Jay Doegey said that standard language in contracts with the Dallas Cowboys probably would prohibit drilling under the team's new stadium. He said there are concerns – although they are remote – that drilling could affect the building's structural integrity.
"We don't want the ground to give and cause it to crack or sink," Doegey said about the rock beneath the stadium.
The language was put in the contracts long before five small earthquakes shook Cleburne in a single week in early June. Researchers are looking into whether those and many others recently were the result of extensive gas drilling in the underground Barnett Shale formation.
Earthquakes have been rare in North Texas until recently. Thousands of wells have been drilled in the western areas of North Texas in recent years.
Arlington and the Cowboys' decision to include the language could potentially make it harder – but not impossible – to lease the 200-acre stadium site for drilling. The options are already limited since the property is in a developed area.
Attorney Glenn Sodd, who represented some property owners whose land was acquired for the stadium, said this is the first he's heard of the potential ban. It's of particular interest to him because his last group of clients who settled was allowed to keep some mineral rights through a deal that hadn't been publicized before now.
At stake could be thousands of dollars for Sodd's clients and potentially millions for the city.
By banning drilling under the stadium property, the city could only lease the land to drillers if it were "pooled" with adjacent property. The drilling would have to occur under the other property, but revenue would be split among all mineral rights owners.
There are no immediate plans to lease the stadium land for gas drilling, and the market for such leases has slowed dramatically in the past year. The recession and falling natural gas prices have dropped signing bonuses from nearly $30,000 per acre in some areas to about $2,000 to $2,500 per acre.
Doegey said the city hasn't conducted any research to calculate potential dangers of drilling underneath a megastructure like Cowboys Stadium. But he said there has to be a concern about drilling beneath a structure that expensive ($1.15 billion) and that heavy (more than 805 million pounds).
"I don't know that we would want to take the chance, even if it was a long shot," Doegey said.
Parts of the stadium extend about 120 feet below street level. Gas drilling in the Barnett Shale often happens at a depth of about 1 ½ miles (or 7,920 feet).
Ed Ireland, executive director of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, said he's not sure there is any research that would back up the city's stance.
"I'm not aware that there ever has been any correlation between anything that happens on the surface and drilling," he said. "Most of that 8,000 feet is various layers of rock."
Doegey said that when he lived in Southern California, oil extraction had caused some surface collapses and seawater had to be injected into the rock to mitigate that.
Ireland said he's not familiar with what happened in Southern California, but he said that could have been the result of drilling at a shallower depth or a different makeup of the underground formations.
Sodd said he's not too concerned with the city's policy as long as Arlington officials still intend to lease the land eventually. He said that was a significant part of his negotiations with the city.
Arlington officials balked at first, saying that such a deal could potentially allow private property owners to have surface access to the stadium property. One official raised the possible threat of former property owners demanding that a drilling rig be placed in a Cowboys parking lot.
Sodd's clients were among the last to sign a deal with the city, a settlement with no mention of mineral rights. He said he couldn't remember who suggested keeping the mineral rights out of the contract.
While gathering the land needed for the stadium, Arlington bought some property and condemned other tracts. Instead of taking the straightforward route, the city dropped its eminent domain cases against Sodd's clients. He then had a portion of the mineral rights deeded to a company owned by his law firm, according to county records.
Soon after, a deal was struck without having to mention the mineral rights in the public settlement.
Doegey said he wasn't involved in the negotiations on this case. But he said that other property owners weren't as insistent as Sodd's clients about keeping the mineral rights.
Sodd said this type of quiet approach is common in eminent domain cases. He said that many government agencies don't want details of settlements to be released because they could affect negotiations with others.
"If that was their intention, I don't blame them," Sodd said.
Although the mineral rights are now worth only a fraction of what they once were, Sodd said patience could eventually be rewarded.
"The one that is a certainty in the oil and gas business is that prices are going to rise and fall," he said. "The question is not whether it's going to [rise in price], it's when it's going to."
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