Gas BOOM

From here in March

I sat here trying to think of a topic for the day and was reminded that our county and many around it have been overrun by the natural gas industry. Good or bad..Lots and lots of arguments pro and con. The industry has put our county at the top of the employment list, spent millions of dollars for leasing and support. Caused my natural gas bill to decrease a little as well as other financial benefits for my family in the form of lease signings.

Man Camp

 Chesapeake Energy has started to build a facility to house its workers. The housing facility isn't far from my home. (1 mile) To the best of my knowledge most of the contractors and sub-contractors are local companies. It seems to be a first class operation as it becomes a reality. Its use in the future will be interesting as the inhabitants will be roughnecks (drill rig operators and other employees) Up to 250 people will live there full time, eat there, sleep there, launder their clothing there and recreate there. It will be surrounded by a fence. My question is the fence to keep us out or keep them in. I suppose it's for security too, as it's large enough (12 acres) to have much valuable equipment included there also.We'll see when it's finally in operation, sometime in early to mid winter.

Crane to set mobile houses on foundations

Chesapeake has also said they will use the facility as a training center for training future employees. There is also talk of a huge pipe storage yard in the future. All of this makes for jobs for our immediate area, including Waverly, Sayre, Athens and beyond into NY state. IMO, the only concern most have is what will this drilling/fracking ultimately do to the environment, especially the streams and rivers, roads, forest and most of all our drinking water supply.

To here in September

The units are like large mobile homes that are trucked into the site and then set on a foundation by a crane. They they  are plumbed and wired on the spot. They aren't a bad looking unit. We'll see more after they have some of them finished. I've heard there will be in the neighborhood of 30 of these units on site when complete. I will continue to take photos as it progresses.