more money will flow into local economies from gas royalty payments
The freight railroad, which runs 35 miles north to Corning, New York, had its busiest year in more than two decades in 2009, fueled by demand from a booming natural gas industry, which uses sand in hydraulic fracturing operations.
Revenue doubled last year for Wellsboro & Corning Railroad, owned by Tom Myles and sons Tom Jr. and Bill, and the sand-hauling contracts that began a year ago are due to double revenue again in 2010 and make up 80 percent of Dell inspiron 1526 battery business.It’s a windfall for the Myles — who bought the railroad’s rolling stock for $750,000 in January 2008, expecting to serve two local manufacturing companies — and for Wellsboro, which has a population of about 3,200, and its surrounding farms.
The boom has also transformed the lives of some local farmers who, after struggling financially for years, now find themselves with six- or seven-figure checks from the gas companies in return for leasing their land for drilling.Tim Gooch, a partner in the Wellsboro office of the accounting firm ParenteBeard LLC, recalled a dairy farmer client who had run up about $500,000 in debt over 20 years because of depressed milk prices and rising farm costs.
But then in 2008, the farmer got a gas-lease check for $800,000, allowing him to pay off his debts and own his 300 acres outright for the first time, Gooch said.”Some of them have had tears in their eyes, thinking they may have to give up the farm to Dell inspiron 1521 battery ,” said Gooch. “The gas checks have allowed them to stay on their land.”
Energy companies are paying around $2,500 an acre — a lump sum of about $375,000 for a typical 150-acre farm, he said. And more money will also flow into local economies from gas royalty payments on Dell latitude d430 battery , which are yet to be paid in significant quantities.n Tioga County surrounding Wellsboro, the biggest local operator, East Resources Inc., drilled 42 Marcellus wells in 2009 and expects to sink another 200 this year.
The company and its affiliates employ about 60 people in the county and it expects its work force there to grow by 30 percent in 2010.Bob and Marsha Chesko own the Sherwood Motel in downtown Wellsboro and say it was full of Dell CF623 battery , or nearly so, throughout the 2009/10 winter — an unprecedented experience in their seven years there — due to an influx of workers at nearby gas rigs.
In previous years, the hotel’s winter occupancy struggled to reach 40 percent and traditionally depended largely on the summer trade of tourists visiting the picturesque northern Pennsylvania countryside.The Chesko’s previously set aside money from the summer tourist trade to see them through lean winter months, but this year the jump in winter business has allowed them to meet running and renovation expenses without dipping into reserves.
And with the expected growth in the area’s gas industry, Bob Chesko said: “It’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some say it’s going to be a 20-year project.” But some Wellsboro locals have raised concern over damage to roads from heavy truck traffic to Dell GD761 battery , worries about possible water contamination from the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, and unease that their quiet rural life style is being lost.
“I caught myself feeling very sad,” said Mary Worthington, treasurer of the local chamber of commerce, as she recently watched a constant stream of gas-industry trucks and mud-spattered pickups grind past her town-center office.
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