NORWICH – County Board Chairman Richard B. Decker took the opportunity during a meeting of the Agriculture, Buildings and Grounds Committee this week to explain why he signed a compulsory integration agreement with a natural gas company in January without the approval of town and City of Norwich supervisors.
The North Norwich supervisor said he made the decision after consulting with the county’s attorney due to the 21-day time period for responding as well as the small amount of county-owned property involved.
The Chenango County Board of Supervisors first learned last week that they had entered into a compulsory integration lease with Nornew, Inc. on 4.5 acres of county-owned land in Preston. Nornew drilled a well in April on private property located nearby county Road 18.
“We felt it was important that we made sure we were integrated. We felt it was necessary that the county got what they were supposed to get and we didn’t have time,” Decker said. “If the acreage had been larger, we would have called an emergency meeting of the board. ... And, if we had time to do it, we would have come to the committee.”
Compulsory integration in New York is governed by the Oil, Gas and Solution Mining Law based on a proposed well’s depth and the specific layer of rock or shale targeted. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation contacts landowners within a specific spacing unit when a well is set to be drilled, giving the neighboring property owners three options to integrate. Decker said previously that the option he selected carried the least liability.
Town of Preston Supervisor Peter C. Flanagan said Decker “made the right choice” in the contract. He also agreed with fellow members of his committee that the chairman acted as a part of his regular administrative duties. However, Flanagan pointed to the probability of future compulsory integration agreements and even potential leasing offers from natural gas companies for county-owned land and right-of-ways.
Companies from all over the nation and the world have actively targeted landowners in Chenango County over the past few years in order to tap into layers of the resource lying in the strata underground. Recently discovered techniques for horizontal drilling and much larger stores of gas in the Appalachian Basin’s Marcellus Shale located here have skyrocketed lease offers from single digits in 2006 to upwards of $3,000 an acre today.
“The real issue is going forward,” Flanagan said. “It will probably happen to us again. What should we do with the rest of the land we have? We could negotiate both a bonus and royalties on county-owned land. Other municipalities are doing it.”
In Endicott, public officials are currently considering an offer to lease the village’s Tri-City Airport for $500 an acre. If prospectors find natural gas on the land, the village stands to get 12.5 percent in royalties. And in Chemung County, officials have released requests for proposals, or RFPs, to companies that might be interested in leasing county-owned land.
“Do we want to investigate leasing out land? If so, we need to get on the ball and do an inventory of our acreage and right-of-ways to see how much we have,” Flanagan said.
Decker told the committee that county Attorney Richard Breslin was currently researching lease offerings for the 116-acre, county-owned Cook Park in Greene and 92 acres at Preston Manor in Preston.
Committee Chairman Robert D. Briggs, R-Afton, requested a tally of all county-owned properties and right-of-ways from the Planning and Development Department.
The committee briefly discussed a referral from the Public Works Committee that asked for input about tapping off the proposed natural gas pipeline planned to travel through Chenango County for possible use by municipal businesses and organizations. No resolutions nor further referrals resulted.