[ROCKMAN]

That’s FRAKING road damage. LOL. The state officials in PA have been complaining about the road damage caused by the Marcellus boom. But consider the boom in Texas. From:

http://www.rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/1 ... ad_Repairs

“The Texas House and Senate passed a bill late Sunday that would secure $225 million in funds to repair roads in the Eagle Ford shale and Permian Basin areas. According to estimates, a county road used for drilling one oil and gas well will endure traffic the equivalent of 8 million passenger vehicles. To date, approximately 5,400 wells have been permitted in the Eagle Ford shale region alone, and 24,000 wells are projected to be operating in the region by 2022.”

But you don’t hear much complaining down here compared to PA. A couple of reasons. First, last year Eagle Ford exploration had an economic impact of $46 billion and supported over 86,000 jobs. Part of the reason Texas is typically creating more jobs than all the other states combined. Second, an even bigger reason the state can spend $225 million fixing the roads without much of problem: oil/NG severance tax. In the last full year Texas collected $2.7 BILLION in these taxes. Which doesn’t include a smaller amount collected by the counties as added value taxes.

And how much oil/NG severance tax did PA, the state where the first oil well was drilled, collect last year? Nada…zip…not a penny. They have not collect one cent since Drake spudded that first well. Texas, Louisiana and the other producing states have collected over a $trillion (in today’s $) in such taxes over the decades. Today Louisiana takes 1/8 of the value of every bbl of oil produced in the state. And that’s not counting income taxes and other fees.

And PA still won’t pass laws to collect such taxes but continues to complain about road damage and the cost of enforcing oil patch regs. Long ago I posted on a number of PA media sites about the absurdity of this situation and got no response from anyone. I have little sympathy for anyone who has the power to fix a problem yet does nothing.

[ROCKMAN]

Nothing really to add. Just didn't like Oil Stuff's funny N Dakota story having more views then this one.

[Oily Stuff]

Your headline was much better...I saw that and thought, ough oh, Rockman's been up two nights in a row again making clean up trips to get his LT's to TD and is in a baaaaaad mood this morning.

Those whiners in PA don't know what bad roads are...driving highway 85 between Dilley and Carrizo is like the Bearing Sea; approaching vacuum trucks disappear into deep troughs, then crest again on the other side like crab boats on Deadliest Catch.

Now you have 3, I didn't get any. Rats.

[ROCKMAN]

All in the marketing, bro. Greasy geeks like me and you can get off to some of this stuff but for others it can rate up there with watching paint dry. LOL. So got to add a little humor edge sometimes

[dolanbaker]

In this part of the world, the roads get Frac'ed every year by the
_rain
freeze
thaw
goto _rain

cycle

The potholers are out in force dumping tarmac into the holes and using their size 12 boots to tamp it down.

[ROCKMAN]

Good point: as bad as the trucks can tear up the roads in S Texas it has to be that much worse in freeze country. PA can charge the oil patch out the ass and they won't stop drilling. Texas and La probably have more combined wells drilled then the rest of the country combined and obviously the taxes haven't stopped us.

[Keith_McClary]

Taxes are bigger in Texas?

[EdwinSm]

Taxes are bigger in Texas?

Love the anagram

[ROCKMAN]

Keith - The standard rates for Texas severance tax are as follows:
■Oil: 4.6% of market value of oil produced
■Natural Gas: 7.5% of market value of gas produced
■Condensate: 4.6% of market value

In addition counties collect about 1%+ in production taxes. They also assess a property tax on the reserves while they are still in the ground. And there are still the regulatory fees collected by the Texas Rail Road Commission. And, of course, there is the state corporate income tax.

And PA: In 2011 a hypothetical severance tax of $246 million would have been collected had they the same rates as Texas. While that wouldn’t have solved their budget problems, it would be enough to preserve the jobs of thousands of teachers throughout the Commonwealth. And what do some PA folks think? From: http://thedailyreview.com/opinion/sever ... -1.1127186

“Before he puts on his monogrammed ostrich-skin boots and saddles up the F-150, Mr. Corbett (the PA gov) should consider that the Great State of Texas has long-standing severance taxes on oil and gas extraction. Depending upon production rates, the taxes sometimes have generated more than $2 billion a year in revenue for the state government. So far, there has been no mass exodus of drilling companies from Houston to Harrisburg, PA.”

BTW: severance tax rates are higher in La.

[kuidaskassikaeb]

In some ways it's not as bad as you say. Pennsylvania does get 200 million from taxes on fracking. And frankly their roads have always sucked.

http://www.keystonepolitics.com/2012/09 ... lus-shale/

But in some ways it's much worse. I believe they could discharge the fracking fluid into streams till 2010.
Now they want to use the fluid as road salt.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/0 ... -road-salt

[ROCKMAN]

K – True but those are fees. All states charge fees for oil/NG ops. But that isn’t revenue keyed to the value of the state’s resources being depleted. That’s what severance taxes accomplish. Fees etc weren’t part of the Texas sevtax number.

I was shocked to when the news came out. It wasn’t legal for private companies to due surface discharges but municipalities could. Local water treatment plants were charging companies a fees to take in the nasties and then would dump the untreatable into the streams. Both NY and PA had to pass laws making it illegal. It the meantime the public wasn’t paying attention thanks to misplaced MSM attention.

[kuidaskassikaeb]

Still legal in Ohio

Update: This insane practice is now legal in Ohio. (h/t laderrick)

Section 1509.226 of the Ohio Revised Code allows political subdivisions (counties, cities, towns, villages and townships) to authorize brine spraying on local roads for dust and ice control purposes. However, under ORC Section 1509.226, political subdivisions must pass an authorizing resolution before any brine spraying can occur. We strongly encourage concerned citizens to press their local governing bodies to repeal any brine application resolutions that are currently on the books.

One of the reasons for the resistance to fracking is the sense that our elected officials aren't on our side. If even oil company executives can be shocked.

[ROCKMAN]

k - I can honestly say I was shocked when I found out companies were giving salt water produced from their wells to the counties to spray on icy roads. I've actually spent $millions over the last 38 years paying to have salt water injected into deep disposal wells. If I were caught doing what the counties up north are doing I would be heavily fined, probably lose my license to operate in the state and possibly face some prison time if it were shown I was doing it for an extended period of time. And then be sued by the land owners as well as being forced to pay big bucks for remediation. And the penalties would be even worse in La.

Apparent salt isn't as environmentally harmful up north as it is in the south.

[Keith_McClary]

Apparent salt isn't as environmentally harmful up north as it is in the south.

It's hard on bridges and roads too.

Rio De Flag Rt-66 bridge, AZ.

Also up north in Ontario.

Typical corrosion damage caused by chloride-contamination leaks in bridge deck expansion joints.

[ROCKMAN]

Keith - Great pics. I recall during the boom back in the late 70's a lot of my Yankee cousins moved to Texas. I was amazed to see what salt did to the undersides of cars. Learned to look real close at used cars for sale.

[Oily Stuff]

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013- ... ommunities

[ROCKMAN]

pstarr - Do you have the link to that number? The counties don't provide new roads for oil patch use...the oil pach pays. So are they coming up with that number for maintenance of existing roads?

[Oily Stuff]

The article in the link states "a county road system" and infers public county roads, not lease roads. Mr. Starr has made the right observation. I am not sure if those estimated costs in DeWitt County is correct in the article; it seems high to me, though a large number of county roads were paved, poorly, over the past 10-12 years and the ones I have seen in that county are totally destroyed. Since 2011 I am quite certain the income from severance taxes is much higher than quoted in the article; moot anyway as I don't believe state severance taxes are allocated to county road maintenance. I believe DeWitt was one of the first counties in the shale play to dun companies on a location or per drilled well basis for road repairs, not sure.

It does not seem to be a stretch to me that county roads would have to be enlarged, widened, rebuilt, straightened and many, many single lane bridges rebuilt; it is a rural area that now has 1-35 like traffic and most of it heavier than existing load limits. If I lived down there I would be looking to move to Nevada where they don't have any stinkin' shale wells. You can't even take a leak off your front porch down there anymore without having some vacuum truck driver staring at you. Or the Railroad Commission writing you up for spill violation.