Letter: Resident says no to natural gas tests

Recently I received a letter in the mail from Venoco Inc. requesting to do natural gas exploration testing on my property. We own a big whopping quarter–acre on the west side of the Sutter Buttes.

I called to verify exactly what would happen once I signed the consent form and was told how the testing would be done.

My wife received a call while I was at work from them stating they would begin testing soon. When she called to inform me of this, I said I have not signed any release paper and you can still see it sitting on our computer.

We had discussed the fact that we will not let Venoco do any testing on our property. The reason being is that they aren’t doing slant drilling locally in the Sutter Buttes region. Slant drilling allows multiple well heads at the same site. Currently they are drilling one well per pad. The more wells you put on one pad the less environmental impact. It doesn’t take an expensive environmental impact report for that to make sense.

Venoco’s Web site states they want to be “environmentally sensitive.” It does cost a tad more but with record oil company profits recently there is no reason not to.

I urge everyone who receives a request from Venoco for testing to deny it until they start slant drilling with multiple well sites on each pad. A well every few acres is unacceptable.  I am not against drilling for natural gas in our region as I think it’s needed, but it’s just the method that needs to be changed.

Ted Dekens
Live Oak