BRADFORD —
Terry Lutz is a 22-year veteran township supervisor in Bradford County, a hub of drilling activity for the natural gas locked in the Marcellus Shale.
When the first drilling rig moved in three years ago, things began to change – slowly at first.
But as the activity grew, so did the changes, Lutz said from his rural Troy Township home.
“It’s really something that will consume you,” he said.
Bradford – a northern-tier county that hugs the New York border – leads the state with 286 wells in operation and 694 state permits issued.
How many of those wells are in Lutz’s Troy Township?
“I don’t know. I lost count a long time ago,” he said.
Lutz, 58, bears the brunt of residents’ complaints related to the thousands of tanker trucks that use his secondary township roads, and the dust they generate.
But his involvement goes a little deeper – he has leased some of his land and he now hosts five wells on three pads.
“It will get messy,” Lutz warned. “When they started here it wasn’t pretty.”
For many weeks, Lutz was able to look out his windows and watch as the drilling rig was moved from well to well.
“There was lots of trucks,” he said. “There were bright lights and (there was) constant noise.”
The truck traffic really ramped up at fracking time – when tanker trucks brought upward of 5 million gallons of water for each well.
Transporting the sand used to prop open the fractures meant even more trucks.
But Lutz thinks Bradford, Tioga, Susquehanna and some of the other northern counties were a training ground for the drillers – many of whom were accustomed to the flat, open spaces of Texas and Oklahoma.
“Our township roads were built on horse paths, but now the drillers are building the roads before they bust them up,” he said. “Actually, they’ve been pretty good about it.”
Along with fixing the roads, many drilling companies are building pipelines to replace tanker trucks bringing the water from central impoundments.
“They’re learning and maybe it will be different when they get to your area,” Lutz said.
The learning curve for county officials has also been a sharp one, said Bradford County Commissioner John Sullivan.
This 62-year old farmer said it’s easy to overlook the economic benefits the Marcellus drilling has brought to his county when a trip up the highway takes much longer than it did a few years ago.
“One of the real problems is increased traffic,” Sullivan said.
“It’s unbelievable the way traffic has gone up. The other night, my wife and I went to get groceries, it’s two miles – a five-minute trip. It took us 30 minutes to get there.”
Most people living in Bradford County are learning that they have to plan ahead and allow more time, he said.
Sullivan said the traffic is the kind that can clog a highway in no time, slow-moving vehicles that take time to pull out from a signal light and can be difficult to pass.
“I’ve never seen so much equipment moving on the highways,” Sullivan said, “so many sand trucks and so many water trucks.”
Lutz who called himself “cautiously optimistic” that the Marcellus boom will be beneficial.
He has some advice for Cambria and Somerset residents.
“Proceed with caution and if something isn’t right, speak up,” Lutz said. “Remember, the drilling companies are not on your side, they’re looking out for themselves.”
Local News
‘It will get messy’: Bradford County residents say drilling brought changes
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