Over 1,400 sign gas leases in Wayne

By TOM KANE

HONESDALE, PA - There are over 1,400 gas drilling contracts listed in the Wayne County Recorder of Deeds Office. Most of them are in northern Wayne County townships and boroughs. Fewer are in southern Wayne.

According to the wording in the contracts, which is boiler-plate language stating similar details, the signers give the companies the right to do seismic testing, drilling, laying of pipelines and the building of roads on their property.

Gas companies, which are not expected to drill in all 1,400 locations, will also need the right to lay feeder pipelines to take the gas to larger lines, like the Tennessee Pipeline or the Millennium Pipeline in New York.

The Tennessee line, which travels from Mexico to Canada and cuts across Wayne County in Clinton Township, has a relatively small bore, unlike the 30-inch Millennium line, which is now being laid in to replace the 12-inch Columbia pipeline. The Millennium line traverses western Sullivan County, and work on the upgrade has reached about the middle of the county on its route from Canada across Lake Erie to Ramapo, NJ.

Some have speculated that one of the reasons why the gas drillers have concentrated on Wayne County, beside the potential of the vast Marcellus Shale deposit, is its proximity to the new Millennium line.

As of now, gas from the Tennessee line can link to the Millennium pipe at a point east of Port Jervis in the forestland in Orange County, crossing the Delaware River at a location north of Milford, PA.