LIBERTY — At first glance, Amite County’s entry into the oil boom business could be a two-headed monster.
On one hand, the county school district has 18 school-owned 16th Section land parcels, from which officials expect to receive a substantial amount of money from drilling.
On the other hand, county roads are expected to take a beating because of all the heavy trucks servicing the various wells.
Amite County supervisors recently agreed to pay Wiggins-based Batson & Co. up to $4,000 to study shale oil and gas development in southwest Mississippi. The study will focus on Tuscaloosa Shale production in Amite and two other counties. The Tuscaloosa Shale is a massive formation covering central Louisiana and parts of southwest Mississippi, and oil companies have been working it for months.
The shale play involves hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” in which vast amounts of water and other chemicals are injected into the wells to break up rock formations in the shale to release gas and oil contained within them.
“The more activity we have in the oil industry, the better it’s going to be for us,” Amite County School District Superintendent Scotty Whittington said. “It appears we’re going to make some money.”
Whittington said if the district does indeed realize monetary gain from drilling, it won’t be able to utilize the funds immediately.
“Any money would go into our oil fund, which is money we can’t touch,” Whittington said, referring to 16th Section fund restrictions. “But that will free up other money we need that is normally put in the fund.”
Whittington said he has some general ideas as to what to do with any money generated from the drilling.
“They say we’re going away from books and going to the Internet,” Whittington said about possible future teaching tools. “We could use a lot for maintenance funds. We’re trying to get involved with as much technology as we can. We always have needs in education. Our needs never go down. We’ve got worldwide needs. We’ve got to get our kids ready for the world.”
Amite County District 5 Supervisor Max Lawson has three wells in his district. A well on Wall Street is producing, while two on River Road have yet to be fracked.
The wells are being drilled by Encana, a Canadian company with a regional office in Dallas. Drilling has been going on since June.
“I’m continuously having to fix the roads,” Lawson said. “Our roads are not meant to tote these heavy loads. You can’t put 18-wheelers on the county roads 24/7 and expect them to hold up. (Encana) said they will help me fix the damages. It’s in the (county) permit.”
Amite County Board of Supervisors president Jackie Whittington and other county officials recently visited Mansfield, La., in DeSoto Parish to study how that area was affected by its drilling frenzy three years ago.
“They also had this oil play and they recommended to us that just before the oil companies come in, we should video the roads before, during and after and keep a record,” Jackie Whittington said. “I think we need to put something in play to take care of the road problem. Whatever we do, we need to make it fair for everybody.”
Jackie Whittington said he learned from his trip that it takes approximately 2,500 trips to and from wells to service each. He said saltwater trucks that dispose of the wastewater elsewhere weigh in the neighborhood of 140,000 to 150,000 pounds. Current weight limits on county roads are 80,000 pounds, or 84,000 pounds with a permit.
“We’ve got a lot of low-weight roads which are not going to be able to withstand these heavy loads,” Whittington said, estimating that it costs the county $24,000 per mile to resurface roads and $37,000 per mile to blacktop them.
