Company to Seek Permit for Disposal Well in Prater Area
Brine Water Would Be Put in Old Gas Well

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
   Plans to convert an existing natural gas well in the Paw Paw area of the Prater District into a water disposal well for brine water produced as a result of gas well drilling was a topic of discussion Monday during a meeting of the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors.
   Jerry Grantham, vice president of Pine Mountain Oil and Gas Inc., appeared before the board to explain the proposed project, noting it would be permitted under the regulations and requirements of both the United State Environmental Protection Agency and the Commonwealth of Virginia Division of Gas and Oil.
   A similar well was permitted in Buchanan County in the Ball Hollow area of the county in the late 1980s to early 1990s.
   Grantham explained the well proposed by Pine Mountain would be permitted as a Class II-D production fluid disposal well to receive water that is produced from coalbed methane and natural gas wells. The water is used in the process of fracturing the earth’s strata to release gas and that by-product, Grantham said, is saltwater.
    He noted the company is currently developing a coalbed methane project in western Buchanan County and needs a disposal well to both safely and economically dispose of the produced water.
    He added that the community will benefit from the development of the disposal well by the continued development of the company’s coalbed methane project and through employment and additional tax revenues which result because of it.
    Grantham said Pine Mountain has been drilling coalbed methane and conventional gas wells in Virginia and southern West Virginia since 1998. It ventured into the Prater area in 2004, drilling five test wells. Those wells, he said, panned out and as a result, the company has drilled some 30 additional wells from Poplar Gap to Paw Paw.
    Currently, he said, Pine Mountain is hauling the brine water which comes from its well development project to Beckley, WV to dispose of it. The cost with today’s fuel prices, he said is continuing to rise and as a result, he said the company began looking at the possibility of permitting its own disposal well.

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VDOT Looks to Tiered System To Maximize Revenue Funds

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
    A change in the formula affecting the allocation of revenue sharing funds for road projects may be detrimental in the long run for rural communities, Virginia Department of Transportation Resident Engineer Conrad Hill told members of the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors, Monday.
    Hill told board members VDOT is trying to maximize revenue sharing funds used statewide by putting that allocation on a new tiered system.
    The bottom line, he said, is that whichever counties in the state put up the most money, those counties will receive a share in the $15 million budgeted to be spent out of those funds statewide.
    "Whoever puts up the most money will get the revenue sharing money," Hill said. "It could be very detrimental in the long run to rural counties."
    Counties like Buchanan, he added, might not be impacted as hard since the county has coal haul road funds it can use to match state monies.
    Hill noted the Commonwealth Transportation Board has not yet approved the formula and will likely look at the formula and policy manual at its September meeting.
    "It will likely be October before that comes out," Hill advised.

Deadline to File for North Grundy Supervisor's Post is August 25

by Cathy St. Clair
News Editor
   Buchanan County taxpayers who owed the county less than $20 in delinquent taxes saw their slates wiped clean Monday when members of the Buchanan County Board of Supervisors agreed to declare the tax as "uncollectible" and authorized it to be purged from the delinquent lists.
   Treasurer Bill Keene attended Monday's meeting of the board to ask that the amounts be written off, noting the cost of continuing to attempt to collect those debts was more than what the original debt amount was.
   He also gave board members a fiscal year-end report on the county's financial state.
   In discussing the delinquent tax status, Keene said the cost of postage, the printing of tax tickets and the manpower to deal with the billing to delinquent taxpayers in the $20 and under category were continuing to escalate.
   Keene did not have an immediate estimate of how much the taxes to be written off would amount to. He said the mineral taxes alone would about to $5,900.
   Rocklick Supervisor David Ratliff made the motion to remove the amounts of less than $20 and to classify them as uncollectible as the treasurer requested.

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