Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Gas Well Maps at Pagaslease.com

There is a great resource for visual learners, curious neighbors and anyone interested in tracking the march of gas exploration across the landscape of Northeastern Pennsylvania at pagaslease.com.

The landowners' forum site hosts a natural gas well mapper here. The page features four maps: one for Bradford, Susquehanna, Wayne, Wyoming and Lackawanna counties; one for the Southern Tier of New York state; one combined Pennsylvania and New York map; and one for the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas.

The maps use green markers to show where gas has been found, red markers to show where there are permits to drill, flags to show permits for a gas pipeline, P's to show current pipelines, and small yellow houses to show gas pipeline stations. The Google maps allow browsers to switch between political map, satellite map and terrain map views, so you can see the natural and man-made features in the area surrounding each proposed well site or pipeline. The site's authors also note a future feature of the maps: as Google updates its satellite images, the three- to five- acre well pads will be visible from the sky.

Click on the individual points and sometimes added information, like a May 25 photo of the drilling rig at the Lewis 2 well site, pops up.

The site is looking for help mapping areas. To volunteer, contact the well mapping team here.