While the Eagle Ford shale boom in Texas isn’t the first that Daryl Fowler has seen, the DeWitt County judge is working to ensure that his community will be left with new roads and housing when the oil and gas are gone.
Fowler, whose non-judicial post gives him administrative control over the county 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of San Antonio, has negotiated an $8,000-per-well fee from drilling companies to pay for roads. The county was able to reduce its property-tax rate by 18 percent this year while total assessed value jumped 27 percent as producers, including BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), and Pioneer Natural Resources Co. (PXD), sought permits to drill more than 340 wells.
“It takes 270 loads of gravel just to build a pad used for drilling a well, which means a lot of truck traffic on a lot of roads that nobody except Grandpa Schultz and some deer hunters may have used in the past,” Fowler, 55, said in a telephone interview.
Bloomberg
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