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Dear Schuyler County Landowners:
We have some good news and updates for you. You will be receiving an
authorization form for the land you signed up for with the Schuyler
County Landowners Coalition (Schuyler LOC). This authorization will be
mailed to you from BTO Associates, Inc., which allows BTO Associates to
include your property in the initial discussions for companies
interested in leasing in Schuyler County. The authorization that you
sign does not bind you or your property into any lease agreement. If a
company comes back with an offer, you the landowner will make the
decision to sign or not to sign any lease presented to the Schuyler
Landowners Coalition when the full terms and conditions of a lease would
be presented.
First, we need to give you a little history and update to how we got here:
In October of 2008 we formed a steering committee for the Schuyler
County Landowners interested in the possibility of leasing their
property as New York State moved toward natural gas development in
Marcellus Shale. We began working with consultant, Nicole Gwardyak of
Empire Energy Consultants LLC who helped us organize and begin forming
the group. We were able to accomplish the ground work, but the
marketing portion fell silent when New York State essentially shut all
opportunities or possibility for drilling for natural gas in the
Marcellus Shale down in 2008.
Schuyler LOC had several meetings in 2009 and 2010 presenting
information on leases and general concerns and information for
landowners. You signed up at that time to be a member of the Schuyler
LOC group.
New York State declared a moratorium on issuing drilling permits to
companies who were interested in coming to New York to work. From 2008
until July of 2011 we have waited. In July, the New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) published the final
Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) and we have
been waiting to see how long the public comment period would run on that
release. On September 7, 2011, the NYSDEC announced that the public
comment period would close on December 12, 2011.
We expect public comment period to end December 12, 2011, comments will
be collected and reviewed, and sometime in early 2012, permits will be
issued to companies interested in drilling in New York State.
In March 2011, we met and spoke with BTO Associates, Inc., (a newly
formed company who took over the work that Nicole Gwardyak and Empire
Energy Consultants LLC had done with the Steuben County Landowners
Coalition SCLOC) and have asked them to work with the Schuyler LOC
group.
BTO Associates, Inc., is a company formed by Kenneth Knowles, John
Bloise, Dana Knowles and Mary Hickey to work with the various landowners
across the southern tier of New York who wanted to join in with the
Steuben Coalition and to acquire a lease for their natural gas and
mineral rights. BTO has been working together since 2010 to keep the
group together and to position the landowners for a lease when New York
State opens.
BTO is undertaking the mapping, data collection, marketing and obtaining
the authorizations from individual land owners in order to market our
coalition. We feel confident that with the marketing contacts and work
that BTO is doing for Steuben and the other area counties it is working
with, we are in a good position to be ready and out front when leasing
opens.
If you have questions, we encourage you to email any one of us.
Please share this information with your family and friends who may be
thinking about joining the coalition. They can do so easily online at
the SchuylerLOC.org site. www.schuylerloc.org There is also a sign in page for Schuyler Landowners at www.scloc.com.
