Backyard Bonanza

A way to cut fuel bills: drill your own gas well

Beating the energy crisis is a cinch for hundreds of residents of Western Pennsylvania: they merely sink a well in their own backyard to tap the region's substantial deposits of natural gas. Though the area's gas fields are hardly in the same league as those in Texas and Louisiana, supplies are more than adequate to meet the heating and cooking needs of individual households and even provide an energy source for factories and electric utilities. The pace of new drilling has markedly quickened as the price of fuel has rocketed. Last year, for example, 674 wells were drilled in Pennsylvania, mostly in the western part of the state. Of those, 290 new wells were dug in Indiana County, which is about 40 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Some of the wells are drilled by utilities and wildcatters who provide free fuel and a small royalty to the landowner. Other wells are sunk by individuals. A typical case is that of Fred Norman of Harborcreek, near Erie, Pa., who decided three years ago to follow the example of many of his neighbors and dig his own well. For $3,000 Norman hired a water-well driller, who struck gas at only 874 ft. Norman's cousin, a plumber, rigged a pipe to carry the gas into the house, where it fuels a hot-water heater, two heating stoves and a cooking stove. Norman estimates that the well has cut his fuel bill by as much as $800 a year.

Another lucky resident is Fred Jones of Butler, Pa. His farm had three producing wells when he bought it 20 years ago, and they still provide him with all the gas he wants; a pipeline company siphons off the rest of the gas and pays him an annual fee, which last year came to $667. Such arrangements are common. Peoples Natural Gas Co. of Pittsburgh has 379 lease agreements with landowners in a 16-county area. Collectively the wells produce about 600 million cu. ft. of gas annually, enough to supply more than 5,000 homes for a year. Other companies can draw on gas from wells drilled on their plant sites. Among them are Westinghouse Air Brake, Koppers Co., Edgewater Steel, Union Switch & Signal and Pittsburgh Forgings. As energy prices rise, the scramble for wells intensifies. One real estate developer, Town Development, Inc., has applied to put down wells on the city limits of Pittsburgh to supply fuel to a motel and office-building complex..The Pittsburgh fire department is opposing the move until it gets assurances that adequate safety precautions will be taken.

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