Geological Terms . . .

If you are from Pointe Coupee you become familiar with certain geological terms that are associated with mineral production. Few realize that the top gas producing field in on shore Louisiana is Judge Digby Field. The big production is located on Parlange and Wurtell properties along False River.

The second most prolific gas producing area in Pointe Coupee Parish is the Morganza Field, which is somewhere around 9 or 10 in the rankings for onshore gas production.

Located close to the family Plantation is the Moore-Sams Field but production is limited. I think the only good well is located on the back of Sugarland Plantation which belongs to the Beaud family. It is several miles from us on Angeles Plantation. And it does not produce a lot of gas either. Perhaps they will go back in a frack it?

The geological terms or names we are familiar with are Tuscaloosa Trend and Austin Chalk. The Tuscaloosa Trend crops out around Tuscaloosa, Alabama but under Pointe Coupee Parish is anywhere from 18,000 to 21,000 feet deep. Considering the highest point of Pointe Coupee above sea level may be about 35 to 40 feet and average around 30 feet or less, those are very deep holes. The zones or reservoirs of gas are very narrow.

Above the Tuscaloosa Trend lies the Austin Chalk zone. It is somewhere around 15,000 to 17,000 feet down. And the Austin Chalk crops out around Austin, Texas. In fact, wells in eastern Texas in the Austin Chalk seem to be very prolific in production of oil.

Recent mineral leasing activity surrounds the Austin Chalk zone. LSU Petroleum experts think Austin Chalk may have around seven billion barrels of oil in it.

So what is driving the leasing furor. A couple of things. The foremost is the price of oil at around $100 a barrel and looking like it will go higher. But the other thing is changing technology in principally horizontal drilling and fracturing or "Fracking." Both of these technologies have been around for 50 or so years. But equipment has improved and the fracking fluids have improved.

Way back when all petroleum wells were just vertical in demenison, drillers when the got to the geological formation they wanted, would fracture the lower well casing with Nitroglycerene. Yup, they would literally blow it up so to speak fracturing the lower casing of the well and the surround geological deposits.

Today's fracking is differnt. Yes, explosives may still be used to preforate the well casings but then the drillers pump down a mixture of fine sand and chemicals under great pressure to force open cracks for the petroleum products to flow into the casing. The sand holds the cracks open. Oh, yes the pressures used to force the chemicals and sand into the cracks is tremendous.

Ganged up pumps, several in series, force down the mixture into the well. Pressures may exceed 20,000 pounds per square inch. The pumps are mounted on trailers, one pump per trailer. The pumps are generally driven by 12 to 16 cyclinder diesel engines. This is a massive undertaking. Some say they may use up to a quarter of million gallons of water to do the job. But it only takes a day or two to do the actual fracturing, may be a week to set up to do the job.

Fracking is a common practice here in the Weatherford area. The Barnett Shale under lies Tarrant, Parker, Denton counties. Actually, it is much bigger than that and is America's number one producer of natural gas a the moment. At any given moment there are four or five drilling rigs in Parker County and the same in Tarrant County. Tarrant county has turned out to be a richer area but harder to drill for it is in the City of Fort Worth. But that is another story . . .

Not more than a couple of miles from us is a company named, you guessed it, "FracTech." Their fleet of trucks go out as far as Haynesville in Louisiana and Cotton Valley in Oklahoma. Others in the fracking business are Schumlemberger, Halliburton and the other common names of well servicing found across the oil producing areas of Louisiana and Texas.

All wells here undergo fracking. And not all wells produce for long periods, just as that is the same in Louisiana and Pointe Coupee Parish. I have seen several wells get capped and abandoned. Ironically, I have seen new wells be drilled close by, may be 500 yards away from the abandoned well. With slant/horizontal drilling there is no telling just where they are seeking the shale. All the shale wells around here are about 6,000 feet deep, give or take 500 feet.

So it is more risky to drill for success in Pointe Coupee. The wells here produce semi-wet gas, that is there is salt water, condensate and some oil. Gas is the primary objective here. Oil is the primary objective in Pointe Coupee. Every well here has a little tank of detergent that is dribble down the well bore to keep it clear of the crap coming up. A small bit of technology that detergent but it is the life saver of many a well around here.

So the current hot "play" is the Austin Chalk. No telling were the sweet spot is. All of it has some oil, but some oil is not enough, they want a lot of it, like a couple hundred barrels a day production.

When You Least Expect It . . .

When you least expect it up comes a piece of good luck or fortune. Received word that someone is interested in leasing the mineral rights on Angeles again. Turns out it is Anadarko Petroleum.

Strange sounding lease. $150 per acre for three years with an option for two more years at $75 per year. The $150 was said to be the bonus, like they are doing us a favor or something. Lots of questions.

I did a web search on Anadarko and Pointe Coupee and came up with the LaCour Field. Never heard of it. Well of course not, it is new. But it is based on the old Pennington well and the Austin Chalk formation, not gas but oil.

Austin Chalk extends from Austin Texas over to Biloxi, MS. And it runs right under the plantation. But it extends down to 16,000 feet or so in depth.

Any rate we are hearing good and bad things and will go with a lawyer this time for the lease. We can get a lawyer for $2 per acre to negotiate the lease for us.

I had thought all such activity was long gone and here it is again. As my grandfather once said, "Its like finding money in the road. You did not do anything for it, you just get it." The place has probably been leased five or six times over the years.

Closing In . . .

Time is closing in for the eye surgery. Had the "reoffer" appointment yesterday and we are set to go. Just need a time for the day of the surgery. I have already done the physical examination as required for presurgery clearance. I have also modified a pair of glasses with a clear lens and have gotten the presurgery mandatory eye drops.

When I had the physicial examination we discussed going to see a Cardiologist, it was deemed not necessary but recommended. I had a EKG done during the presurgery exam and it was said to be no problems. I do have what is known as "lipodemia" meaning high clorestorol, it has been that way since the 1980s.

They have me strapped down with high doses of Lipitor, 80 MG per day, and that keeps my lipids in and around the "Gold Standard." But since I am also a Type II Diabetic, it all bears watching.

I have other effects from the exposure to Agent Orange besides Diabetes Type II. I have Cataracts that are said to be caused by Diabetes/Agent Orange and Peripheral Neuropathy (sensitivity of my hands and feet). PN as Peripheral Neuropathy is referred to in VA circles, means I am gradually losing the ability to pick things up. So far it does not seem to effect my ability to fly radio control airplanes. I am hoping, of course, the cataract surgery will result in improved vision for flying.

And typical of being a Morrison, I have high blood pressure, sort of an association with age, Lipodemina, Diabetes interrelated. I also have arthritic knees from jogging while on active duty. And Gouty Arthritis too. All these things add up. The VA also says I have "bilateral issues" due to PN and arthritic knees.

But so far the VA deems that I do not have Carodic Artery Disease or as they say Ischemic Heart Disease. I will either have to have a heart by pass, stint installed or God Forbid, a heart attack before they will deem that I have that disease. But it is so common in my family it is unbelievable. My guess is all that jogging forestalled any of that kind of disease and I continue to this day to walk distances. Exercise pays off with longevity!

Any rate the year of the doctors for both me and Judie has arrived. Seems like one of the other has an appointment per week. Better than dying!

Winds Up . . .

No RC flying to speak of, getting tired of just fixing airplanes. But I needed to do that to really get ready for when wind conditions are ideal.

Got my Mountaineer back from hail damage repair, the job was just super, looks almost new to me. Costly but then I intend to keep the vehicle a while so might as well get it done and the insurance company paid for most of it.

A neighbor runs a paint and repair shop, so had him do it. Service King did the estimate and I did not like the looks of their operation. The Oneil's gave me a modest $50 "good neighbor" discount and really did a superior job. They were recommended to me by the local Lincoln Mercury dealer, also a neighbor.

Felt trapped without a second vehicle but we got by very easily on one car for a short period of time.

Oh, the Woe and Misery . . .

Oh, the woe and misery predicted by the liberal press over using the Morganza Floodway seems to have disappeared from the national scene entirely.

Earlier, it was, "You are going to flood a town, to flood Butte LaRose." Now they have seen (a) the flood is not tramatic but presistent and (b) it has not over whelmed the town nor the spillway for that matter.

It appears the dry/drought conditions have soaked up a lot of the water and while the Atchafalaya is rising, it is not inundating everything around it. Yes, there is more to come and there are yet some small communities in the line of fire, those communities knew it and are preparing for it.

It could be disaster down river from Morganza, now it is not even close. Some worry, some risk but the real pressure of over topping the levees is gone.

The Morganza Spill worked, the Old River Structure is still in place and the June rise has yet to ocurr. Yes, there will be yet another highwater condition coming down stream but not as severe as the present one.

Old Man River is doing what Old Man River wants to do, within limits.

Things are looking up . . .

Things are looking up in that the Atchafalaya will crest at a lower elevation at Morgan City/Berwick area. Those little communities like Stephenville and Amelia are making preparations and with a lower forecasted crest may help them avert disaster.

Butte LaRose may not get it as bad as forecasted too. I understand there are some hold outs that will not leave their hoomes. Sounds like Mount St. Helens kind of thinking to me. All too fatalistic. And they had dire results, the same could happen to the hold outs in Butte LaRose. I guess that is why they live there to begin with, isolation and the beauty of the swamp. It is all they have and they just do not want to give it up.

Last I read there now 17 gates open in the Morganza Spillway Structure. I understand they will get to 21 gates now. Even so, at 17 gates the estimate is 114 thousand cubic feet per second going through that massive structure. Photos from the space station show just how much water has already gone through those gates. The concept and design is working. If they go to 21 gates, that is about 17% of the capacity of the control structure. I understand the crest at Vicksburg was not as high as forecasted, by less than a half a foot or so.

That just means the accumalators, the balloons, are soaking up a lot of the water and some of it is going into the ground. That also means those same accumalators will slowle release their water holdings over a longer period of time. So while the crest may not be as high as expected the duration will last longer. That to is a risk in that the levees will have to hold for a longer period of time. And time is one of the many enemies of a levee.

Not so lucky up river at Yazoo City/Vicksburg area. Memphis too. The low lying areas all flooded as expected. They live to learn their lessons again. But the poor usually have no where else to go but into the "cheap" territory. They get the land cheap and their small houses get consumed every so often. Others learn about how tributaries back up because they have no place to send their water and in fact get water pushed up their courses. No matter what you house cost it is a terrible loss.

It is never pretty. Saw where a three grain barges ran into a parked barge, sank all three of the barges. One came back up but it was enough to shut the river down in North Baton Rouge. The Old Mississippi Bridge abuttment had to be inspected and the sunk barges located. The rivermen say it is very hard to control the tows when the water is high - that means faster currents, more trash and snags moving down the river, etc. A few years back an empty gasoline barge hit an abuttment of that bridge and blew up. It knocked a large piece of decking out on the West bound side of the bridge closing it for a while.

Old Man River is the master!

The Snake . . .

There was a photo of an alledged snake along side of the road coming out of the Morganza Spillway. I think that photo went viral.

Turns out it is either a Brazilian or Australian photo. The trees in the back ground are nothing like ones would find in and around the Morganza Spillway. So it is a hoax, kinda got to expect some of that given that we are dealing with a sort of premordial area like a swamp.

There are more than one vedio shot of deer escaping the spillway heading for high and dry ground. Since there is a large wildlife area in Pointe Coupee over close to Krotz Springs, it extends down into Iberville Parish. I mean the area is not much good for anything else.

Apparently the water is not moving south as fast as the Corps of Engineers expected into the Atchafalaya Swamp and basin. But then the Mississippi has not crested either. So I expect they will open a few more gates to discharge about 100 to 150 thousand cubic feet per second. A cubic foot holds 7.4805 gallons, so that is about three quarters of million of gallons a second. That is a lot of water to turn loose.

We have several more weeks of this to deal with. Then when to close the gates as the river goes down, we will see what has transpire at the spillway structure. I am sure there will be much work to do to repair things. Got to replace or rearrange rip rap, check for scouring, replacement of soil in front of the structure etc., that will take some time to assess and evaluate.

We need to get ready for the flood to occur again. But it appears the Morganza Spillway is doing its intended job, to reduce the flow of the Mississippi in a controled and measured manner. It has been done many times at the Bonnet Carre since the 1930s. It has to be very serious for the Morganza Spillway to be opened. And all indicators, the river gauges, show the levels exceed the infamous 1927 flood levels.

It is a pity that over time along these cities or ports of the Mississippi, like Natchez, Vicksburg, and Memphis, all had to relearn the lessons of history. People should not build in the flood zones of those localities. Yet, they do it just like they do it down in the Atchafalaya Swamp. They know better and do it anyway as the land is cheap.