This article is from the March 5, 2015 edition of the "Sanpete Messenger". In the article Whiting says the Moroni well is nearing completion and they are getting ready to "frack".
That was 8 days ago. Maybe we will have news on well results soon.
MANTI—The Sanpete
County Commission has approved
spending $150,000 for
a new high tech aerial mapping
system designed to help locate,
measure and appraise property.
At a meeting in February, the
commission also approved an
easement so power lines could
be run as the next step before
the fracking begins at the new
oil well east of North Sanpete
Middle School in Moroni.
How will life change in
Sanpete County, if it all, when
low flying planes, or drones,
start taking photos from the sky
above, and hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, starts breaking up
various layers of shale, or other
stone, underground?
The answers to both questions
are unclear. Assessor Ken
Bench expressed the hope that
pictrometry “will be a major
improvement over what we do
now” and explained how its use
would save his office the cost of
having to send so many staffer
members “into the field to take
so many measurements.”
To emphasize potential benefi
ts, Bench related a story from
a nearby county where the use of
pictometry brought in additional
property tax revenue because two
previously unseen “sheds” built
in a very distant, hard-to-reach
place turned out to be large and
valuable structures.
Bench then told the commissioners
that Sanpete County
Sheriff Brian Nielson had agreed
to contribute $10,000 out of his
department’s budget. The sheriff
confirmed this, but took care to
explain that he intended to use
pictrometry “only” for emergency
management purposes and
“not for us to be looking in or
spying on anyone.”
The flight of aerial mapping
is expected to start approximately
two months from now—before tree
leaves start obscuring the ground.
Next, the commission heard a
report from the sheriff that touched
on the state’s proposed expansion
of the 800 MHz public safety radio
system now used by police and
other first responders in Utah’s
most populous areas., and how a
statewide system is in process of
being put in place. In the sheriff’s
it will be a long time before the 800
MHz system becomes affordable
for less-populous counties and
cities that have a big investment
in the current VHF system.
Roy Moore, representing
Whiting Oil and Gas Company,
told the commissioners
that the new well, drilled near
Moroni, was “almost finished”
and that the “fracking” would
soon begin. As a prelude to that
process he sought and received
approval of an easement that
would enable Rocky Mountain
Power to install a short length
of overhead power line across
a little piece of county-owned
land before beginning
