Company considers drilling west of Ann Arbor

By Associated Press - Tuesday, April 8, 2014

SCIO TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - A company is moving forward with plans to drill for oil or natural gas in a rural area west of Ann Arbor, officials said.

Some residents of Washtenaw County’s Scio Township are being asked to give up mineral rights, The Ann Arbor News reported (https://bit.ly/1g1bzQr ). The update comes after Traverse City-based West Bay Exploration Co. performed seismic testing in September.

“Running the seismic tests was the first step in any process,” company vice president Patrick Gibson said. “The next step, if we see something that is of some interest, is to come back and lease the minerals that we consider to be possibly valuable.”

Some Scio Township residents have begun to meet and educate themselves further on the potential impact of drilling near their homes. June McColm attended a meeting at a friend’s house and said residents are “talking about all the different options, the pros and cons” of the plans.

“I will say that the lease as I read it appeared to be extremely one-sided in favor of the oil company,” McColm said.

Scio Township plans a public forum April 24 that’s expected to include presentations by West Bay Exploration and others.

“We’ve been out there for a number of months and we have taken a fairly significant number of leases already,” Gibson said. “We’ll continue working on that until we get to a position where we feel comfortable in investing further dollars in either more seismic testing or drilling.”