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MARK MORAN / THE SUNDAY VOICE

Jody Stash with her son Darius look over a roadside memorial in honor of her mother who wasstruck and killed by a motorist on Pennsylvania Avenue in Wilkes-Barre.

Marcellus Shale

Newsstand $1.50SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2010 ##11LUZERNE COUNTY’S LARGEST AND FASTEST-GROWING NEWSPAPER AUDIENCE

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Northeastern Pennsylvania’s New Frontier

Battling forgas, richesin WyomingBy Patrick Sweet | Staff Writer

Natural gas companies have acquired the mineral rights tonearly two-thirds of Wyoming County in less than five yearsand now they are eyeing the rest.

“Our world, right now, is Wyoming County,” said SteveMyers, director of Land and Legal Affairs for Citrus EnergyCorp.

Strong gas production from wells in the northern part ofthe county has sparked stiff competition between gas com-panies trying to lease as many acres as they can.

“Obviously, (you get) good competition when you’ve gotgood production in an area,” Myers said.

Many companies, Myers said, are eagerly waiting to seehow wells in the southern part of county near Noxen onthe Wyoming-Luzerne border produce as they battle for thecounty’s remaining acres. The Pennsylvania Departmentof Environmental Protection granted Chief Oil & Gas apermit on June 15 to begin drilling a well on Robert Long-more’s 97-acre Noxen farm.

Further south, Encana Oil & Gas USA Inc. will begindrilling the first exploratory well in Luzerne County asearly as next week.

The potential for rich gas strikes in the Marcellus Shalebeneath Wyoming County has driven gas companies to leaseover 165,000 acres, roughly 63 percent of the county, sinceOct. 19, 2006, a Sunday Voice review of 4,110 gas leases in thecounty revealed. That’s more than five times the 30,000 acresleased in Luzerne County.

Wyoming County’s largest leasesMore than 4,000 properties in Wyoming County havebeen leased for gas drilling so far, totalling 165,084 acres.A list of the 50 largest leases is on Page A8. A completedatabase of leases is at citizensvoice.com/drilling.

Property Owner Acres TownshipsThomas Family Trust 13,627 Forkston, NoxenIntl. Development Corp. 13,627 Forkston, NoxenArlene Traver, Ryvamat Inc., 7,448 Eaton, Forkston,and Raegayle LLC NoxenD&L Realty 2,205 EatonProctor & Gamble 1,409 WashingtonEndless Mtns. Hunting Club 906 Eaton, ForkstonEndless Mtns. Hunting Club 707 North BranchWillis K. Bennett 675 WindhamVeto & Dorothea Barziloski 619 Eaton,

TunkhannockEvelyn & E.J. Polovitch 529 Unspecified

By Bob Kalinowski | Staff Writer

TearsrolleddownKarenPatterson’sfaceasshetouchedthe white cross bearing her husband’s name.

She remained silent for the 50-yard walk back to her caras vehicles whizzed by on state Route 118 in LehmanTownship.

“It never gets easier,” Patterson says.The cross marks the spot where Patterson’s husband,

Joel, died in a head-on car wreck on April 15, 2002 when awoman swerved in front of him trying to avoid a rear-endcrash in her lane.

Families like the Pattersons place similar home-made memorials along highways, rural roads andcity streets across the nation to help grieve andremember loved ones. Some simply place them to

remind other motorists to slow down.Laws allowing or barring such roadside memorials

vary from state to state as supporters and critics debatetheir appropriateness and transportation officials weighroadway safety against sensitivity to the families leftbehind.

The issue recently erupted locally when the BearCreek Township Volunteer Fire Department ripped downand trashed a memorial in front of its fire house on stateRoute 115, saying the four years it was there was longenough.

Patterson said she was “furious” when reading aboutthe Bear Creek incident and she posted a comment toThe Citizens’ Voice online story to defend such displaysafter several other comments criticized them.

DISPLAYSOF GRIEF

Roadside memorials pit emotions, safety and law

KRISTEN MULLEN / THE SUNDAY VOICE

The state Department of Transportation al-lows unobstructive memorials like this onenear Interstate 81 in Plains Township.

MARK MORAN / THE SUNDAY VOICE

A display at the spot in Wilkes-Barre whereAmber Seeman was killed in a 2007 carcrash.

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© 2010 The Sunday Voice

More on the Marcellus Shale

Online: View a database ofmore than 6,000 gas leasesin Luzerne, Lackawannaand Wyoming counties at

citizensvoice.com/drilling.

See WYOMING, page A8

See MEMORIALS, page A8

ADVERTISEMENT

Lawmakers approve fiscal billsBy Robert SwiftHarrisburg Bureau Chief

HARRISBURG — Lawmak-ers completed work on thestate budget Saturday approv-ing a key fiscal bill and autho-rizing the borrowing of $600million to fund communitydevelopment projects.

The fiscal bill sets up actionthis fall on a natural gas sever-ance tax and creation of a leg-islative fiscal office.

With lawmakers leavingtown after approving budget-related bills, Gov. Ed Rendell isexpected to sign measures tied

to the $28 billion budget start-ingTuesday.Thegovernorhaddelayed signing the budget billapprovedlastWednesdayuntilthe fiscal bill reached his desk.

The fiscal bill establishes a$500,000 state fund to providerestitution to Luzerne Countyresidents who were victims ofjuvenile crime, but didn’treceive any court-ordered res-titution because of legal fall-out from the Luzerne Countycourthouse scandal. The resti-tution fund will be supportedfinancially through a transferfrom the state Crime VictimsCompensation Fund.

The state Supreme Courtwill appoint a special masterto oversee restitution pay-ments from the new fund forthese crime victims who wereaffected when the same courtvacated convictions of juve-nile offenders sentencedwrongly to a juvenile deten-tion center by former judgesMark A. Ciavarella Jr. andMichaelT.Conahan.Whentheconvictions were vacated, therestitution awards were, too.

The victims will get a prop-er compensation through thefund, but not a free lunch, saidHouse Majority Todd Eachus,

D-Butler Township, whoinserted the restitution fundinto the fiscal bill.

Sen. Lisa Baker, R-LehmanTownship, said she hopes therestitution fund is just the firstof the numerous recommen-dations made by the Inter-branch Commission on Juve-nile Justice, which examinedthe breakdown of juvenile jus-tice in the county, to be imple-mented.

Much of the House floordebate focused on a compro-mise declaring the intent ofthe House and Senate leader-ship to pass separate bills byOct. 1 to levy the severance

Rendell expected to sign budget Tuesday

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WB_VOICE/PAGES [A08] | 07/03/10 20:32 | SUPERIMPWB

“The way everyone grieves is dif-ferent,” Patterson, 39, of HunlockTownship, said.

A mother’s grieving groundFor Gerri Grimes DeAngelis, the

roadside memorial along Route 115in Bear Creek Township was herplace to pay respects to her son, Jes-se.

ThecemeteryinEastStroudsburgis too scary, she says. She has neverbeen there.

Jesse, 24, died Jan. 22, 2006 whenhis car hit black ice, struck a ditchandtumbled.TheScrantonmanwasejected from the vehicle and died atthe scene, right in front of the town-ship fire hall.

Grimes DeAngelis, 56, avoided theroad for two years. Then, one day thefamily gathered at the crash sitewith a simple white heart, whichincluded the words son, brother, anddaddy and a posthumous poemGrimes DeAngelis wrote to her son.They nailed the wooden heart to atree at the roadside, hoping it wouldremind drivers to slow down on oneof Northeastern Pennsylvania’sdeadliest roads.

Family members regularly visitedthe memorial to place fresh flowersand pay their respects. Their onlyaddition to the memorial was a bird-house made in pre-school by Jesse’sson, Jamie, who was 18 months oldwhen his father died in the crash.

It’s all gone now.In early June, members of the

Bear Creek Township Fire Depart-ment dismantled and trashed thememorial, saying it was erected onfire company property without per-mission and they had allowed thefamily ample grieving time.

“That hurts. That’s all I can say. Ithad so much meaning,” GrimesDeAngelis said. “To treat somethinglike that with so much disrespect,that’s hurtful. It was a place whereI’d go sit and think about him. It wasmy place to go.”

As it turns out, the fire companymay have been mistaken when itasserted private property rights andripped down the display, state offi-cials confirm.

Along that stretch of road, thestate owns all land 50 feet from thecenter of the road in case the Penn-sylvania Department of Transporta-tion needs to perform shoulder workor widen the road, said KarenDussinger, regional PennDOTspokeswoman.

Some believe the tree in questionis in the state’s right-of-way, butPennDOT officials last week saidthey were unable to make a determi-nation for this story.

Grimes DeAngelis is determinedto place another memorial in thearea of the crash to caution otherdrivers about the possible fatal con-sequences.

“That road is so dangerous. Hewas definitely going way too fast, buthe wasn’t the only one who flies onthat road,” Grimes DeAngelis said.“Mymainthoughtdoingamemorialwas more to just try to make peoplethink for a second and drive safer. Idid not want another mother to gothrough this.”

After hearing about how the firecompany discarded the homemadememorial, Michael Rosencrans, of

Northeast Sign Service in Luzerne,contacted the family and offered tocreate a permanent memorial as areplacement near the crash site.They are working with PennDOTand hoping for a mid-July dedica-tion.

The sign will say: “The family ofJesse Grimes reminds you to drivesafely.”

Rules of the roadEach state has its own laws

regarding roadside memorials onstate property. For example, in NewYork they are illegal, but in NewMexico it’s a crime to remove ordeface one.

In Pennsylvania, roadside memo-rials technically are not allowed. Butthe displays are certainly tolerated.

“There is no set policy in general.PennDOT tries to acknowledge thatsurvivors need time to grieve,” saidRich Kirkpatrick, a spokesman forPennDOT in Harrisburg. “As longas it’s not posing a safety hazard, weallow them to stay for a period oftime. We try to be sensitive.”

In its policy regulating itemsplaced on state rights of way,PennDOT says any item notapproved by the department can beremoved. However, it acknowledgesit doesn’t have the resources toimmediately remove every unap-proved item, such as roadsidememorials. The policy says an itemshould be immediately removed ifit obstructs or interferes with a traf-fic control device or is in the way ofPennDOT road work.

“It kind of comes in the cate-gory of political signs on theroad,” Dussinger said. “It’s notlegal, but not illegal if it doesn’tcompromise safety.”

When state officials makerules regarding the displays,they try to balance the grief ofsurvivors with the need for safe

roads free of distractions.Some states allow the homemade

memorials, but place restrictionsregarding the size and number offeet away from the roadway theyshould be. Many states erect uni-form state-issued memorials forfamilies with a standard safe-driv-ing message and the victim’s name.

The Governors Highway SafetyAssociation, which represents theinterests of state transportationagencies, takes positions on issueslike drunken driving and textingwhile driving, but has stayed clearof the debate over roadside memo-rials, said spokesman JonathanAdkins.

“We don’t think there’s a wronganswer for states, and they have todetermine what’s best for them,”Adkins said.

Even in states where they areoutlawed, few are willing to enforcethe prohibition, according to Dr. ArtJipson, a sociology and criminaljustice professor at the Universityof Dayton in Ohio, who has studiedroadside memorials for more than adecade.

“Who wants to be the legislatorwho says, ‘I’m against memorials.’No one does,” Jipson said.

Jipson noted roadside memorialsdo have critics who repeat a similarrefrain: mourn in a cemetery, not inpublic.

“You have people who don’tunderstand the same sense of loss.For them, being reminded of mor-tality and violent automobile acci-dents is uncomfortable,” Jipsonsaid.

Over the past 10 years, Jipsonhas interviewed the creators of409 roadside memorials acrossthe country. He is planning a bookon the topic to be published in2011. Jipson said roadside memo-rials have been around for centu-ries and the intrigue and debate

about them will live on.“You’re looking at a nexus

between state law, grief and whatpeople consider appropriate orinappropriate memorializing,” hesaid.

Jipson noted in 2007 Delawarecreated a safer place for people tomourn — a memorial garden offDelaware Route 1 and U.S. Route 13with trees, a pond, a waterfall and aplace for the names of crash vic-tims. Still, the roadside memorialscontinue to pop up along the high-ways, Jipson said.

“The parks have been successful,but it hasn’t replaced memorialsalong the side of the road and itwon’t,” Jipson said. “That spotwhere the person died is sacred tothe person who a erects a memorial.It’s literally sacred ground.”

Memorials matterJodi Stash often visits the place

where her mother was struck by ahit-and-run driver and left to die in2006 along Pennsylvania Avenue inWilkes-Barre. She maintains amemorial with a wooden cross, flow-er pots and angel figurines.

“I feel more at peace here than thecemetery,” Stash, 25, of Edwards-ville, said. “This is where I come. Ifeel I’m making a difference peoplecan see. They slow down and stopand think.”

Stash’s mother, Joan Kukosky, 45,was walking along South Pennsylva-nia Avenue near Dana Street justafter midnight on May 7, 2006 whenshe was clipped by a Jeep Wrangler,which fled. Kukosky died two dayslater from head trauma. The driverlater turned himself in and was sen-tenced to one to four years in prison.

“I want to show other people whatcould happen,” Stash said.

Stash said she’s thankful Wilkes-Barre City has allowed her to main-tain the memorial on city property.

Patterson’s memorial along Route118 is on private property owned byBig Ten Subs and Pizza, which hasallowed the display for eight years.It’s a simple white cross made by anAmish man from Lancaster thatbears her husband Joel’s name. Sheadorns it with fresh flowers through-out the year.

“The cross means something tome. I hope it helps people realizethey need to slow down,” Pattersonsaid. “The thing that is so ironic ispeople still fly by like it’s nothing.”

Joel, 31, was driving to work April15, 2002 when the crash occurred. Hehad just passed the sub shop, travel-ing east toward Dallas. A line of carswere backed up in the westboundlane with one waiting to pull into therestaurant parking lot. A womanapproaching the backup suddenlyswerved into Joel’s lane to avoid arear-end crash, instead causing thefatal head-on crash that took Joel’slife.

The spot draws different emotionsevery time Patterson visits. The fam-ily mourned here prior to Joel’sfuneral service. One day, Pattersonsorted through grass, weeds and dirtto collect pieces of the car Joel wasdriving and place them in plasticbags for keepsakes.

Patterson said an odd twist of thetragedy is Joel had brought up thetopic of roadside memorials just twodays before he died. As the coupledrove along a nearby road close toPenn State Wilkes-Barre, Joel saw amemorial and said, “I would neverbe able to go on a road if that everhappened to you.”

It took a while, but Pattersongained the strength to go on thisroad.

“It’s not a place of grieving. It’s aplace of remembrance for me,” shesaid.

bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2055

The two largest parcelsleased for exploration inWyoming County straddlethe border between Noxenand Forkston Township.

The International Develop-ment Corp. leased the miner-al rights to a 13,627-acre prop-erty to Silenus Land Solu-tions Inc. in May 2008. Lessthan a year later, the ThomasFamily Trust and trusteeWilliam W. Thomas Jr. leasedanother 13,627-acre propertyin the same area to AnchorOGM LLC.

But the most active gascompany in the county isChesapeake AppalachiaLLC, which has signed 2,714leases totaling more than71,400 acres, roughly 43 per-cent of leased land.

Chesapeake, along withCitrus and Unit PetroleumCo., benefited from largeleasing deals with the Wyo-ming County Gas Group. In2008, the landowners groupleased nearly 16,000 acres toCitrus and Unit, including anearly 7,500-acre propertyspreading across Eaton,Forkston and Noxen Town-ships owned by Arlene Trav-er and Ryvamat Inc. Each of

the landowners in the groupwas paid $2,850 per acre andwill receive 17 percent ofroyalties from future gasproduction.

Earning even a largerwindfall was the gas compa-ny president who negotiatedthe deal. Chris Robinson ofRaegayle LLC of Pittsburgh,who earned $88.50 per acre,a total of at least $1.35 mil-lion.

Multiple attempts to reachRobinson were unsuccess-ful.

Myers said Citrus had agood working relationshipwith Robinson because ofRobinson’s experience in theindustry.

“He’s actually an oil andgas producer,” Myers said.“We had a one-on-one nego-tiation and he just took itback to the group andanswered the hundreds ofquestions. It was quite effi-cient.”

Robinson is president ofArdent Resources, a gascompany also based in Pitts-burgh, which, Myers said,does much of its work inNew York.

psweet@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2117

Memorials: Balancing grief, safety and the law

MARK MORAN / THE SUNDAY VOICEKaren Patterson kneels at a roadside memorial to her husband, Joel, who was killed in a crash on Route 118 in Lehman.

FROM PAGE A1

Wyoming: A windfall for landowners, negotiatorsMarcellus Shale Northeastern Pennsylvania’s New Frontier

FROM PAGE A1

Largest leases in Wyoming County

Property Owner Gas Company Acres TownshipsThomas Family Trust, William W. Thomas Jr. Anchor OGM LLC 13627 Forkston, NoxenInternational Development Corporation Silenus Land Solutions Inc. 13627 Forkston, NoxenArlene Traver; Ryvamat Inc.; Raegayle LLC Unit Petroleum Company 7448.13 Eaton, Forkston, NoxenD&L Realty Magnum Land Services LLC 2205.64 Eaton TownshipProctor & Gamble Paper Products Co. Citrus Energy Corporation 1409.29 Washington TownshipEndless Mountains Hunting Club Limited Chesapeake Appalachia LLC 906.03 Eaton, ForkstonEndless Mountains Hunting Club Limited Chesapeake Appalachia LLC 707.52 North Branch TownshipWillis K. Bennett Chesapeake Appalachia LLC 675.87 Windham TownshipVeto M. and Dorothea Barziloski Magnum Land Services LLC 619 Eaton, TunkhannockEvelyn J and E.J. Polovitch The Keeton Group LLC 529 UnspecifiedFrank R. Talucci Chief Exploration & Development LLC 506.86 ForkstonDonald L. and Arthur W. Sherwood Magnum Land Services LLC 503.26 Eaton, TunkhannockC. Clark and Helen Garrison Keeton Group LLC 500.92 Lemon, WashingtonOmega River Farm Keeton Group LLC 459.33 Mehoopany TownshipJennie Bartron Magnum Land Services LLC 446 Lemon, Tunkhannock,

WashingtonJ Stark II and Jennie Bartron Magnum Land Services LLC 446 Lemon, Tunkhannock,

and Belmont Resources LLC WashingtonJudy and Jennie Bartron Magnum Land Services LLC 446 Lemon, Tunkhannock,

and Belmont Resources LLC WashingtonJennie Bartron and Janice Gay Magnum Land Services LLC 446 Lemon, Tunkhannock,

and Belmont Resources LLC Washington

More than 4,000 properties in Wyoming County havebeen leased for gas drilling so far, totalling 165,084 acres.

Get information on the more than 6,000 gas leases inLuzerne, Lackawanna and Wyoming counties in our new-

ly expanded database at citizensvoice.com/drilling andcheck out our new Well Permit Database, which mapsevery Marcellus Shale drilling site in Pennsylvania.

Here are the largest gas leases in Wyoming County:

A8 THE SUNDAY VOICE SUNDAY, JULY 4, 2010